Mt. Hood, December 1998ish?

Man do I love weather.  It has been a passion and an obsession since I can remember.  It truly is how God made me.  Of course I have a very strong political and “religious” bent too.  I joke that my favorite subjects to discuss are politics and religion and that’s why God gave me such a passion for weather.  So I can relate to people with without offending them.  :-)

My weather fascination started very early.  My folks tell me that I was always talking about it even as a very young child.  I have early memories of unusual weather events when I was a wee lad in Los Angeles.  Severe Thunderstorms one afternoon and ice in the puddles at school one morning.  I was born in L.A. but we moved to Oregon when I was 8.

Growing up in Oregon was great for a weather freak like me.  Numerous storms coming off the ocean and in the 70s that meant lots of surprises in the actual weather compared to the forecast.  Fluctuating snow levels in the Cascades, east winds into Portland combining with overrunning warm air bringing epic ice storms, but not to our house :-( and I could go on about the different weather phenomenon I got to witness first hand.

I had the TV weather down.  KOIN would have the weather on first so I would watch that.  Then I’d switch over to KGW and catch most of their forecast.  Then it was over to KATU to watch the tail end of their weather.  This was especially important on the rare nights when the snow level had a chance to come down to the Willamette Valley Floor.  I remember many a frustrating evening watching it rain while I would stare at the thermometer stuck at 36 degrees trying to will it to come down.

So obviously I was going to go to school to study Meteorology.  I had it all planned out.  Go to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and get a BS in Meteorology and minor in Communications.  They had a TV station on campus.  I had a great score on my ACT and was even accepted into their advanced math program.  I was set.  One big problem.  My drug problem.  I still had some growing up to do and I blew my chance to go to school.

KCBQ 1997ish

The story doesn’t end there however!  I ended up moving to Roswell, NM a few years later.  At 21 years old I took what I could carry and bought a bus ticket and started re-pursuing my dream to be on Radio and TV.  Math and Science were always my favorite subjects in school so naturally I went into broadcasting.

I got a part time radio gig in the early Summer of 1984.  That turned into a full time radio gig.  First overnights and then evenings and then Music Director.  After two years I jumped over to TV as a Master Control Operator, directing news cut-ins and also voicing, shooting and editing commercials.  From there it was into the News Department at another station as a news photog, then a reporter who shot his own stuff and also backing up the weatherman and then finally the weatherman!

Adrienne & Mike in the Morning

Lots of detail left out in the above story, but God helped make a way for me when I had messed up and didn’t choose the easier way.  After another 8 or 9 years on the morning show in Lubbock, Texas as a weatherman, news anchor and feature reporter my life took another turn.  Through it all I have never ever never stopped loving and studying the weather.

Now here I am in Tucson, Arizona.  I have a web site and morning weather web show dedicated to my weather passion.  I just can’t help but share whether the audience is big or small.  When you have a chance, check out the site.  TucsonWeather.us and tune in to “Coffee and a Forecast” every morning (yes, weekends too) at 5:50 Tucson time for the live recording.  Or you can just catch up with it later when I post it on the site and in the Facebook group Tucson Weather.

Whether it is mud in the Pacific Northwest, Baseball sized hail in Lubbock, or Monsoon storms with amazing lightning in Tucson, I love weather.  I especially love snow and cold!  But that is another blog entry (or two).

Of course I have other passions and other web sites that support those.  There is also a lot of detail left out of the above story.  All fodder for future blog entries.  I better post this and get to work.  “Coffee and a Forecast” airs in less then an hour. :-)

Here it is from their website:

Erin also reports that Tucson’s official rain gauge had 1.05″ of rain since midnight (still have all day to go!) shattering the old record of .60″  It’s now the 7th wettest January on record.

Other rainfall amounts range from 1 to 3 inches in the Catalina’s, generally and inch around town.  Looks like we had about an inch and a third near the apartment!

UPDATE: Here are the totals from Rainlog.org for the Tucson area.  I believe these numbers reflect the last 24 hours ending at 7:00 this morning.  Click on the pic for the interactive map.  Looks like I had just under an inch here near the apartment.

Most of the rain fell after midnight on the 22nd.

How low will it go?

It could happen by tomorrow morning.  The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch above 4,000 feet for this evening through 11am tomorrow.  Here’s what’s happening.

A cold front blew through last night with some moderate to heavy rainfall lasting through the night.  We are now on the cold, unsettled side of the storm.  Today’s forecast is for much cooler with the rain showery in nature.  Cold air has moved in aloft, so especially this afternoon when we get a little bit of heating (yes, we get some heating even on a cloudy day) the atmosphere will be pretty unstable.  That means the possibility of some thunderstorms forming.  With such cold temperatures above our heads, it won’t take much for some of those storms to drop small hail.  The winds aren’t as strong as yesterday, and they aren’t as warm.  Yesterday it was south winds gusting to 60+.  Today it’s southwesterly winds gusting to 30ish.

