Reed Stough Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 I think there are many that are scratching their heads on what happened to the Southwest Monsoon. Looking at the GFS over the next 8 to 10 days doesn't give much hope. I know for me I expected a more active season because of the La Nina conditions - even though I know this doesn't aways pan out. It has been acting more like an El Nino year with stronger than normal westeries. One thing I have noticed is there have been some very strong hurricanes in the eastern pacific and a lack of hurricanes in the Atlantic. So I decided to start looking at the SST anomalies to see what was going on. It doesn't look El Ninish, but it sure has been acting like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tacoman25 Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 July had fantastic monsoonal action in UT/CO. Guess it just depends on where you are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Stough Posted August 11, 2011 Author Share Posted August 11, 2011 August is usually the peak month of the summer storm season. So far it has been quite the opposite. It has me worried with the hint of meteorologist forecast the return of La Nina - we could be headed into even worst drought conditions here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 July 15 to August 15 is usually the maximum for total rainfall around here. Fort Collins got 0.38" from July 13 to August 11. Denver got 0.49" from July 14 to August 11. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tacoman25 Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 July 15 to August 15 is usually the maximum for total rainfall around here. Fort Collins got 0.38" from July 13 to August 11. Denver got 0.49" from July 14 to August 11. Yeah, but most of the metro area got several inches of rain from July 6 to July 13. Even DEN got over 1" on the 13th, which your time period just misses. And it was definitely due to monsoonal flow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrgjeff Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 GFS and Euro both have the ridge shifting west next week. Center stays over Texas, what a shock, but the Southeast gets a break while the ridge wobbles to the West. Probably suppresses some Great Basin convection. However, in the Desert Southwest you might get the easterly flow on the soft underbelly of the ridge. More drama in Phoenix? Higher elevations of the Rockies could get pop up but might be tough to roll off the Front Range until some upslope opportunities 8-10 days out. Em, models 8-10 days out; jury still out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Msalgado Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 NM seems to have done OK (haven't looked at actualy precip figures - just going off of my perceptions so take it FWIW) so far this month. We've got another nice burst coming up this weekend so we'll see how it plays out but I'm hopeful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Msalgado Posted August 15, 2011 Share Posted August 15, 2011 The short term flip flopping on the models this weekend regarding moisture levels within NM over the past 72 hours and into this coming week have really hammered home how poorly we understand the mechanics of the SW monsoon. Running out of time to get more rain before the season ends. The days are getting noticeably shorter and cooler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aslkahuna Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 The short term flip flopping on the models this weekend regarding moisture levels within NM over the past 72 hours and into this coming week have really hammered home how poorly we understand the mechanics of the SW monsoon. Running out of time to get more rain before the season ends. The days are getting noticeably shorter and cooler. It's not just the SW US portion of the North American Monsoon we don't have a good handle on but rather ALL monsoons. Operational models don't handle them well because monsoons are tropical patterns and the models don't handle tropical patterns well. Another problem is that by and large good upper air coverage of the lower latitude portions of the monsoon is usually lacking. For the SW US thye triple moisture source confuses the models especially the recycled moisture that advects in from the Sierra Madre with its source being evaporatranspired moisture from the greeni9ng up in the mountains. At any rate, we FINAL:LY had a decent rainfall yesterday as a MCS developed over Tucson with heavy rains causing significant street flooding. We got 1.19 in of rain the most 24 hour rainfall since August 28, 2010. Still WAY low on our monsoon rainfall to date. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amped Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 Epic hole near Pheonix.plenty of storms in Mexico, Grand Canyon, Utah Tuscon, and Colorado. Edit: Okay maybe some of those storms produced more virga than I thought Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Stough Posted August 23, 2011 Author Share Posted August 23, 2011 Time is running out on this season and it isn't looking good. We had incredible development around us several days ago = the 12z soundings all showed a potential outbreak of thunderstorms. We did have an outbreak, but the upper and mid level westeries kicked in that evening and destoryed the storms that were headed for the valley. It was really a sad situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeVries Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 Once again we missed out on rain. Meanwhile PHX hit its ALL-TIME hottest August temp of 117 today. I might be new to the area, but these late August temps have been ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeVries Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Looks like we have a couple of dust clouds heading into the metro area yet again...this time from the north (not the south) and the east... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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