Sunday, January 08, 2012

Cold Front Brings Significant Cool-Down This Afternoon


A strong, but fairly dry short-wave trough at 500 mb has been digging southeastward across eastern Arizona today. The temperature has just managed to struggle into the upper 50s here in Tucson this afternoon (Sunday, January 8th, 2012) - a cooling of nearly 20F relative to yesterday. This morning was the coldest of 2012, with a low of 25F here at the house. Temperatures have been freezing, or below, every morning but one of the year so far, with three mornings in the 20s.Afternoons have been balmy, however, with highs in the 70s each day - until today. New Years Day set a rcord at 80F.

Surface plot for 4 pm MST (below) shows that the precipitation with this system is mostly over New Mexico, where strong convergence, as well as upslope flow, is producing a region of both rain and moderately heavy snow from El Paso north to Las Vegas.

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