Then there’s tonight.  Another weaker storm is on the heals of the one exiting right now.  It is coming straight down from the Gulf of Alaska.  It’s a cold system that will drop snow levels to 3,500 feet by morning and probably lower at times.  The storm is moving through at night and in the morning hours, so that increases the chances of very low snow levels.  The National Weather Service isn’t putting snow depths on it yet, but there is a chance of some good snows in towns south and east of Tucson such as Tombstone, Sierra Vista, Benson, Wilcox and of course Oracle.

Here’s the fun part.  This storm could also bring some convective activity with it.  In other words, some thunder is possible.  Any thunder activity would drag colder air aloft down to lower elevations causing snow levels to drop.  Even without thundersnow, it will be possible to see snow falling in the Tucson Metro area and possibly sticking in places like Catalina,  Oro Valley, Vail and the Foothills.

We will know more by tomorrow morning.

Rainy Day at the Feeder in '08

and we ain’t done yet. I don’t have time this morning to track down all of the exact amounts and wind reports, so I will just do the best I can off the top of my head.

The storm was intense yesterday. Wind gusts were reported 73 mph and the University of Arizona, 86 mph on Mt. Lemmon, 93 mh in Ajo, I think it was. The Tucson Airport was reporting gusts generally in the low 40s mph range yesterday. There was some damage around town. I saw video this morning on KOLD of a carport shredded at an apartment complex on Mona Lisa near Ina Road.

Other wind damage reports include closed schools today on the Tahono O’dom reservation due to power outages. There were also spotty power outages around Tucson. Two semi’s were blown over on I-10 near Eloy.

With the storm came a lot of rain, flooding and severe weather. In the Phoenix area there were at least two water rescues that I heard about. There was also a report of a tornado in Scottsdale, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet that I know of. Flagstaff already had a lot of snow on the ground. Then it started raining, then it turned into snow being measured in feet. It’s still snowing up there and roads are closed all over the northern part of the state. Residents and business owners in Flagstaff were being encouraged to clear their roofs to prevent collapse.

I went to the movies last night.  Saw “Book of Eli.”  I really enjoyed the movie!  Anyway, on my drive home about 9:30 as my car was being buffeted by the wind and there was a little rain, I was thinking, “This is a lot like an Oregon Coast Storm without the rain.”  It makes sense since it was a pacific storm.  There have been many times in Oregon when there have been 60 mph gusts with driving rain, not too cold out, and spotty power outages, etc.

Today’s forecast is much cooler with showers and maybe some thunderstorms. Snow levels are dropping. I’ll address that in my next post that I’m gonna start here in just a minute or two.

View of the Deck this Morning

It’s 7:42 a.m. as I am starting to type this entry and skies are just now starting to clear.  Clouds will move out quickly, but leaving wind damage, as well as much needed rain and snow, in it’s wake.

I don’t have a lot of storm totals yet as far as rain and snow in the area, but the wind reports are dramatic.  The National Weather Service office in Tucson reports a 73 mph wind gust early this morning at the University of Arizona campus.  A window was reportedly blown in at a business in Sierra Vista thanks to winds gusting to 71.  A friend of mine on Facebook says a tree blew into his house in Oro Valley!  Now that the Sun is up and news crews are getting out, there should be more reports, and pictures, of what the strong winds did overnight.

The great part of the storm was the widespread rain and mountain snow.  The National Weather Service office in Flagstaff is reporting widespread snow totals of 18-24 inches in their area!  I’m hoping to hear that nearby Mt. Lemmon got a foot of new snow.  I am getting set to record the 7:55 a.m. news cut-in from KOLD-TV to see what they have to say about all of this.  I’ll add the video as an update if they have anything cool to report.

Meanwhile, our skies should clear quickly.  As the storm moves out, the winds will go with it, but still quite breezy this morning.  High this afternoon in the upper 50s.  Partly cloudy tonight with a low in the upper 30s.  Sunny tomorrow and a little warmer.

UPDATE 8:01 a.m.: KOLD-TV cut-in didn’t have much to say about wind damage or rain and snow reports.  Maybe at Noon.

UPDATE 10:54 a.m.:  First Alert Meteorologist Erin Jordan reports on KOLD.com that power is out on Mt. Lemmon.  She doesn’t have a snow report from them yet, but rain gauges below the snow line measured over an inch and a half.  That could mean over a foot and a half of snow at the top of the mountain!  Also, I just got the rain gauge reports from rainlog.org from around Tucson.  Looks like about a quarter of an inch near the apartment.  Some places as much as a half inch in the metro area.