STORM2K

The 2006 monsoon season has offically kicked off and the buildups have been pretty impresive to say the least ESPECIALLY at 0940 in the morning!

We've had 8 days straight
of rain averaging .16-.19"
each day......the forests
are reopen now and the
fire danger is Moderate.
The drought is still
"Exceptional" conditions BUT
if this keeps up, we MIGHT
get to "extreme" by the time
the monsoons are over.

Well, I dont know about Arizona, but here in Denver, CO the monsoon has been a beautiful thing. We have had rain everyday in this area for about a week, and by rain i dont mean dry lightning thunderstorms that happened in june every afternoon, I mean soaking rains. The state of Colorado as a whole has been a tenderbox for a while. Folks taht are from here(I am new) are saying this is the best July rains in 5 years. Today the sun literally did not come out ALL day. The here didnt reach 70. The only caveat is now all the burn scar areas are having flash floods almost daily. As the saying goes, when it rains it pours.

How is the wildfire situation in Arizona? Could these storms pose a danger for the areas affected by the wildfires? Any reports of recently started fires from Lightning?

michael,

With the recent rains we've been having
the fire danger is down to "moderate"...
a sight better than the EXTREME danger
we had just 9 days ago. As far as
lightning caused fires.....yes, we have
reports of lightning strike fires on a daily
bases this time of year but with the
Haines Index (fine fuel moisture content)
being in the 2-3 range, the fire burns the
tree (dead snag) and that's about it!

PTPatrick.....the monsoons here have been
somewhat decent, not as productive as they
SHOULD be but at this juncture ANY rain helps!

Just for the record, Arizona gets ony ONE Monsoon each Summer but a bunch of monsoon thunderstorms. It should be noted that this is a pet peeve of every Professional Meteorologist in the State (the incorrect usage of the word monsoon) and we all are very Public about it not being shy when we see that bad usage.

Steve

Thinking of doing a future show of Center Of Circulation On ipr365.com about Monsoon Season. Any suggestions on someone that might be a good guest for that discussion?

Aslkahuna wrote:Just for the record, Arizona gets ony ONE Monsoon each Summer but a bunch of monsoon thunderstorms. It should be noted that this is a pet peeve of every Professional Meteorologist in the State (the incorrect usage of the word monsoon) and we all are very Public about it not being shy when we see that bad usage.

Steve

Steve, if you're
refering to my comments "monsoons"
I simply meant the thunderstorms we have
I did not imply that we have numerous monsoons,
guess I need to clarify myself better huh?

That's the pet peeve Mets have-saying monsoons instead of monsoon thunderstorms and I'm not the only one it's all of the pro Mets here. As far as who would be a good guest to discuss the Monsoon, one good one would be Dr. Andrew Comrie of the University of Arizona who wrote a very definitive paper about the monsoon or Erik Pytlak the SOO at the Tucson NWS who was the local lead forecaster on NAME (North American Monsoon Experiment).

Steve

michaelwmoss wrote:Thinking of doing a future show of Center Of Circulation On ipr365.com about Monsoon Season. Any suggestions on someone that might be a good guest for that discussion?

Good Idea Michael.. I think Steve would do a great interview..

What do you think Steve?