What About Today

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This morning's TUS sounding (above for 12 UTC) looks quite similar to yesterday's sounding. Winds have dropped off in the 500 to 200 mb layer, but strong easterlies continue below 500 mb. Thus, the day here in southeastern Arizona may hinge on how the boundary layer winds evolve. There is more PW and CAPE today, so if the winds relax, the mountains may kick off storms here in eastern Pima County. There is heavy cloud cover to the west and there are still light showers going on in central and western Pima County.
 

The early WRF-GFS forecast run may not be reliable - it had very strong storms going over Maricpoa County around 3 am and these had occurred earlier. The forecast sounding for TUS at 12 UTC (above) was considerably off wrt to both middle-level temperature and dewpoints at almost all levels (forecast sounding had 33 mm of PW whereas observed value was around 40 mm). Winds also appear a bit too strong near the surface. The RAWS stations on on Mt. Hopkins and in the Rincons both have strong easterly winds this morning, as does the Empire station. So we start out somewhat similar to yesterday - will have to wait to see what the 12 UTC model runs show. However, I do like the 1 pm early WRF forecast of composite radar echoes (below) - the small storm just south of the Catalinas is located about directly over the house.