Saturday, July 31, 2021

Another Active Day



View of lingering clouds over the Catalinas early this morning, following another active day. This was a rare case of two active storm and rain days occurring in succession. The plot of detected CG flashes (below, from Atmo and Vaisala) shows that storms were very active across all of Pima County as midnight approached.


Reports from the ALERT network (above and below for 24 hours ending at 6:00 am MST this morning) show the widespread character of yesterdays precipitation. Eight sites reported more than an inch of rain.

The airport received 0.67" and also had a severe wind gust to 67 mph around 8:00 pm. We had 0.50" here, and around 5:15 pm I estimated gusts hit 45 to 50 mph.


The 300 mb analysis at 12 UTC this morning (above) shows that forecasts yesterday morning (see previous post) verified quite well, with the west-to-east trough only a bit north of the predicted position.

The morning sounding from TUS/TWC (below) continues to be very moist, with some CAPE, and WRF runs continue to keep PW above an inch through the day. However, with west to southwest winds above 500 mb and the upper-level trough now to our north, I would expect - at most - isolated storms over the high terrain of southeast Arizona. Thus, a return to the expected pattern of a down day following a widespread rain event.


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