Isolated Showers End March

View of the Catalinas at 2:00 pm MST yesterday afternoon, March 31st. Reports across the ALERT Network are shown below for 24-hours ending at 8 am this morning. Here at the house we had 0.01" a bit before 2 pm. Monthly total for March was 0.28", with rainfall on only two days. I did note a thunderstorm on the 9th. The month closed out with considerable winds and dust.

Slight Chances Showers

Sunrise and some cloud cover over Redington Pass this morning.

Rainfall totals (above) for 24-hours ending at 9:00 am MST this morning shows there were light showers off to the southeast of the metro area - from CoCoRaHS at Atmos Dept. Colorado State University.

Forecast below from NWS Forecast Office indicates continued slight chances for showers today and tomorrow.

Gusty Winds And Dust

A dusty, orange sunrise over Redington Pass this morning. At bottom is view of dust coming in from east over the Catalinas at 6:50 am MST this morning.

Correction - I did not read closely enough. Advisory was issued Friday and timing was correct.

Wind advisory seems a bit off in its timing, since observations from the airport (below) show the wind has been gusting around 25 to 40 mph continuously since around 9:00 pm MST last evening.

However, current forecast for the airport shows the blowing dust happening this morning.

The 06 UTC plumes for QPF show all members indicating light rainfall at the airport tomorrow into next Tuesday. The GEFS POPs (below) reach up to around 40 percent Monday evening into Tuesday. March is not going out like a lamb this year.

March Winding Down

Bit of color over the Rincons at 6:05 am MST this morning.

While March has not been very stormy so far, it certainly has been hot. Graphic (above) from the NWS shows the many records that have been set across southeast Arizona.

Current forecasts indicate a somewhat unsettled end of the month. The forecast above shows precipitation totals through the end of the month from the 06 UTC run of the GFS model. Below is the GFS 500 mb forecast valid at 18 UTC on 30 March, showing a weak shortwave over Arizona.

 The plumes from the 06 UTC GEFS runs are shown here through the 30th. QPF plumes for the airport (above) indicate activity for the 29th into the 31st. While the temperature forecasts (below) indicate considerable cooling for the last several days of the month.

The plumes indicate strong winds on the 28th (above), while POPs at the airport peak around 60 percent (below). So, it's looking like an interesting end of the month wrt weather here in our part of Arizona, as well as for much of the state.

Tri-State Tornado

See the following papers in Electronic Journal of Severe Storm Meteorology (EJSSM Vol 8 2013):

St. Patrick's Day

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2026!

The Chicago River has been dyed green (above). A parade through the streets of Dublin, Ireland (below) - don't know what's with the big rabbit? The Sydney, Australia Opera House with green lighting (bottom).

Storm Reports Yesterday

 

It was a very active severe storm day yesterday. Reports, above from the Storm Prediction Center, approached 700.