Yesterday was a very down day at lower elevations in eastern Pima County - this trend was forecast by the various WRF model runs. The plot of detected CG flashes (above from Vaisala and Atmo for 24-hours ending at midnight last night) shows the doughnut hole of suppression centered on the Tucson metro area - yet again. Very quiet day across the Pima County ALERT network. From 5:00 am yesterday through 5:00 pm MST only 10 sites reported rainfall - these were mainly on the north slopes of the Catalinas and the south and east slopes of the Rincons (i.e., at the fringes of the network). Heaviest amount occurred at the Cienega Creek gauge, southeast of Rincons - 0.91". During the night (5 pm through 5 am this morning) only 2 sites had rainfall. So the forecast POPs of 40% yesterday and last evening for the lower elevations of metro Tucson and the airport were considerably too high.
There were several severe thunderstorms again in the Phoenix metro area with downburst winds and out at Gila Bend storms took down power lines and poles.
The models have been indicating a bit of an upturn today, as drier air with the 500 mb Pacific trough and more moist air with the anticyclone remain in a stalemate across southern Arizona. The morning sounding from TWC (12 UTC skewT below from SPC) shows some increase in PW and definitely more CAPE today, but with light winds continuing, except above 300 mb. So main question will be whether or not thunderstorms can propagate very far off the higher terrain. Will wait to see what new WRF forecasts indicate before I get my hopes up for a final August rain event here at the house.
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