Wow! Between midnight and 9 am, I have already experienced several of my favorite activities, including: being awoken by thunder right overhead and walls rattling in the middle of the night; breakfast; and a swim in the rain!
Apparently, the thunderstorm hit between 12 and 1 am. It never occurred to me to get up, get dressed, and go outside to look, but apparently there was an SJSU presence outside :-)
Got a wake-up text at 6:30 am from Mike. Basically: "Cells are moving in - let's go!". Part of the group dashed off at 7:15 to experience the heavy cells moving in, with cores just west of us. I chose to walk across the street to Coco's for breakfast, and walk back in the heavy rain. Does that make me a slacker? (Warning: saying yes could reduce your grade!)
We had moderate-heavy rain for quite a spell this morning (in addition to overnight rain), so I persuaded the hotel staff to open the pool early. Which is how I came to be jumping in and bobbing around in rain at 8:45 am. Pool-hot tub-poll-hot tub - you get the picture.
All in all, it's been a very active morning, and it's only 9:30! We are now meeting to decide the plan for either the whole day, or the first half. Right now, radar is showing rain across much of western AZ west of I-17 (which runs from FLG down to Phoenix). Hence, we don't expect much heating there yet. A bit less activity to the east, so we're hoping the clouds will clear to allow heating to fire off storms later. The northeastern quadrant is looking promising. Stay tuned!
Welcome to AZ stormchasing! Are you working with any locals?
ReplyDeleteToday, insolation will definitely be a big player.
I'm in Paradise Valley (10 mi NE of downtown Phoenix) and we got no rain last night. OTOH, a week or so ago, we got 2.5" (per a neighbor) in an hour, while a friend 3 mi W got nothing.
Our monsoon is a lot of "almosts"!
Good hunting.
Oh - a suggestion... the raindrops in your background make the posts hard to read... you might want to dial them down a bit.