June Rain - Local PW For First Week Of July

June is easy to summarize - was a typical hot and dry and fairly brutal month - except for the precipitation event at mid-month. Total rainfall here was 0.93", with thunderstorms during day on the 16th as a trough in the westerlies came by. In my records for here this was the third wettest June (in my 19 years of record). The other two wet Junes tended to have the important events close to end of month.

First a current look at the GEFS plumes for PW from 00 UTC on June 27th (above). The models captured the influx of moisture on the 29th, but were completely off track for yesterday and today.

Below is a time-series of GPS PW (from Atmo) ending this morning - the TWC sounding had just a bit over 6 mm (.25") this am. A nice example how far awry model forecasts can sometimes go after the first couple of days.

So here's a new look at the GEFS PW plumes from 00 UTC last evening. The models forecast a steady increase of PW after our bone-dry start to the month. Big question is, of course, will PW actually increase to somewhat typical July values by next weekend?

The WRF-GFS forecasts from Atmo at 00 UTC last evening (on 5.4 km grid - above and below) are interesting. The model forecasts the large increase as per the GEFS average (above is valid at 10:00 am MST on the 6th). The TWC sounding forecast (below valid at 5:00 pm on the 6th) has over 35 mm of PW and considerable CAPE - but notice that both forecast panels indicate very deep moisture coming in from the east. Strong, low-level easterlies can be very problematic here, particularly if moisture is primarily in surface boundary layer.

So it will be very interesting to monitor how this all evolves, and whether or not our summer thunderstorm season actually gets underway by next weekend (which would be fairly typical timing).