Winter Storm Watch

This morning was crisp and cold with a moderate frost on cars, trash containers, and neighbor's metal roof. The low was 30F here in the back yard, and it was still quite chilly when I walked at about 10 am MST.

The NWS has issued a winter storm watch for the next storm system that will move rapidly in from the Pacific Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning. The watch area is shown on the map below in blue.

If a user just looks at the graphic, it appears that the NWS has issued a winter storm watch for all of the Tucson metro area, i.e., for all of forecast zone 504 - see forecast zones below. However, the user must call up and read the actual text of the watch to learn that it is valid only for the portions of Zone 504 that are above 4,000 ft MSL elevation. Zone 515 (Kitt Peak and the Baboquivari Mountains) is completely above 5,000 ft MSL but is not officially in the watch. Regardless, my point here is that in this digital age, one would hope that the NWS could actually depict the precise areas of its watches and warnings on their home page. But this is not yet the case. If he were still with us, what would Len Snellman say? He was touting the wonderful potential and capabilities for graphic products when I visited him at Western Region back in the 1970s and 80s.