Thursday, March 19, 2020

Widespread Rain Event Yesterday


Rains across the area yesterday occurred from around 3:00 pm MST into the early nighttime hours. Double rainbow above shot from here about 6:00 pm. At bottom is view of early morning blanket of snow at the Mt. Lemmon General Store (elevation over 7500 ft msl).

Gusty south-southwest winds yesterday afternoon gusted over 30 mph at many observation sites in southeastern Arizona. I noted gusts to about 70 mph at Kitt Peak.


I've broken the ALERT network reports into three sectors this morning, hoping to improve clarity of the data plots. Heaviest amounts fell in the northeast part of network - numerous reports over half an inch. Measured 0.58" here - March is turning out to be very wet month in my 20 years of record. Heaviest amount across ALERT system was 0.91 at the Oro Valley Water Plant.




At 500 mb (12 UTC plot above - note the large number of missing reports this morning) trough continues over the West and is forecast to continue for next week or so.


Even though the trough continues, little precipitation is forecast for the coming week (06 UTC QPF plumes above - temperatures below). After a cool cloudy day today, temperatures rebound quickly in the forecast through the weekend.



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