Sunday, August 19, 2012

Serious Downturn Yesterday


Yesterday the early WRF-GFS forecast from Atmo indicated a significant downturn in storm activity (as per above plot of total rainfall through midnight last night). A similar forecast by the NWS NAM indicated widespread rain and storms (see previous post). The WRF-GFS was far superior to the operational models yesterday. Making up a bit for the over-forecasts of the previous three days.


Visible satellite image at 3 pm yesterday (above) indicates few storms in southeast Arizona, and 7 pm NWS radar from TUS (below) shows storms in the far east near the New Mexico border. Very down day for such a wet atmosphere, but 00 UTC TUS sounding indicated little CAPE at low elevations (again, see previous post).

At 7 pm last evening only 3 sites in the ALERT network (up in the Catalinas) had recorded afternoon rainfall (less than 5% areal coverage). This morning 9 sites had rainfall during past 24-hours, with some light showers occurring over the far eastern part of the network (10% areal coverage). Amounts were all less than a quarter of an inch.


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