Monday, June 21, 2021

Some Increase In Moisture Overnight



Hazy view of the Catalinas at 6:00 am this morning. At the same time, down the GoC at Guaymas (bottom) skies were heavily overcast.

High temperatures in Tucson metro area yesterday (below from MesoWest) were slightly lower than previous days and, as usual, there are a couple of stations with suspect observations (especially the one showing a high of only 78 F!).


There were storms last night south of Cochise County (IR image above is from midnight) that pushed some outflows of more moist air into southern Arizona, where dewpoints at sunrise were in the 50s F and higher across all the southern third of the state. Note the steady increase of Td and RH at the airport after about midnight (below).


This morning's TWC sounding (above) indicates some CAPE due to the moisture increase, with PW at 1.25". If the BL mixes out to around 600 mb, it appears that there will still be CAPE present. Note that the 06 UTC GEFS plumes for PW this morning were seriously low at sounding time (below). Question for today is whether or not there will be enough moisture and CAPE for late day storms to develop on this side of the border, especially over the mountains.



Plumes from the 06 UTC GEFS models above show nothing at airport until tomorrow evening. However, the 06 UTC WRF-GFS forecast for precipitation through 11:00 am MST on Thursday the 24th (below) leaves Pima County high and dry. The model's forecast of PW valid at sounding time was, however, considerably low (off by bit over a quarter of an inch); so, there are considerable uncertainties regarding what we might see late today. I would expect that there will be some mountain storms, given that the moisture in sounding above reaches up to 500 mb - time will tell.




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