Flash Flood Watch for Southeast Arizona - July 20, 2026 Phoenix, Arizona Weather Discussion

[00:00:01]It's the Phoenix, Arizona weather discussion. This is for Monday, the 20th of July. I'm Michael Grath. Another active monsoon day is expected across the state with strong thunderstorms and very heavy rain that could lead to flood or flash flooding over parts of southeast Arizona. Numerous showers and thunderstorms expected over northern and eastern parts of the state with widely scattered thunderstorms expected elsewhere. The weather for tomorrow looks rather uncertain as a weather disturbance moves into the state. We'll try to figure out what that means for us here in the valley and across the rest of Arizona. And then as we go deeper into the week and heading toward the weekend, it sure does appear that temperatures are going to go up. And I mean way up with desert highs getting up into that extreme heat category. That means highs could be as high as 115° plus. We'll talk about that, plus what it means for rain chances. All of that and so much more as we dive on in and discuss. Hey everyone, it's Michael Gra here to talk to you about your roof.

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[00:01:39]All right, let's get into it here.

[00:01:40]First, we'll take a look at that almanac from yesterday. 105° was the afternoon high in Phoenix after a low temperature of 84. 107 and 85 are the averages for this time of year. A trace of rain officially at Sky Harbor yesterday.

[00:01:55]Again, there were some spots over the West Valley that did see at least a little bit of rain. 4,400s of an inch so far in the bucket this month at Sky Harbor. That's a bit below average, but maybe we'll see some more rain before it's all said and done. As we take a look outside right now here at 10:25 a.m. partly cloudy sky out there. We're sitting at 94° at Sky Harbor. Dupoint still hanging in there at 59. Relative humidity 31%. The winds are light and the barometer is steady. Satellite picture out here across the southwest.

[00:02:31]Putting that in motion. You can see what's been going on. It's very similar to what we've seen for the last several days. High pressure remains to the north of us. The flow of loft is generally out of the east or northeast. So, we've seen those showers and storms from the mountains pushed toward the lower deserts. Now, each day the outcome is a little bit different. The air mass was rather stable across south central Arizona last night. So, we didn't really see much in terms of storms in our part of the state, storms across Mexico, storms across the northern part of the state. But today, things could be a little bit different. We do have this easterly wave, this inverted trough we've been talking about for a week now.

[00:03:07]And that is moving our way very slowly from the east and so that should give an enhancement to showers and storms especially across southeast Arizona today and tonight. Here's the watch warning map. Look at all the heat advisories and extreme heat warnings across the plain states and heading into the Great Lakes from the Gulf Coast up to the Great Lakes. Wow. Uh heat index values in those areas could be 105 to 110 degrees. Plus, air temperatures in some of those spots could flirt with 100° in a few locations.

[00:03:39]In addition, we have tropical storm watches and warnings now along the Gulf Coast with our potential tropical storm there. That's a tropical depression right now, but maybe by the time I'm done recording this, it'll be upgraded to a tropical storm uh that is out there over the northeastern Gulf and should hug the Gulf Coast over the next few days and provide lots and lots of rain.

[00:04:01]Out here in the west, we've got heat advisories north of us and red flag warnings and all of that. But in southeast Arizona, there is a flash flood watch in effect and that is until midnight tonight across parts of southeast Arizona. Graham, Greenley, Coochis, parts of Puma and of course Santa Cruz County involved in that. Our friends down there in Willox, Benson, Bisby, Sierra Vista, Safford, Clifton, uh those areas all in that Oh, and Ngalas as well. all included in that flash flood watch. And of course, a flood or flash flood watch means that flooding or flash flooding is possible in and close to the watch area.

[00:04:45]All right, convective outlook for today.

[00:04:47]An enhanced risk of severe storms, level three out of five over parts of the Great Lakes region and the adjacent states with a severe weather threat really from parts of Minnesota all the way eastward into uh Michigan and Ohio. Also a risk of severe storms for the middle atlantic coast.

[00:05:04]Here in Arizona, most of the state in the green, thunderstorms possible. We don't anticipate any organized severe weather.

[00:05:12]That being said, any storm during the monsoon can always become severe with the most likely outcome from any storm like that being strong, damaging straight line winds. In addition, of course, thunderstorms here in Arizona always a threat to produce lots of lightning and blowing dust. And there could even be some small hail and of course some locally heavy rain.

