Friday 7/9/2004 - Near Nogales, AZ
Had my first away-from-home adventure of the year Friday. I left ELP around noontime Friday, stopped briefly in Benson before heading South towards Sonoita and Patagonia, where things seemed to be boiling up in the mountains by afternoon. Unfortunately, the convection stayed fairly weak, and by early evening I found myself in Nogales. The best storms were further SE over the mountains in NE Sonora, and though I was tempted, I decided against going down that way without further planning. Ideal trips south of the border will involve exploring the area during daylight hours, and knowing a good direct route back to a major highway as Mexican backgrounds can be dangerous at night with livestock, and vehicles with no headlights. I decided to save the $24 for a day's worth of auto insurance for later in the season. Even so, I photographed some dying cells to the SE and SW on some isolated ranch roads between Nogales and Kino Springs. Predictably, I ran into Border Patrol agents who simply cautioned me about the area's "traffic" but were surprisingly friendly. They said it was best to keep some sort of running lights in the vehicle on when stopped to keep away any trouble... 'if they see lights, they'll think you're us and stay away.'
The weakening storms, which were a good distance SE, looked impressive at sunset, but were "weakly charged" and I soon lost interest after dark. I headed back towards Tucson and spent the night parked at a trailhead parking lot in Saguaro West and wasn't interrupted at all during the night.
Saturday 7/10/2004 - Green Valley-Tucson-San Manuel, AZ
The day dawned with a rather boring sunrise in Saguaro NP... no clouds, and a desert winter-like harsh early morning light. Pretty disappointing. Decided to stay in the area today and hope for some upslope activity on the mountains east and south of town, along the I-19 corridor. Killed the early part of the day by exploring downtown Tucson, taking a few photos, and driving up to Sentinel Peak. Cu was forming in the higher elevations all around, and looked more promising than the previous day. It appeared like the best storms of the day were forming on the Santa Ritas, so I headed south towards Green Valley to get a closer look. These storms were moderately charged, but there was still too much light, and not enough lightning for daytime photos, though I tried (could only get exposures down to 1 sec with ND filters). There were plenty of impressive rainshafts in all quads, and took a few shots despite poor foreground (a new Yuppie Subdivision being built off White House Canyon Road.) Storm were firing up all around, probably along the Tumacacoris and the San Cayetanos, and were slowly moving north, so I headed back towards Tucson via Business-19, and soon intersected what had become a fairly impressive outflow boundary. By the time I got to Tucson, things had become overcast, with the storms to the south bringing in cool outflow air. I still had a few hours before any good light, so I was faced with a decision. Head NW and set up somewhere in the Silver Bell Mountains looking East towards Tucson and hope something fires up over there by dusk, or head NE out of town on a relatively obscure road through Tanque Verde Canyon and hope to find some storms by dusk near San Manuel north of Tucson.
I picked the latter, which may have been a mistake in terms of lightning photography, as there did seem to be some storms north of me the whole time driving up this road that I simply couldn't get a good vantage point on that might have been visible from the Silver Bell Mountains... but in the end, I think it was the best decision overall due to the unexpected results. This road was much slower than I expected, so sunset occurred when I was just north of "Redington" (just a placename on the map). However, the sunset light was filtered through dying convection to my North and West and cast the most unbelievably beautiful light on the surrounding mountains and hillsides, turning desert rocks into strange earth-toned pastels, making for some powerful silhouettes against the thousands of Saguaro cacti all over this area. A few strikes of lightning to the north, and the rumbles of thunder punctuating an otherwise dead silent landscape just added to the surreal nature of the whole affair. The lightning to the north was not frequent enough to warrant ditching my sunset photos. Still, the photographs I took this day made the whole trip worth it, whether I saw any lightning or not.
Eventually, I made it back to Tucson, showered, and spent the night at the Triple T truckstop. Showers $8... rating a C+. Not the cleanest facility in the world, and more expensive than the average truckstop shower... still it is a independently-owned facility, and the only game in town unless you want to travel to Benson or Eloy. Also, they are on truckstop.net.
Sunday 7/11/2004 - Gila Wilderness, NM
Felt like there was a good chance of storms in SE AZ again on Sunday, but figured a change of Venue might not be a bad idea. Original thought was to head back to ELP then perhaps catch storms firing up on the Sacramento Mtns of NM, but past experience tells me that these storms tend to pop up the earliest, and stabilize the air surrounding the region by evening. Last week's fun (two weeks ago??) featured storms firing in the mountains first, with colliding outflows over the lowlands producing storms towards dusk. So, I decided to take a slow road home through the Gila Wilderness, perhaps get some daytime shots of storms in the mountains, then hopefully catch an evening show in the Valley.
Unfortunately, I took a really slow road. Headed north on 191 in AZ, and followed this road to Three Way, AZ where I picked up AZ-78 which followed some incredible terrain and overlooks into Mule Creek, NM. Headed north on US-180 from there to Glenwood, topped off on fuel, then headed East on NM 159 through some more incredible terrain with off-road paths leading to beautiful overlooks, into the awesome little "ghost town" of Mogollon. Beyond Mogollon, the road follows a steep, wooded canyon which other than realizing the huge flash flood potential the area has, was otherwise boring. I picked up FR142 (called Loco Mtn road in DeLormes) through more and more thickly wooded terrain, past Snow Lake, all the way to NM59, which I followed all the way to Winston, NM. By now it was dark. I'll never drive that road past Mogollon again... just boring dense forests. Might as well have been in northern Maine. There were some very distant storms off to the NE that I could see some flashes of lightning from, but there were no favorable horizons, and the lightning was relatively sparse. So I headed towards Truth or Consequences, NM, and then home for the night.
I still need to catch up on what actually happened around here the past few days by looking at radar archives, etc. Looks like Sunday would have been better spent in Tucson, and there was some activity here on Saturday as well.
Today looks like we have our friendly easterly wave moving into central Chihuahua, with a thin region of drier air and subsidence out ahead of it. Things are already popping in SE AZ and in the Gila Wilderness, but interestingly, nothing much in the Sacramentos. Looking at the 18z soundings from the region (NAME IOP #2 in effect), you can clearly see the drier air aloft in EPZ and ABQ, but things are nice and moist points SW and also east. Note the nicely saturated sounding in MAF. Water Vapor shows mid/upper level moisture beginning to come back into SE New Mexico, so perhaps the thin region of drier/subsident air out ahead of this wave will act to just delay convection in the Sacs to a more favorable time for photography, with deeper moisture coming back in my late afternoon/early evening? I might head east on US-70 later on, perhaps finding some luck either near White Sands or on some of my favorite spots west of High Rolls on the US82...
(Admins, this whole thread might belong in Storm Reports, but I don't think there'll be a heck of a lot of forecast posts or reports posts for each individual day, so perhaps it is good to have a generic "Monsoon" / lightning photo thread?)
Happy monsoon everyone!
-Mike
