Friday, July 14, 2017


Only have time for quick post today. Three out of four days with storms now in metro area. Early morning storms moved southwestward off the Catalinas and were out to southwest at sunrise - above (view looking other way is at bottom).

Yesterday afternoon, the first storms that tried to come off the Catalinas dissipated quickly. Then strong outflows around 8:00 pm from storms to south (gusts from south of 40 to 50 mph here) really kicked off an active hour. Thunder and a bit more rain around 4:00 am ended up leaving 0.45" in gauge this morning.

Flash density plot below (from weather.graphics and Vaisala) is for 24-hours ending at 6:30 am. Most active thunderstorms were out in central Pima County and in Sonora. There were a number of severe thunderstorms around, including a gust to 58 mph at Mt. Hopkins RAWS.



The ALERT network had another day with nearly 100% coverage of rainfall - only 5 sites along northwestern edge had less than 0.04". The total here takes over 2 inches for July, making it already a good month.

Below is TWC sounding plot for 12 UTC. Good steering flow continues with considerable CAPE. Sounding seems to be of the "onion" type, perhaps due to the nearby early morning activity. Hard to know what thermodynamics will be by early afternoon. The 06 UTC WRF-GFS was very good with the early storms and then recovers things for another very active afternoon. Appears to be clearing from the north - looks like battle between sunshine and really wet soil will determine this afternoon's outcome at low elevations.





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