Windy Today

Heavy cloud cover about 5:45 am, but with some pre-sunrise color over Redington Pass.

Plot of detected CG flashes through 0833 UTC this morning (above from Atmo and Vaisala) shows that there were again almost no thunderstorms anywhere in southeastern Arizona. Yet another dry day here.

The IR image above (from 5:20 am) shows weakening remnants of TS Javier off of Baja. Another disturbance is off the southwestern coast of Mexico with a mass of thunderstorms having very cold tops. This disturbance is forecast by NHC to become a hurricane that moves northward along or just west of Baja.

The TWC/TUS sounding remains moist and with some CAPE if the BL were to mix out to about 650 mb. However, most impressive are the very strong easterly winds below 500 mb - already windy here this morning. The 12 UTC WRF-RR forecast for winds at 11:30 am (below) indicates steady winds of 20 kts - gusts will likely reach 30 mph or a bit higher late morning and early afternoon.

The 0600 UTC GFS forecast for precipitation during the coming week (above) shows very heavy rainfall associated with the forecast hurricane, but leaves Arizona high and dry.

Hurricane Javier back in 2004 (track below) reached Category 4 intensity and turned eastward across Baja. The remnants of this Javier brought heavy rains to Tucson on September 18th as Univ. of Arizona was playing a football game against Wisconsin - was really a mess.