Finally Back Online - Now About Sunday's Severe Thunderstorm

NOTE - If anyone has photos of the thunderstorm please share - thanks.

A very severe wet microburst (or a downburst with embedded microbursts) hit the north part of the City late Sunday afternoon (June 26th). The wind damage in this part of town is worst I've seen in my 20 years here. Power went off here sometime before 7:00 pm MST and came back a bit after 9:00 pm. Power was out just west of here until midday yesterday, and Prince was closed most of day as power crews worked to restore power and replace shattered power poles. I estimate winds reached 70 to 80 mph. Here at house we lost about a third of our largest and most beautiful desert willow - but we were lucky compared to many folks nearby. The heavy rainfall with event was impressive and our gauge caught 1.45 inches - but I suspect that was an under-catch due to the high winds. Below are damage photos taken within about 2 to 3 blocks of the house.

Every type of tree that grows in the neighborhood seems to have suffered damage (mesquite, gum, pine, palo verde, and even salt cedar), except palm trees apparently.

Many very old and large pines went down in the Winterhaven neighborhood - some falling on houses.

One of about 4 or 5 crews out at sunrise along Prince from Country Club to Campbell.

Many of the mesquite trees suffered damage about halfway up their trunks.

There's a house back in there within this mess.

The Tucson NWS Office apparently sent in only one simple report to SPC (above) that does not begin to convey the magnitude of what happened. I suspect that any warning they got out was after the reports of damaging began streaming in to them. Here's what's reported on the SPC page for Sunday:

0220	UNK	TUCSON	PIMA	AZ	3224	11094	CIITY OF TUCSON REPORTS POWER LINES DOWN DUE TO STORMS ... MOSTLY AFFECTING THE AREA AROUND 1ST AND RIVER AND CAMPBELL AND RIVER. IN ADDITION A HOUSE FIRE WAS CAUSED BY(TWC)

Edited to add: Mike Luethold sent along details re NWS Warning with an issue time of 7:13 pm (first below). Power was gone here so I didn't see it. Radar indicates 60-65 dBZ in base scan at 7:08 pm (second below) - after watching radar loops, I suspect that's about when the really big trees were going down in Winterhaven.

The newspaper this morning reports that the significant damage occurred mostly in the area above - about a 3-5 square mile area of the north part of the City. I did see damage north of the Rillito along River, which is in the County.

Finally, the ALERT sector rainfall reports below are for the period from 1:00 pm to 10:00 pm MST on Sunday. No gauge captured the heavy amounts, which reached to around 2 inches. The Dodge at Rillito gauge is less than a mile east of here and the amount there (0.67") is less than half of what I measured.

More later on this event.