The folks at Sleeping Frog Farm (see "A" above) report in their morning, online newsletter that during the past week: Spring is here! The cottonwoods along the San Pedro River are a beautiful emerald green, and the mesquites have begun leafing out as well. Spring means better growing conditions, but also brings its own set of challenges. This region is notorious for damaging Spring winds, and true to form, they’ve picked up considerably this week. On Monday, this valley recorded 70-80 mph gusts [60 to 70 kt], which tore the cover off of one of our production hoophouses and ripped holes in at least four of our other hoophouse doors. And even though Spring brings much kinder temperatures, we still hit 28 degrees a few nights ago.
The farm is in the San Pedro Valley north of Benson, and directly east of the Rincon Mountains (max elevations just below 10, ft MSL) - see map above. The high winds occurred on Monday (8 April) afternoon or evening. A Tucson sounding from 6 pm Monday evening is shown below - NWS apparently had trouble launching in the strong wind conditions, so their sounding was delayed. The data indicate possible winds near mountain-top level were 40 to 50 kt, and the El Paso sounding the next morning had winds of 70 kt near 700 mb . So, it is possible that mountain wave-amplified winds occurred locally in the San Pedro Valley.
The below freezing temperature of 28 F probably occurred Thursday morning (possibly Wednesday morning) behind the cold front, after winds went calm in the valley during the night.
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