Friday, November 25, 2011

Rain More Widespread Than Expected


Rain was more widespread during the night than expected. Rainfall was measured at 90% of the ALERT guages, with only the western sites not having rain. Coverage was 100% for the metro gauges, TUS, DM, Atmo, and here at house. We had 0.43" here and Atmo had .25". Amounts were generally light, with only 13 of the ALERT gauges having 0.25" or more. Regardless, a much better rain event than was the previous one. Highest amounts were off in the far southeast corner of state, just as forecast by the models. Douglas had 0.68", Rucker RAWS 1.14" and Hachita Valley, NM, RAWS 1.19". Photo above shows Kitt Peak in the clouds this morning.


Taking a long look ahead - at 168-hours from 00 UTC last evening (i.e., 5 pm MST next Thursday afternoon - December 1st) - the operational 500 mb forecasts from GFS (above) and ECMWF (below) are quite different. The ECMWF forecasts a much more intense cutoff west of California. Heights are more than 250 m lower in the core of the cutoff in the ECMWF forecast. Edited at 1 pm MST to add: The new 1200 UTC forecasts from this morning show that the GFS forecast has significantly changed and is now converging with the ECMWF.


Additionally, the ECMWF forecasts a strong and very cold surface high (see below) to invade the north-central U.S. So, more interesting weather to watch next week.

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