This morning there is south-to-north trough over central Arizona at 500 mb (12 UTC analysis above from NCAR RAL). This feature, which brought yesterdays rains to the Tucson area, is associated with a very large area of clouds and showers across all of Arizona except for the southeast corner - below is visible image from 7:15 am MST.
This morning's 12 UTC TUS sounding above shows several things of interest. The winds are southerly to southwesterly through most of the the troposphere; precipitable water remains high; CAPE is higher than it was yesterday; and there is a rain-cooled layer below 850 mb. Main question will be whether sunshine and heating will be enough to allow the boundary layer to recover this afternoon.
The early run of the WRF GFS indicates that storms will occur again this afternoon over eastern Pima County. The forecast of composite radar echoes, above valid at 5 pm MST this afternoon, indicates a large storm area southwest of metro Tucson. Steering-level winds become southwesterly this afternoon and the model forecasts considerable rainfall by 6 am MST tomorrow morning - below. I've clipped the forecast of accumulated rain to avoid the ongoing morning precipitation to our west and northwest - thus forecast below is of rainfall forecast this afternoon and evening.
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