PW Climbing – Death Valley Gets Some Action

The GPS-measured precipitable water at KSLC has been climbing steadily the past two days and is now approaching nearly 4 cm/1.5 inches.

The analysis of precipitable water over the western United States at 0600 UTC from the Global Ensemble Forecast System (sorry this is a bit old, but it's all I've got from home) shows PW > 1 inch across most of the southern Great Basin and > 2 inches in southern Arizona (contours).  The color fill shows the departure of analyzed values from climatology in terms of standard deviations (each color fil level represents one standard deviation).  Across much of the Intermountain West, the precipitable water was 2 standard deviations above the mean, with a peak of about 3 standard deviations around Area 51.  Hmmm...

The National Weather Service has issued flash flood watches for portions of southern Utah and Nevada, with a flood advisory presently in place for Death Valley.  Looks like they are getting some rare rains down there, if it is not all evaporating before it reaches the valley floor.