Subtle Changes

Sometimes Mother Nature hits you over the head, but other times she's more subtle.  Today we are dealing with some subtle changes in the weather.

The loop below shows the 300-mb wind vectors, precipitable water, and IR satellite imagery over the past two days.  In particular not the strong upper-level anticyclone centered over New Mexico and west Texas.  Click on it to enlarge.

Southerly flow on the back (western) side of the anticyclone has increased the precipitable water over southern Utah over the past 24 hours.  Thus, we'll see scattered showers and thunderstorms in that area today.  Northern Utah will see the thunderstorm likelihood increase a bit overnight tonight and into tomorrow.  This is not a major monsoon surge, so isolated to scattered thunderstorms are expected.

Note also the westward track of what is now Hurricane Greg (formerly tropical depression seven E) south of Mexico, which we discussed in the previous post.  I'll take a closer look at Greg either later today or early tomorrow.  He may have some mischief up his sleeves yet.