Blues returning to Tucson!

You won’t have to go to New Mexico, Sonora, or the Indian State of Kerala to find great summer rain.  According to this model output from last evening, its only a bit more than a week away!

The last time we saw a model prediction like the ones below, was for the 24 h ending today, made a whopping 12 days ago.  When you consider the great rains we had ending YESTERDAY morning (2-7 inches in the mountains, and inch here in The Heights, that far out prediction was only a day or so off.  So,  there’s hope that the paucity of summer rain that has left our desert so brown will be rectified a bit more in the near future.

Below, from 5 PM AST obs, the WRF-GFS 12-h rain totals predicted for August 20 and beyond as rendered by IPS MeteoStar.   Normally, these are pretty useless predictions, but since that last one with so much rain foretold was close to what actually happened, maybe there’s something to watch out for around the 20th.

Ann 2015080900_CON_GFS_SFC_SLP_THK_PRECIP_WINDS_276
Valid at 5 AM AST, August 20th. Colored regions denote areas where the model has calculated that rain has fallen during the prior 12 h. Blue indicates heavier precip than green.
2015080900_CON_GFS_SFC_SLP_THK_PRECIP_WINDS_300
Hard to be bluer than this! Valid in only 288 h from now!  Valid on Friday, August 21st at 5 AM AST.

Some recent cloud photos

12:46 PM, August 7th.  Telephone pole is going down on Linda Vista due to a microburst.
12:46 PM, August 7th. Telephone pole was going down on Linda Vista due to this microburst outflow.
2:45 PM, August 7th.  The Gap gets shafted.  Nice.
2:45 PM, August 7th. The Gap gets shafted. Nice.
2:55 PM, August 7th.  One of the great cloud bases of our time begins to take shape UPWIND of Catalina!
2:55 PM, August 7th. One of the great cloud bases of our time begins to take shape UPWIND of Catalina!
3:03 PM, August 7th.  "So round, so firm, so fully packed", as the cigarette ad used to say.  This is looking really great for Catalina at this point.  I am sure I am reflecting the excitement you felt that day.
3:03 PM, August 7th. “So round, so firm, so fully packed”, as the cigarette ad used to claim. This is looking really great for Catalina at this point, might unload right on us!. I am sure I am reflecting the excitement you felt that day.
3:03 PM, August 7th.  "Droop, there it is", as they used to sing on In Living Color.  Who woulda dreamed that Sasha Alexander would be one of the Fly GIrls on that show?
3:03 PM, August 7th. “Droop, there it is.  A report from Birdman, Rick Bowers, indicated that 1.16 inches fell in just in this storm. over there on Trotter, south end of Catalina.   Only 0.71 inches in the Sutherland Heights, but still great.  Fizzlerama continued as the storm headed north toward Saddlebrook with less than 0.2 inches there.
3:20 PM, August 7th.  Visibility, for a few seconds, down to 1/8th of a mile in TRW++, wind gusts to 30 kts or so.  Now this is exciting!  Temp dropped from 97 F to 72 F!
3:20 PM, August 7th. Visibility, for a few seconds, down to 1/8th of a mile in TRW++, wind gusts to 30 kts or so. Now this is exciting! Temp dropped from 97 F to 72 F!  This was not quite the lowest visibility.
After a night of intermittent rain and thunder, dawn yesterday brought this dump on Sam Ridge, where 1.06 inches fell in an hour, 0.51 inches in 15 minutes.
After a night of intermittent rain and thunder, dawn yesterday brought this dump on Sam Ridge, where 1.06 inches fell in an hour, 0.51 inches in 15 minutes.

 

The End.

 

By Art Rangno

Retiree from a group specializing in airborne measurements of clouds and aerosols at the University of Washington (Cloud and Aerosol Research Group). The projects in which I participated were in many countries; from the Arctic to Brazil, from the Marshall Islands to South Africa.