Sunday, July 08, 2018

Spits And Sprinkles - More Today Plus Dust


Just time for quick looks this morning. Yesterday brought mostly spits and sprinkles, with a Trace here. Several thunderstorms moved across parts of metro area and produced light but measurable rain - note the station southwest of Saguaro NP East is providing unreliable data. Above is MesoWest rainfall for yesterday through 7:00 am MST this morning, and below shows detected CG flashes (from Atmo and Vaisala through midnight last night) - most significant storm in Metro occurred near airport, but TUS reported only thunder and a Trace.



The 500 mb analysis from SPC at 12 UTC doesn't indicate much of an inverted trough (IT) for this afternoon - models now emphasize a mid and upper-level IT moving into Arizona tomorrow afternoon. Water vapor images this am seem to indicate a small, upper-level cyclone over southwest New Mexico.


The TWC morning sounding (above from SPC) indicates increased PW (up to 1.39") and an increase in CAPE for today. Steering winds would try, again, to bring storms from mountains into eastern Pima County.

The 06 UTC WRF-NAM forecast from Atmo of 10-m winds at 5:00 pm this afternoon indicates strongest storms to occur northwest of Tucson - note the model forecasts severe thunderstorm outflow winds from western Pima County north to near Phoenix.

Locally, another day to sit and watch how storms evolve later today.


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