Windy Start to New Week

The numerical forecasts at the end of last week (verifying at 5 pm MST this afternoon) had quite a spread of intensities and positions for the 500 mb S/W coming ashore today. The images above show the NAM 500 mb forecasts valid at 5 pm for 84-hours (top panel and also in post below) and for 12-hours bottom panel. The heights over southwestern AZ, northern Baja and extreme sourthern CA are 50 to 100 m higher in this morning's NAM forecast - and show the vorticity maxima tracking across northwestern AZ rather than northern Baja. The comparison of models for this event at 84 hours and beyond shows that the GFS operational member was the most accurate prediction, having the vorticity maxima only a bit too far north (see post below for the GFS forecast at 84-hours). The ECMWF was clearly too strong and too far south and thus was bested by the GFS - something that happened only a few times during the winter. So, we in southeast AZ can look forward to an afternoon and evening of winds, blowing pollen, and perhaps some dust. Last precipitation here at house was almost three weeks ago on the afternoon of March 23rd.