Heavy Rains Last Evening

Hazy, dreary skies continue this morning, even after the heavy rains of last evening.

ALERT reports (above and below) for 24 hours ending at 7:00 am MST this morning - note the numerous observations of more than half an inch. Here at house we had 0.84", which occurred before midnight - July is turning out to be a wet month with total of 2.39" already.

Composite radar above at a bit after 10:00 pm last night - raining very heavily here at house at that time. Plot of detected CG flashes (below from Atmo and Vaisla) is for 24 hours through 1:00 am this morning - event was really focused on eastern Pima County.

Strange 500 mb analysis this morning. The northwest wind at Las Vegas, would seem to be in error; however it fits with the rest of sounding data. Apparently there is a small anticyclone over southern California and a larger one over southern Colorado. Interpretation of all this complicated by presence of a large area of early morning thunderstorms over northwestern Arizona.

This morning's sounding (above) is again very chopped up, and with PW down to 1.24" due to dry air below 600 mb (except for the cool/moist layer near surface.

I'd expect a mostly down day today, due to the widespread heavy rains last evening. However, the NWS morning forecast (below) indicates chances for thunderstorms and high POPs through Thursday. There is also a flash flood watch this afternoon through Wednesday evening. Will be interesting to see if this morning's WRF runs forecast more thunderstorms this evening.