2023 Hurricane Season

 Today, June 1st, is not only the first day of meteorological Summer, it is also the start of the Hurricane Season for the  North Atlantic Basin. And, there is a disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico as the season begins - see below:

Visible image of Gulf region (below) at 1616 UTC this morning.

Memorial Day 2023

Jupiter is now very high in the morning sky at 5:00 am MST.

Memorial Day is usually considered as the unofficial start of summer. Shown here are the seasonal outlooks (from NWS Climate Prediction Center) for temperature (above) and precipitation (below). Our area is forecast to continue warm to hot and very dry. 

Very Warm And Dry

Jupiter is still dominating the earl morning, eastern sky - view above, looking toward the Rincons, is from 0425 am MST. The rest of May will end here with highs in the 90s F and morning lows around 60 F, while continuing very dry.

Conditions continue very dry over the western US as per image showing TPW analysis from 7:00 am this morning (above). Plot of CG flashes below (for 24-hours ending at 0113 am this morning) indicates no CG flashes were detected over all of Arizona and western New Mexico. Forecast from 06 UTC GFS run (second below) is for total precipitation through 06 UTC on June 1st.

Out in the west Pacific, a satellite view of Super Typhoon Mawar (below) at 12 UTC this morning shows the storm's spectacular eye. The storm struck Guam late yesterday, doing significant damage. The storm currently has peak gusts over 200 mph.

Limited Thunderstorm Activity

Scattered high clouds over the Catalinas at about 5:15 am MST this morning. Down at bottom is view of Rincons and Jupiter rising about 4:15 am.

Most of Arizona had almost no thunderstorm activity, except along the northern border - plot of detected CG flashes (above - from Atmo and Vaisala) is for 24-hours ending at 0133 am this morning.

The dry-out continues through the rest of the month, as typical May weather returns. Forecast above is from 06 UTC WRF-GFS and is for total precipitation through 5:00 am on the 29th. Below is GFS forecast for total precipitation through 0600 UTC on June 1st.

Dry Out

Yesterday was very suppressed, as the large scale returns toward more normal hot and dry May conditions. View of flat cumulus over the Catalinas is from yesterday at 3:30 pm MST.

Plot of detected CG flashes (above from Atmo and Vaisala) is for 24-hours ending at 0103 am this early morning. Very few thunderstorms occurred over southeastern Arizona, with no storm activity across entire metro area.

ALERT (above) and MesoWest (below) show just a couple of rainfall reports, and these occurred in the early morning hours just after midnight yesterday.

Forecast below (from the 12 UTC WRF-RR) is for precipitation through 6:00 am tomorrow morning and indicates a very quiet day for much of Arizona, with almost nothing forecast for all of southeast Arizona.

Widespread Rainfall Yesterday

Showers along the foothills at 5:45 pm yesterday afternoon. Plot of detected CG flashes (below from Atmo and Vaisala) for 24-hours ending 1:03 am this morning shows thunderstorm activity occurred across northeast Pima County.

ALERT reports (above and below) indicate widespread rainfall with only eight sites not receiving 0.04" or more - heaviest amounts occurred out west of Picture Rocks area. Here at the house we had thunder, wind gusts around 30 mph, but only 0.07" of rain.

The TWC sounding this morning (above) has considerable mixed-layer CAPE, but substantial low-level heating will be needed for storms at low elevations. Winds aloft continue light and variable. The 12 UTC run of the WRF-RR does forecast rain across most of the metro area through midnight tonight (below).

May Showers Continue

View of somewhat chaotic skies at 5:45 am MST this morning.

Yesterday was another day with unusual May showers and thunderstorms. Plot above shows detected CG flashes through midnight last night (from Atmo and Vaisala), with activity focused in our corner of Pima County. Rainfall was much more widespread than yesterday's predictions - see previous post. Activity again exceeded my expectations, based on the morning sounding.

Rainfall amounts from the ALERT network (below - for 24 hours ending at 6:30 am) show some spots got a bit over a quarter of an inch. Here at house we had 0.10" around 8:00 to 9:00 pm. I didn't hear any thunder, but the CG plot indicates there may have been some.

This morning's sounding (above) is similar to last two days, with the exception of rain cooled layer near the surface. Deep, mixed layer CAPE is again just a sliver. However, the 09 UTC WRF-RR forecast from Atmo (below) indicates a much more active day. Note the 0.40" predicted for the airport.

Second below shows the 06 UTC WRF-RR forecast for PW, which is indicated to decrease dramatically after today, and bring us more typical dry conditions for May.