Isolated Storms Yesterday

Skies remain a bit dingy this morning - some distant cloudiness north of the Catalinas.

There were isolated storm clusters in eastern Pima County yesterday. Here at the house there was thunder around 3:30 pm MST but just a light spit of rain.

The ALERT rain reports (below for 24-hours ending at 9:00 am this morning) show three areas with rainfall of 0.04" or greater - each of the three areas had one site with over 0.30". Not much of a show.

This morning's 500 mb plot and analysis (above, from Univ. of Wyoming) shows the large, but weak anticyclone centered somewhere in northwest New Mexico - upper-air data from Albuquerque have been missing since Saturday afternoon.

There continue to be two suspect observations with heights 20 to 30 m too low wrt nearby observations: Chihuahua, Mexico, and Phoenix, Arizona.

I called yesterday's sounding a mess, but this morning's is even worse (below). Dry air intruding from the west, below 700 mb, has destroyed the CAPE and left us with a dry, stable sounding.

Looks like we're in dire straits!