Make up my mind!

[Stephanie]

I hope it stays like that until Thursday Dennis!

Steve - I know that the GFS always overstates the precipitation amounts. We've seen that many, many times with the storms forecasted for along the East Coast.

[azsnowman]

Well, belay that last message, it only lasted 3 minutes, now, not a CLOUD in the sky and colder than a well diggers @$$

Dennis

[Aslkahuna]

the IR and WV imagery shows that the ULL has dug further west and south than most of the models (and particularly the GFS) have been showing. The ETA is closer but strangely enough the NOGAPS (which usually doesn't do well here but has hit a few systems this year) has the best handle on the current position of the ULL. This is not good because if the NOGAPS track verifies, the QPF on that model takes the rain now in western AZ and tracks it south into Mexico with only the immediate border getting significant rainfall and the rest of southern and eastern AZ getting only dregs-in other words, a bust for most of us. I might still luck out and get my 0.25in but right now my doubts are increasing. Regardless of what track this sytem takes, it won't be until tomorrow sometime that we start to get whatever (if any) we are going to get from this.

Steve

[azsnowman]

WELL....it appears that was our *Last Chance* for any kind of precip, now it's a waiting game till summer and the monsoons....."It's gonna be a LOOOOOOONG Wildfire Season I'm afraid!"


AFDFLG

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FLAGSTAFF AZ
305 AM MST WED MAR 03 2004

.SYNOPSIS...A SLOW MOVING STORM SYSTEM WILL BRING SCATTERED RAIN AND
SNOW SHOWERS TO THE REGION THROUGH THURSDAY. THE BEST CHANCE FOR
RAIN AND SNOW BE ALONG AND SOUTH OF THE MOGOLLON RIM. HIGH PRESSURE
WILL BEGIN TO BUILD OVER THE WESTERN UNITED STATES ON FRIDAY. THIS
WILL BRING AN END TO THE COLD WEATHER...WITH A STRONG WARMING TREND
STARTING OVER THE WEEKEND...AND LASTING INTO NEXT WEEK.

&&

.DISCUSSION...UPPER LOW CONTINUES TO DROP SO FAR SOUTH THIS MORNING
THAT NEARLY ALL OF ARIZONA WILL BE CLEAR OF SYNOPTIC FORCING THROUGH
EARLY THURSDAY. THIS LEAVES OUR MAIN SOURCE OF FORCING AS UPSLOPE
AND INSTABILITY. ENOUGH MOISTURE OVER THE STATE THAT THESE MECHANISMS
WILL LEAD TO SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS TODAY...ESPECIALLY ALONG AND
SOUTH OF THE RIM. NOT EXPECTING ANY SIGNIFICANT ACCUMULATIONS OF
SNOW AT THIS POINT. AFTER A BREAK WEDNESDAY NIGHT...A WEAK S/WV WILL
DIVE NORTH INTO THE UTAH THURSDAY. ASSOCIATED HGHT FALLS WILL ACT
UPON THE RESIDUAL MOISTURE OVER ARIZONA FOR ANOTHER ROUND OF RAIN
AND SNOW INTO THURSDAY EVENING. AFTER THIS...A BROAD RIDGE QUICKLY
MOVES OVER MUCH OF THE WEST FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. PETERSON.



Dennis

[Aslkahuna]

what Flag considers Synoptic Forcing, but personally I would consider the fact that we have the surface low passing about 30 miles south of Sierra Vista with a well defined wind pattern (winds were SSE earlier this morning and are NE now) along with surface convergence and U/A support sufficient synoptic forcing. As a result, we are getting light to moderate rain (not showers) and it looks as though I'll better my guess of 0.25in from this system though nowhere near the 1-2 inches GFS had. Probably closer to the 0.25-0.5in the Eta and NOGAPS had. This makes sense since those two models, which had the southern most tracks yesterday, are verifying well today. Expect the bulk of the rain to end later this afternoon with showers possible into tomorrow as the ULL itself passes south of us.

Steve

[Aslkahuna]

I BUSTED MY RAINFALL FORECAST!! I called for 0.25in from the current system and right now we are at 0.64in and still counting. For the record, the normal monthly rainfall for March here at the house is 0.59in.

Steve

[Stephanie]

:D I BUSTED MY RAINFALL FORECAST!! I called for 0.25in from the current system and right now we are at 0.64in and still counting. For the record, the normal monthly rainfall for March here at the house is 0.59in.

Steve

ALRIGHT! At least there's some good news for a part of AZ anyway.

[azsnowman]

This system just KEEPS hangin' in there PLUS, there's a kicker coming in too. Not much in the way of accumulation, just WET, COLD and WINDY! It appears this is the LAST of the systems for quite sometime and SPRING is coming. Forecast highs of 68 by Tues! In a way, I hate to see it, we've had a LOUSY winter precip wise, temp wise, the coldest in 38 years.....I'm ready for warmer temps but we could use MORE snow and like I said, it appears this is IT!

Dennis

[Aslkahuna]

from this system was confined to SE AZ with much of the rest of the State not sharing in the wealth. This was the consequence of the southern track of the ULL which is now poised to do bad things in the Plains as it accelerates NE. We are still seeing snowshowers over the mountains ahead of the kicker. Curiously, yesterday's runs eased off on the rainfall QPF but the ETA from the day before seems to be the winner as the QPF down here was in the 0.45-0.80in range and the ETA had us at 0.5-0.75in.
The NOGAPS was around 0.3+ and the Canadian in the 10-20mm range. The GFS was out to lunch with 1-2inches. We are expected to warm up and dry out and this is supported by Climo which shows a warm period in the averages during 6-13 March.

Steve