Rainy Afternoon And Evening On 19th

Morning view from Atmo at 7:00 am MST this morning, showing our continued heavy cloud cover.

Was an active thunderstorm day yesterday and last night as per above plot of detected CG flashes (from Atmo and Vaisala) for 24-hours ending at 6:00 am this morning. A thunderstorm with gusts to 40 mph occurred at the airport. 

Plot above from MesoWest (above for 24-hours ending at 7:00 am) shows rainfall reports across the metro area. Measured 0.30" here this morning - occurred mostly yesterday afternoon and evening but with another light shower after midnight. This was our first rain of more than quarter of an inch since September 26th.

Looked at wind speeds for about the past day at both Mt. Hopkins and Kitt Peak. Above time series at two different telescopes on Hopkins (I think that "Young" is at 8585 ft. MSL, while "Young 2" is at 7800 ft MSL). Max gust at the RAWS site down at the entrance came in at 46 mph at 5:00 am this morning. Kitt Peak (below - at the larger 4 Meter facility) has had several gusts around 60 mph.

The morning sounding from TWC (above) continus moist with some CAPE and very strong southwesterly winds aloft. The graphic below (from the 12 UTC WRF-RR run at Atmo) shows composite radar echoes forecast for 10:00 pm early tonight. Continued chances for storms and rain extend into tomorrow.