Sunday, October 19, 2014

Thunderstorms Across Metro Tucson


Showers and thunderstorm are moving across the Tucson area this afternoon and web cam view above shows high storm bases and light showers between the University and the western Catalinas. Here at the house we had strong outflows (estimated gusts 40 to 50 mph) about half an hour ago, with blowing dust and several power surges.

Composite radar image from NWS TUS below at 2:36 pm shows a number of strong storm cores over southeast Arizona with reflectivities of 50 to 60 dBZ.



Shown here are two products from the TUS radar that are available at the College of DuPage weather site. Thunderstorm tops (at 2:41 pm MST, above) are in the 26 to 32,000 ft msl range, with some higher tops indicated at long ranges (this may be a bit of an artifact due to beam width at those ranges). The 0.5 degree beam, dual-polarization hydrometeor type algorithm (below, also at 2:41 pm) indicates hail and graupel with the storms cores. Quite an interesting afternoon.


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