Chinook

People got some pictures of lightning bolts over San Francisco this morning. I have never heard of a thunderstorm directly over San Francisco in summertime.

Sunset on Friday- the cloud is really the smoke plume from the Cameron Peak fire. My area has had considerable smoke since Friday. Yesterday morning and this morning, I have been able to smell it.

Satellite image from last night-- the clouds that you see in the north/central of Colorado are largely pyrocumulus

My area stayed at about 86 degrees today, a nice relief from the 90's. For some of this afternoon, there was a thick cloud of smoke above us from the Cameron Peak fire. We still had some fairly normal sunshine and blue skies, though. Overall, the Pine Gulch fire near Grand Junction has become a much bigger fire than any of the others in recent years, at over 72000 acres today.

Possible tornado near Rockford

Yesterday my area was up to about 95 or 96 degrees. KFNL airport had 100 degrees. At sunset, I saw a few nice red colors that reminded me of forest fire smoke. My best guess is that it was smoke from a fire near Grand Junction, which may be new.

Hailstorm near Greeley at about 5:00PM

Storm with possible 0.75"-1.0" hail headed toward DIA

We could get some scattered severe thunderstorms near here tomorrow. NAM profiles show 0-6km shear values of 40 kts with some decent CAPE. July 2020 was Denver's warmest month since July 2012, but Fort Collins was not quite that bad.

Some thunderstorm structure, sort of

Yesterday (7/31) I was jogging at about 7:30, and I saw that Long's Peak in the distance looked like a slightly dark silhouette on a background of yellow light, below a dark cloud. It was raining in between me and Long's Peak. Today (8/1) my area had a thunderstorm in mid-afternoon. It looked like there was a decent hailstorm was northwest of Fort Collins at about 7:20PM. That storm weakened considerably as it approached Loveland. Edit: I got 0.35" for the day. I'm not sure if much of this fell at nighttime. That's almost as much as last month.

Yesterday, my area had a high of 80 and a rainfall of 0.18" with a few moments of lightning/thunder/heavy rain. So that brings my monthly rain to about 0.44", which is not as pathetic as I might have thought, but still pretty low.

On July 26th, my area had a trace to 0.01". On July 28th, we had clouds and sprinkles early afternoon, then sunny, then we had some rain and weak thunder at 6:45 - 7:15PM. It was about 0.01" to 0.10", possibly higher in areas of Loveland. Then, we had a partly sunny sunset, with very orange clouds, and some of the rain to the east was highlighted with orange light. I might have been able to see the stars and the comet after sunset, but I didn't really look. For far western areas-- the Phoenix area and the Columbia River (interior desert) area both have Excessive Heat Warnings soon, with temperatures up to 109 at the Columbia River.

My place has had minor rainfall over the past few days. My total for the month may be around 0.14"-0.20". July 22, an evening storm with light-moderate rain, 0.02" and little lightning. July 24th, trace to 0.01". July 25th, 0.03" or 0.04". July 26th, possibly another trace to 0.06". Tonight (July 26th) the clouds cleared away, and I could see Comet Neowise through binoculars. It has moved up and to the left of where I saw it a few days ago. I could barely see the comet's tail with binoculars. I think this may be the last time I get a look at it, if it is getting dimmer, and if there are a few more days of evening clouds. Interesting note. I was checking the satellite images today, and the GOES-16 data feeds seem to have disappeared from about 2:36PM to 9:15PM. I don't know exactly what happened. I'm glad this didn't happen yesterday, because most of the USA was interested the satellite images of Hurricane Hanna.

Radar-estimated rainfall from the hurricane

Tonight, there were some rain showers to my west at 6:00-7:00, then a lot of the clouds cleared away at about 8:00. Then, I tried to look for the comet at 9:00-9:30, but some patchy altocumulus were blocking the view. Tomorrow, models have a chance of showers and thunderstorms near here. Apparently the driving factor will be high precipitable water, but not high CAPE.

Good news: it looks like the Southwest monsoon is kicking into gear, with models and model ensembles showing much higher precipitation over the next 7-10 days along the AZ/NM border and into Colorado.

This is the primary NOAA web page for storm-centered satellite pictures... https://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters.html -- better web page -- https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/index.php

Today, I got to see the comet again. Skies were more hazy in the afternoon and evening due to humidity. To the north, there was this:

I got in pictures of the sunset tonight and last night. Tonight, I finally saw the comet. It seems to be about 10 degrees below the cup of the big dipper. It's a little bit visible to the naked eye, and I used binoculars. edit: by the way, we could get scattered thunderstorms tomorrow, with dew points possibly up around 60. Maybe there will be something near Denver.

I also have not been able to see the comet. I am bordering on being very mad at the weather Tornado warning near the small towns of Paoli and Haxtun, Colorado

Radar from first tornado (south of South Pekin IL)

Denver is already 4.7F above normal for this month. Fort Collins- CSU is 2.4F or higher, with one day of missing data. Today, my area was around 95, when a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for a storm that seemed kind of weak on radar over the mountains. The wind picked up to 40 mph here, my area only got sprinkles. The temperature dropped to around 80 for the late afternoon. Some severe wind reports were close to the Wyoming border. Tomorrow, the NAM has unrealistically low temps, that is, 58 degrees at noon. I don't think it will be that cool. NWS says a high of 80 tomorrow, then getting back to the 90's on Thursday. I have not yet seen that new comet in the evening sky. I think it's in the evening right now.

NWS Phoenix

I took a walk a few minutes ago. Some mixed clouds in the sky made for very nice sunset colors. We still have some breezes of 10-15 mph at sunset with temperatures over 80, maybe 85 at 8:00PM. High temperatures were 94-96 for most areas near here and in Denver. In the afternoon we had varying winds of 10-25mph in the region. Tomorrow, mid- 90's should continue for northern Colorado, with 100-105 in southeast Colorado. Models show a chance of thunderstorms tomorrow, quite possibly with very low total QPF.