There was a fairly substantial downturn in thunderstorm activity yesterday in eastern Pima County. The plot of CG flash locations above (from Vaisala and Atmo) is for 24-hours ending at midnight last night. Storms in our area stayed mostly on the mountains, with a large area devoid of lightning that stretched from Nogales across the Tucson metro, most of Pinal County and all of Maricopa County.
This was reflected by the Pima County ALERT network rainfall data - only 19 sites had rain through 5:00 am MST this morning and these were the higher elevation locations, particularly on the north side of the Catalinas and on the Rincons. Notable rainfall amounts were: Empire Peak 1.18", Mt. Lemmon 1.18, and Manning Camp 1.26".
At 500 mb the anticyclone is elongated east-to-west and centered somewhere to our south. The models forecast the center to shift westward toward the Colorado River and then tomorrow toward the Four Corners. The visible image above is from 7:30 am and shows morning showers over higher terrain to our east and northeast - these are moving off toward the northeast.
Morning sounding from TWC (below from SPC) remains a mixed bag. Wind profile has gone to hell below 300 mb, leaving little steering flow to move storms in any organized way. There will be some CAPE this afternoon, even with the warming above 500 mb. Upper-level winds may again bring anvil clouds over the Tucson area from the west to southwest, as happened yesterday. All-in-all a pretty mundane setting, but one that could again produce some locally heavy rains, particularly over the mountains.
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