[00:05:34]All right, the tropics in the Atlantic Basin. Well, we don't have anything in the Atlantic, but we do have something in the Gulf. That is uh tropical depression number two. It's likely to become a tropical storm. When it does, well, it's going to continue to move to the west right along the coast there, passing uh just south of Pensacola and Mobile Bay and Beluxy and tracking right toward Norins and continuing west along the Louisiana coast uh with the center going near Houston, Galveastston and further into Texas. And so lots of rain that's going to be the main story.

[00:06:10]Yes, there will be some wind and there could be some storm surge at least a little bit and obviously the threat for some tornadoes uh especially along and north of that circulation center. But still um the the primary risk is going to be from some very heavy rain that could lead to flood or flash flooding. So we'll be watching for that making landfall on the coast of Louisiana sometime uh Wednesday evening. All right, in the East Pacific we have a couple of storms. Well, really Alita is off the board now. This has become a post-tropical system. It continues to move north. Some of that moisture may move move up into central and northern California. We have a brand new tropical storm out there. That is Fausto.

[00:06:51]And Fausto is very rapidly intensifying is expected to become a hurricane later today. Now, this will not have any impact on our weather directly. However, uh we will keep an eye on where this is going because maybe down the road we'll have to watch as a possible threat to the Hawaiian Islands if it does hold together out there. Uh but for now, it's just something that we're going to keep an eye on.

[00:07:13]Um and again, this is expected to become a hurricane. It might briefly become a major hurricane. We'll just have to see.

[00:07:21]All right, closer to home, that precipitation outlook. This is valid through next Monday morning for the WPC.

[00:07:27]Rain amounts in Phoenix, a few hundreds of an inch, maybe a tenth of an inch across the higher terrain of northern and eastern Arizona. Rain amounts could exceed 2 in in some spots. And obviously any storm is capable of that. We've had that day after day after day in some spots around the state. Uh with any storm that pops up being capable of producing that, the environment is still very very rich with moisture. So obviously uh that is a possibility. Now, storms will be a little bit less numerous, especially across southern Arizona today. But there's a bit of a caveat to that. We're going to talk about it right now and everything else as we get to the models and see what the future may hold. Here we go. This is the GFS. It's the 12Z run valid 5:00 this afternoon. The upper look at 500 millibars. It's about 18,000 ft above sea level. All right. Short wave coming into the Great Lakes. We have uh our system there in the northeastern Gulf.

[00:08:22]And we have our inverted trough that is coming a little bit closer to us now moving toward New Mexico and ultimately toward southeast Arizona by tonight and tomorrow.

[00:08:33]Of course, high pressure is still the dominant feature out here in the west.

[00:08:36]And so we still have an easterly steering flow of loft. So what it all means for us down at the surface for the rest of the day today, partly cloudy in Phoenix, still humid. And we will see numerous showers and thunderstorms over northern and eastern Arizona. And storms could become widespread by late this afternoon and tonight in southeast Arizona with the primary threat down there being heavy rain. But a few storms could get on the strong side. In Phoenix, high temperatures today around 101 to 105°. Mostly 70s, 80s for the high country, upper 80s and 90s for our high desert areas. And again, rain chances again in the mountains in the 70 to 80% bracket. mostly 40 to 50% bracket across our high desert areas. Our our locations across especially Yavapai County, parts of Hila County, uh decent rain chances for today. And in the southern part of the state here in the south central deserts right now for the day today, the daytime hours, rain chances are pretty low, generally around 10%.

[00:09:38]But let's talk about a little bit in more detail how the afternoon may play out. Let's take a look at our high resolution guidance here. This is the HRR high resolution rapid refresh model.

[00:09:49]This is 5:00 this afternoon, the simulated radar product.

