Rain piling up; 3.4 inches already on Ms. Lemmon, more elsewhere!

And,  will there be a tornado today, too?  Arcus cloud almost a certainty.    Get cameras ready!    Read on…farther down.

4 (FOUR!)  inches  at Park Tank, Reddington Pass area by 6 AM ! Incredible for so early in the storm!  Check more  totals out from your friendly Pima County ALERT regional gauges.    Mods on track to verify those huge amounts that were predicted the day before yesterday! Washes will be running!  Flowers happy!  I’m happy!  Lot of excitement here!      !                                        !

Only 0.15 inches here in Sutherland Heights/Catalina…. so far (6 AM).   :{

Yesterday’s study in gray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today!

Some excitement just now, after seeing that a major rain band had passed by, and we’re now in a break in the rain.

Will it rain more?  Tune in at 11 to find out…..  (hahahaha;  we don’t do that here!  More excitement.)

Went to U of AZ mod run from 11 PM AST last night, the very latest, then saw that a narrow,  heavy band or precip, maybe a squall line, something out of the Midwest, was foretold for us Catalinans this afternoon!

Then went to examine upper air and positioning of vorticity maximums ejecting out of our incoming trough (vorticity maximums represented by redness in the plot below from the University of Washington’s Weather Department– color scheme by Mark Albright, the color man up there:

This was exciting due to incoming “red curly air” this afternoon above us, AND,  due to those spreading out of the contours over us (see arrowhead).  Diffluent contours are indicative of air spreading out aloft, something that leads to enhanced upward motion.

And, to blab on, the air aloft will be cooling off on top of our high-for-winter dewpoint air (50s), which should lead to large Cumulonimbus clouds, likely organized in a line of thunderstorms, as all this happens this afternoon or evening.

And, going over the edge here some, as is my wont, we might well see a funnel cloud somewhere today.  This is the kind of situation that you can get them.  So, to sum up today:

Possible funnels!  Will they reach the ground somewhere in AZ?  Maybe.  Lightning!  Hail likely, too!  Rain rates likely to reach an inch an hour, though that rate may not last an hour unless you’re real lucky and get shafted real good.

Will be watching intensely for all these manner of things today!  Haven’t been this excited since Oct 2nd, 2010,  I think it was when they had that tornado in PHX!

Remember, too, our motto:

Right or wrong, you might have heard it here first!

The weather way ahead

While a long spell of dry weather comes after this 2 day event, the mods have popped up with a heavy dose of rain in two weeks.  Of course, normally this would be considered Fantasy 101.  HOWEVER,  a slight amount of credibility is added when such a pattern that brings rain strongly resembles the one you have now.  Check out these upper level flow maps out, as rendered by IPS MeteoStar, that has just moved their pay wall to March from February (yay!).  The first one below is for today’s situation, and the second one for Valentine’s Day in two weeks.  Look pretty similar don’t they.

You see, weather has a memory like your horse.  You ride to Deer Camp way up in the Catalinas; you’ve never been there before, nor has horsey, and then you head back, but you’re not sure of the way.

Well, horsey will remember for you!

(To continue with the extra excitement theme of today’s blog!)

Well, the weather has a memory that we call “persistence”, likes to do the same thing over and over for awhile, and so when a similar pattern turns up in the models that you have now, we give it a little more credibility than none when its two weeks out, maybe 30% chance of actually happening (i. e., still a bit of a long shot).

The End!