GEFS And WRF Forecast More Of Same

The GEFS plumes from 06 UTC forecast a mixed bag for chances of rain at the airport over the weekend, as per above. The range of QPF within the 21 members goes from 0 to about half an inch, with a very wide range for the timing also.

However, the models' plumes are in close agreement for the winds (above) with speeds around 20 kts both tomorrow and Friday afternoons. The current NWS forecast (below) for the high-resolution airport grid point reflects the GEFS model forecasts. Note that the forecast high for today flirts with the 100 F mark - ugh.

I took a look at the 00 UTC WRF-GFS forecasts on the 5.4 km grid from Atmo to get a feel for why we continue in such a dismal run of weather events. Shown above is the model's forecast of accumulated precipitation through 5:00 pm MST on Sunday, May 8th. It's obviously very dry for southeast Arizona.

The 500 mb forecast below is valid at 5:00 am on Saturday, May 7th. The 500 mb closed low is centered just south of Las Vegas and is moving across northern Arizona for the coming event. The precipitable water forecast for the same time (bottom) indicates that the system is never able to pick up much water content from lower latitudes and the system has to work with what it brings in from the Pacific across the California and northern Baja mountains. 

Bottom line is more wind and dust and just slight chances of sprinkles and light showers - certainly no good news here for allergy suffers.