Drizzly day
Wednesday’s rainfall doesn’t provide much to measure
Yuma-area residents got to enjoy a steady sprinkle of rain mid-morning Wednesday, but the epoch did not add up to much in terms of measurable precipitation, according to the National Weather Service.
“Very little fell in the Yuma area, and from what I see maybe up in the Foothills there was maybe a little bit more than a trace, but really it just kind of fell apart right as it got toward town, then,” said meteorologist Mark O’Malley from the Phoenix NWS office.
A storm system moved into Yuma County from the east in the morning, rather than the usual route they take from the Pacific Ocean to the west or the Gulf of California in the south.
O’Malley said some radar maps indicated slightly more precipitation could have fallen in the Foothills area, but “I don’t have any official observations up there, but it shows there maybe was up to a tenth of an inch in some parts of the Foothills and points east.
“But again, these are just estimates from the radar,
and I really don’t think it amounted to too much,” he added.
Trace amounts of rain were reported by the official weather station at Marine Corps Air Station-Yuma in hourly data sent from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday. A trace of rain means there was enough moisture to be observed visibly, but it cannot be measured reliably by a rain gauge.
Representatives from the
city of Yuma police and fire departments and the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office said no weather-related incidents had been reported as of Wednesday afternoon.
O’Malley said this morning’s conditions could be similar: “There’s a chance (this) morning you may be getting something similar, when you get a lot of clouds and some sprinkles. But it really is not looking like much for the Yuma area.”
Wednesday’s afternoon temperature had peaked at 100 degrees as of 5 p.m., and today’s forecast high is 106,
with a low of 85.
“And then, I hate to say it, but it’s hot and dry again this weekend, with the temperatures back up near 110 degrees,” O’Malley said.
But next week is looking a little better for those who enjoyed Wednesday’s very light morning rain.
“There is some promise for the middle to end of next week, that it could get pretty active again, so that would probably be your next really good chance of rain in Yuma, is toward the middle of next week. So at least there’s something to
talk about, there’s some hope,” he said.
The trace of rain Wednesday followed a flash flood warning from Tuesday night for Imperial County, just to the west of Yuma, and a small area in the Imperial Sand Dunes west of Brawley did get a burst of heavy rain.
“Looks like it was just east of Glamis in some of the sand dune areas, a really localized area got over an inch of rain in a very short time frame out there, but it didn’t span more than 10 or 20 square miles,” he said.