On Friday (April 8th) the 06 UTC WRF forecasts kept most of the thunderstorm activity to the north and east of Pima County; however, the 12 UTC morning forecasts extended the coverage west and south, ending up with a fairly good forecast of what happened that afternoon. Across the ALERT network 58% of the 93 sites had measurable precipitation and a number of stations (mostly along the south and north edges of the Rincons) had around half-inch totals. Graphic above shows CG flash densities for Friday afternoon and evening, with substantial thunderstorm activity over southeastern Arizona and quite strong, wrt CGs, storms over parts of New Mexico and the Big Bend Country. Plot below is ALERT precipitation over the metro-east sector for period from noon on Friday through 5:00 am MST on Saturday morning. Heaviest rain amounts occurred over about the eastern third of the network.
As we were heading east on I-10 a bit after 6:30 pm on Friday, Katie took these phone-photos of a storm moving north across the interstate between the Santa Ritas and the Rincons. It was visually very impressive and dropped enough rain to cause an accident just east of the Highway 83 exit.
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