First Day Of July

June closes out here at house with 2.37 inches of rain, and severe thunderstorms on both the 25th and 26th. For the 17 years of records I have kept this is the second wettest June. June of 2000 had 3.19 inches - in 2000 both TS Bud and Hurricane Carlotta came into play. This year we have not had a named TS in the eastern Pacific, although several disturbances from low latitudes helped move mT moisture northward.

After two days of storms and nighttime rains, much of Arizona was suppressed wrt thunderstorms yesterday. Plot above shows detected CGs for past 24-hours through 5:00 am MST this morning (from Atmo and Vaisala). Heavy storms did develop on and near the Santa Ritas yesterday afternoon. These storms could not move into the more stable air over the metro area, but they did produce the heaviest rains for the afternoon over the ALERT network - see the southeast sector below for 18-hours ending at 6:00 am today.

This morning there are breaks in the cloudiness and so there will be considerably more local heating. as a weak short wave at 500 mb moves eastward across Arizona today. Note in CG plot at top that there is considerable thunderstorm activity with this feature. The PW remains very high across southwest and southern Arizona, as per the 12 UTC blended analysis from CIRA at Colorado State (below).

The morning sounding plot for TWC on campus is shown below. Plenty of moisture and instability for storms today, but wind profile is not good. Anvil shading will spread ahead of storms and we'll probably see erratic cell movement, but with localized threats of heavy rains and downbursts. Profiles like this are not favorable for this part of the metro area unless storms form nearly overhead.

Both versions of the 06 UTC WRF model at Atmo forecast some storms over eastern Pima County during the day today. Both versions also forecast storms to develop again during the middle of the night as the short wave moves across the state.