Eastern Arizona prepares for significant large hail and intense wind event with thunderstorms

According to the Arizona Weatherman, on Friday, 23 Aug 2024, Eastern Arizona is looking at the likely possibility of large hail potential and strong convective gusts today. The pattern is still shifting to a more eastern impact for the state rather than a more northern impact, as it has been over the last few days.

Model data indicating afternoon thunderstorms for Friday, 23 Aug 2024.Photo byPivotal Weather

As the upper-level flow shifts in the east, our mid-level steering flow becomes more south-southwest to northeast flow throughout the day. The upper-level speed divergence, coupled with an unstable atmosphere and orographic lifting, is placing severe weather on the table. The stability indices on the skew-t data indicate moderate to stronger indices with CAPEs in the 2,500 to 3,000 range, LI in the -7 to -9 range, no capping, and almost all of the data indicates the potential for greater than one inch in hail. Convective gusts over 60 mph are also likely due to dry air entrainment. Lastly, localized flooding is still possible.

The high-resolution convective models indicate that after 1 p.m. into the early evening hours, Cochise, Eastern Pima, Eastern Pinal, Graham, Gila, Greenlee, Navajo, and Apache Counties are in the path of potentially severe thunderstorms today. Some locations that are likely to have thunderstorms in the vicinity or overhead are Sierra Vista, Benson, Willcox, northern Tucson in the Catalina Mountains, and Safford. The biggest threats today should be large hail and strong winds.

Source: The Arizona Weatherman, a seasoned meteorologist with over 25 years of experience in aviation meteorology with the United States Air Force, government contracting, and private practice, provides this forecast. His experience training Special Operations Weather Technicians (SOWT) in weather techniques and his state certification as a STEM teacher further underscore his expertise. His weather predictions are trustworthy.

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