Monday, September 05, 2022

Hot And Dry Start To Week


Clear skies this Labor Day morning, as per view of Catalinas at 7:45 am MST above.


The morning sounding from TWC/TUS (above) is very dry and stable - note that PW has fallen below an inch (the lowest value for PW in quite some time).The strong east winds in low-levels indicate that we could again see gusty winds today. High temperatures are expected to be in the 100 to 105 F range through Thursday, as per the current NWS forecast for the airport. 

Plot of TPW (below for 14 UTC) shows all of the state being very dry, except for an area of more moist air out in west central Arizona. The only thunderstorm activity in the state yesterday occurred in the northwest corner, south of Lake Mead. 

The TPW map shows remnants of Javier west of northern Baja, and also newly developed Tropical Storm Kay off southwestern coast of Mexico. IR satellite image at 14 UTC (second below) shows very cold cloud-top temperatures with the storm.



The current forecast from NHC (above) calls for Kay to strengthen into a hurricane today, and to track northward along the west coast of Baja. At this time it is hard to anticipate what impacts Kay might have on our local weather.


Forecast of the 500 mb level (from 06 UTC GFS - above) shows Kay at about 30 degrees north off Baja coast at 18 UTC on Friday - of note are the strong east winds across our area. This means a possibility of dry, down-slope winds for southeast Arizona. 

Indeed, the forecast for total rainfall (from same GFS run, below) keeps all of southern Arizona dry through 5:00 pm next Sunday afternoon. Regardless, all the weather interest for our area this week will be focused on the the strength and track of Kay.


 

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