[00:09:53]And again, the radar may not look exactly like this, but you see showers and storms again, especially northern and eastern Arizona. Few storms to the south of Phoenix as well. But this is kind of how things look to start out this afternoon or by later this afternoon. And we'll see a lot of storms out there in the eastern part of the state moving west with that easterly steering flow. And that'll be interesting because by tonight around 8:00, well, now we've got storms getting very close to the greater Phoenix area according to the HR model. Now, I will tell you some of our other high resolution guidance, the NAM and the RAP and some of these others, um, you know, in the Href there, they are not as optimistic on bringing storms into the lower deserts, including Phoenix. Um, but one thing that the HR seems to really be buying into and the wild card for this evening is a Gulf surge that's expected to take place later this afternoon and this evening uh out of the Sea of Cortez coming up into southeast California and southwest and south central Arizona and that could really help to fuel additional storm development as these storms roll in from the east. Also, there's kind of a hint at some colliding outflow boundaries from these storms to the north and then the storms to the east across the south central deserts. That is obviously always a concern and that can lead to additional widespread storm coverage and maybe some severe weather, but it's a somewhat conditional threat and so we just haven't really bumped rain chances up very high as a result. There will no doubt be some storms around, but will they get into Phoenix? That's the question. And the HR says they absolutely will sometime in the early or mid evening hours. So, we're going to keep an eye out here. But as is just almost always the case with monsoon storms, even if this does play out as advertised, you know the deal. Some of you will see storms, some of you will not. That's just the way it goes. All right. And then of course by 10:00 tonight, sure looks like storms will again continue to rumble across the Phoenix metro area if this verifies. And so we could have an active night. And we sure hope that this does come to fruition as advertised. But this is I wouldn't say it's an outlier. It's been very consistent.

[00:12:23]But a lot of the other high resolution guidance is either much less bullish on storms or doesn't show any storms at all. The HR has done a very good job in handling a lot of these storms in recent days and really this season. So, we're leaning on it, but it's it's bound to miss eventually.

[00:12:43]All right. Elsewhere, storms will start to fizzle out across southeast Arizona.

[00:12:46]They'll push to the west and we'll see some storms maybe south of Phoenix also.

[00:12:50]We're going to keep an eye on how things play out tonight. And we could even see some storms rumbling out into northwest Arizona and crossing over towards southern Nevada overnight tonight as well and into the early morning hours on Tuesday. Otherwise, lows tonight will mostly be in the 80s to near 90, especially if we don't get any rain in Phoenix. Otherwise, lows could be a little bit cooler than that, obviously.

[00:13:12]Here is tomorrow, and this this is a a question mark of a day for sure. our little inverted trough begins to move into the eastern part of the state, it may start to turn a little bit more toward the north. And if that happens, the winds here across uh south central Arizona would back out of the south as opposed to the east. And so that's not a great wind direction to get these storms to come off the mountains into the lower desert. Still, there'd be a chance of storms tomorrow and tomorrow evening, but not nearly as great if that's right.

[00:13:46]Now, if the position of this trough is a little further south, that would be better for us. Uh we're we're going to keep an eye on that, too.

[00:13:54]So, we'll keep rain chances kind of up in the 30 to 40% bracket for tomorrow evening here across the lower deserts.

[00:14:00]But the best chance of storms again tomorrow will be found over eastern northern Arizona as well. Flag staff and down to Xolo and Hanigan Meadow and Greer and St. John's and those places.

[00:14:11]Uh, Pinetop, Lakeside, Forest Lakes, you know, all those areas. Uh, the rest of the state, you know, we'll just see those scattered showers and storms. All right, high temperatures in Phoenix tomorrow about 100 to 104. All right, on Wednesday, we'll see highs again around 101 to 105° in Phoenix with widely scattered late afternoon and evening showers and storms. But high pressure is building and it is strengthening and it's going to continue to do so. And by Thursday, those upper heights really start to climb here and the ridge is going to take a position a little bit more further to the south and east across Texas and New Mexico.

[00:14:55]And the flow aloft here will be southeasterly. So we'll still have at least a chance for some widely scattered afternoon and evening showers and storms. But the story the focus of our uh forecast will shift from storm chances to heat and high temperatures going to start to build to around 109 to 113 in Phoenix. And highs getting well back up into the 80s and 90s over the higher terrain. Friday, high temperatures around 110 to 114 likely with some hottest desert spots easily eclipsing 115°.

[00:15:24]And there will still be a chance for some widely scattered afternoon and evening showers and storms, but they will be far less numerous by this point.

[00:15:32]Heading into the weekend, this is Saturday. Now, curiously enough, the GFS is increasing the number of showers and storms in east central and southeast Arizona Saturday evening. High temperatures here in Phoenix will likely be anywhere from 110 to 115°.

[00:15:46]It is going to be sizzling hot as we head into the weekend. and only isolated thunderstorms will be our potential break from that. But again, they'll be isolated in our part of the state. We'll watch for maybe a disturbance that rotates around this ridge sometime over the weekend. That's always a possibility, but they're very, very hard to time and very hard to even predict whether or not they'll be there, especially at this range. Uh, but still, we'll watch for that. This is Sunday.

