Quick Look At Tomorrow And Saturday

Have taken a look at Atmo's early run of the WRF-GFS model for the coming storm system. The new forecast is even a bit faster than yesterday's run. The first band of light showers is forecast across eastern Pima County around 4 am tomorrow morning (Friday 8 March 2013). By 4 pm tomorrow afternoon the model forecasts two more bands of showers moving across Pima County (radar echo forecast below).

The forecast of 10-m winds for 3 pm tomorrow afternoon indicates quite strong and gusty winds ahead of the front (above). At 3pm the front is forecast to be in western Pima County, and it moves across the metro area between 5 and 6 pm. Note the large number of forecast winds of 25 and greater mph. High temperatures are down about 15 degrees tomorrow because of the clouds and showers and then stay in the lower 50s on Saturday. The image below is the radar forecast valid at 3 pm MST on Saturday afternoon, indicating scattered, light showers.

The forecast for total precipitation through midnight Saturday night (above) indicates light amounts over most of Pima County with the highest precipitation up in the Catalinas, where the model forecasts 7-12" of new snow. It is important to remember that the model forecast of total precipitation has been too low for the last two events.