Monday, February 13, 2012

Fast Hitting Weather System on Valentine's Day


A fast-moving weather system is digging southeastward across northern California this morning. The water vapor image (above, for 14 UTC) shows the upper-tropospheric short-wave to be a bit north of San Francisco. The early (midnight) run of Atmo's WRF-GFS model forecasts this to be a fast hitting system here in southeast Arizona. The plot below shows the forecast by the WRF-GFS of total precipitation through midnight tomorrow (14 February 2012) night. The event is forecast to be mostly one with light precipitation and showers. The most precipitation is indicated, as snow, on the Catalinas and Mt. Graham.



The WRF-GFS forecasts the event to impact the Tucson metro area tomorrow morning. The composite radar echo forecast above is valid at 9 am MST and indicates the main rainband with the system to be moving across eastern Pima County. The forecast 9 am surface plot (below) shows the pronounced cold front moving eastward and about to exit Pima County - with the rain band located along and behind the front.
The WRF-GFS forecasts are similar to those this morning by the NWS NAM model wrt the light character of the event, but are several hours faster than the NAM. So, it appears that a damp and chilly weather event is on tap for Valentine's Day.

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