[00:16:16]Still scattered showers and storms over east central and southeast Arizona. The GFS either is overdoing this or really is is anticipating a bit of an increase in moisture or some type of instability here.

[00:16:30]And it's always a possibility and we can't say it won't happen, but in our part of the state, we're just going to continue with widely scattered storm coverage. Rain chances in Phoenix will continue to hover around the 10 to 20% bracket during this time until we at least see some convincing evidence to raise those storm chances because the thermal profiles in our part of the state with the upper heights climbing to around 595 to 597 decimeters are just not going to be favorable for any real widespread storm coverage. The the mid levels of the atmosphere are going to be very warm. We're going to have a lot of uh of capping in the atmosphere. So, as storms run into the lower deserts, even if this uh scenario comes to fruition, they're going to run into that brick wall of heat in the mid levels, and those storms are going to fall apart quickly. Now, if we get strong outflow boundaries that trigger new storms, obviously, we could get more uh consolidated widespread storms because the ridge is not in a terrible place to bring in some monsoon moisture. The problem is it's just a very, very strong ridge. And so the heat is going to be more impactful than any monsoon moisture that would be around. All right, a week from today, this is Monday the 27th.

[00:17:40]And again, high pressure is going to be in a somewhat favorable position, you know, theoretically to bring monsoon moisture in. It's north of us, centered over Utah, but the upper heights are around 597 decimeters. That's high. Uh that means that again, very warm air is in place. High temperatures would still be well above 110° here in Phoenix if this is right. But easterly steering flow would at least give us that small chance for late day showers and storms.

[00:18:08]Better chances of storms over the eastern mountains, but even at that, not nearly to the extent that we've been seeing them for the last several days.

[00:18:14]Still scattered showers and storms would be around. Basically the same story on Tuesday the 28th. Basically the same story as we go out to the end of the forecast period Wednesday the 29th.

[00:18:27]The ridge is centered right around the four corners which is where we typically would see a monsoon ridge that subtropical ridge setting up. Again though upper heights around 597 decimeters in the center of that ridge and so the thermal profiles aren't exactly the most favorable for storms.

[00:18:46]Still at least some storms will be around. We're not going to completely dry out during this forecast period.

[00:18:53]It's just that thunderstorm chances will become less. So, we'll go into more of a standard lowgrade monsoon forecast really starting later this week and continuing through the weekend. The exception to that could be east central and southeast Arizona and we'll keep an eye on how that plays out. Looking at the European AI model at the same time, the middle part of next week, and it's very similar.

[00:19:17]I it has the ridge still here over the southwest, but still scattered afternoon and evening showers and storms over the higher terrain with some isolated storms elsewhere. And temperatures would remain obviously well above average even in this scenario. All right, looking at rainfall for Phoenix. This goes out through the 3rd of August. This is off the GFS Ensemble. The Ensemble mean is just under 1 in. That's pretty good.

[00:19:41]Euro Ensemble is a little over a half an inch. Euro AI ensemble, the mean is about a quarter of an inch or just above a quarter of an inch during that same time frame. So, some chances of precipitation will still exist. Uh, we're not taking the monsoon completely out of here. It's just going to be in a little bit more of a quieter phase for a while. But as I say that, there are signs that we could start to see some more impactful uh increases in monsunal moisture right about uh toward the end of the month. So, we will see.

[00:20:19]All right, temperatures off the national blended models. I mean, that's just awful. Uh highs getting up to around 113 or 114 and potentially higher than this.

[00:20:28]115, very possible later this week and heading toward the weekend. And then temps will come down a little bit because of a potential increase in moisture as we go into next week and a return to a somewhat more active pattern. We'll let you know. All right, looking at the CPC outlook, the 8 to 14 day period. And if this is correct, temperatures out here across Arizona expected to be favored toward above average. Of course, they are. In fact, across most of the country, above average temperatures are the favored outcome. But also, above average probabilities of precipitation continue to be advertised by the Climate Prediction Center during this 8 to 14 day period. And that is also some good news.

[00:21:14]All right. Well, that's going to do it for the Phoenix, Arizona weather discussion for today. My next video, it's due back here tomorrow morning.

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[00:24:11][music] Heat.

[00:24:32]Heat.

[00:24:41]>> [music] [music] >> We are adjour. Object. Object.