Monthly Archives: July 2011

The family and I traveled back home to Minnesota today. What a day to arrive! Under a 500 mb ridge with a central height of 596 dm (over two standard deviations above normal, see above) temperatures have pushed well into … Continue reading →

July is half way over and thus far the Phoenix area has received about 1/4″ of an inch of rain (nearly all of which was from a cluster of early morning thunderstorms on July 10). This isn’t horribly unusual – … Continue reading →

The NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has pushed out the first batch of updates to our climate normals. “Normals” are simply a snapshot of the current state of the climate, based on the most recent 30 year period. In … Continue reading →

An upper level low lifted north across the Phoenix area during the early morning hours today (Monday). With a very moist airmass in place and elevated instability, a complex of showers and thunderstorms developed. The storms developed just south of … Continue reading →

Signs point to a relatively quiet weekend weather-wise ahead for the Phoenix area. Instability will remain limited today through Sunday (400-600 J/kg with moderate capping in place). Storm motion will keep thunderstorms that form over southeast Arizona heading east to … Continue reading →

Added quite a bit of info to the dust storm event page at the NWS Phoenix office today, including some radar loops and a picture of my sweet ride. The media coverage of this event was really amazing. Our office … Continue reading →

Picture I took at work (near Priest & Washington in Tempe) looking south toward South Mountain about two minutes before this thing engulfed us. Well, I was wrong yesterday with how much activity there would be. Looks like that cooler … Continue reading →

A line of storms formed over Eastern Pinal County yesterday evening and pushed WNW into the Phoenix area from 9-11 PM. Unfortunately the storms dissipated as the hit the East Valley, though the outflow did cause a few storms to … Continue reading →

The 12Z 4 July 2011 KPSR sounding looks awfully unstable! Moisture levels have increased throughout the atmospheric column and with temperatures expected in the 105-110 range this afternoon, CAPE could easily be over 1,000 J/kg. There is still that dry … Continue reading →