Heavy Storms AM 13 August

View of the Catalinas at about 7:00 am MST this morning, showing stratus fractus hanging very low along the foothills, after heavy, early morning storms. We were at Santa Rita Abbey yesterday and afternoon storms between there and Tucson were quite isolated and small - we did drive through a very brief, heavy shower on Highway 83 a bit southwest of TUS Doppler radar - the exception to all this was far off to the east in Cochise County, where there heavier and somewhat organized storms..

During the early morning hours (from about 1:30 to 4:00 am) heavy storms developed over the city as several outflows collided. Rain amounts were over an inch at many ALERT sites during the 6-hours ending at 6:00 am (above) and two sites on east side had two to three inches. Here at house there was 1.16" in gauge this morning - this is fourth event of summer to produce over an inch here. 

The plot of detected CG flashes (below, from Atmo and Vaisala) shows 24 hour period ending at 4:00 am this morning.

Note that observation plot on NWS webpage has been seriously messed up for couple of weeks now - apparently due to some communication problem between TUS ASOS and MesoWest, which produces the actual plots. Don't know rainfall at TUS, but DM had 2.04" and Atmo had about 0.67".

Tropical Storm Jova apparently helped push high PW into state yesterday - with high values extending well into Arizona at 12 UTC this morning (MIMIC TPW above) However the 500 mb pattern is quite hostile (below for 12 UTC from NCAR), with westerly flow prevailing. The transition into the westerlies will dry us out and result in another down-period that may last for a week or so. Strange month so far with only one significant storm event here at house.

Two photos from Santa Rita Abbey at sunrise yesterday. Above shows Cbs off to the northeast along or near the San Pedro River; and below shows stratus hanging along top of southern portion of Santa Ritas - reason unknown since Friday afternoon was quite suppressed with storms far away to east and way down in Mexico.