Very Quick Look At Today

Had other obligations this morning and have just now had a chance to look at the observations and latest WRF-NAM forecasts - I'm sure Mike L will be sending a much more comprehensive analysis of what today might hold in store. Below is Fitzsimmon's carton for July from his 2015 calendar - very appropriate for last few days.

The morning sounding from TWC is shown above. There will be an afternoon BL again today that reaches only to about 750 mb, but that has considerable CAPE when lifted above 700 mb. Once again outflows from higher terrain will be needed, as per yesterday. There is warmer air upstream at 500 mb, so that may reduce CAPE during the afternoon, but skies are clearing and we should have full sun for several hours to heat up BL. The sounding below is from the 12 UTC WRF-NAM and has considerable CAPE at 3:00 pm MST, even though 500 mb temperatures have warmed some. Steering winds are forecast to become more southeasterly during the day and anvil shading could be a problem for lower elevations, since there is little speed or directional shear in the wind forecast. So, a bit of a mixed bag for today. The WRF-NAM forecasts strong storms again for parts of the metro (forecast at bottom of composite radar echoes is valid at 5:00 pm) as a strong outflow moves in from earlier storms off to southwest of Tucson. Will again be an interesting day to be a weather watcher.