monsoon on?

[bill mudd]

seems early for us to be into the s/west monsoon season....

anyone have stats on start up dates?
and if it starts early does that affect the end date?

its been 5 consecutive days here in CA that weve had towers in the desert.....

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

If it has indeed started up and you could correlate with the 2006 severe weather season....it should be ending any day now.

 

[Greg Campbell]

I'm pretty sure Tucson has 'officially' made it. We needed only one more day...

Thw SW has seen a somewhat more humid early summer than usual, with several bursts of storm activity in June. Driving to California early in the month, I enjoyed storms much of the way, geting the rain/lightning treatment in Phx, Kingman, N. Las Vegas, and while crossing the Inyo/White mountains, east of Big Pine. (I was keen to photograph the Bristlecones at twilight, with lightning accents, but the storms drifted away as I waited. FARK!)

At any rate, it's been nice and humid and stormy here in S. Az for the last 8~10 days. After suffering high clouds and piss-poor lapse rates early in the week, the upper air has since dried/cooled slightly, allowing the afternoon/evening storms to do fairly well. I've enjoyed good lightning chasing 4 nights in a row.

The southern flow still isn't going full-chat, but it's producing enough action to keep us entertained.
After enduring the Dog Days of May and June, the Thunderstorm Season is always welcome!

-Greg