Gust Front Imagery

I just love watching the radar imagery from near ABQ! There seems to be another one of those gust front thingies radiating away from Mt. Taylor right now!

It's moving SE about 20 mph, and it's about to hit I-40!

Now, it's running down the Rio Puerco Valley; probably will reach ABQ only in an attenuated form.

(later)
And now, another, one, coming from the north, down the Jemez River Valley, through and past San Ysidro.

This is fun!

Big storm out near Clines Corners. Probably suppressing convection over the Sandias a bit.

(later)
And yet a third gust front, from the storms over the mesas SE of Acoma. It looks like this one is finally triggering convection, on the high ground of the West Mesa east of the Rio Puerco and west of Los Lunas, and maybe this will the storm that hits ABQ today!

(later, 3:48 p.m. PDT)
That gust front kept propagating east too, and has reached the Rio Grande, triggering more convection just west of Los Lunas and Isleta Pueblo (with El Cerro de Los Lunas as the nucleation point). The storms SW of ABQ may be crossing I-40 and move north, perhaps missing most of the city, but the city can't escape this Isleta Pueblo cell!

There seems to be another gust front propagating south along Highway 44, near San Luis, deriving from the storm cells to the north. It's triggering new storms in the Sierra Nacimiento. And a new cell has started on the mesas just north of Zia.

This is fun!

There is a gust front propagating west, the opposite direction from these others. It seems to originate from storms in the vicinity of Claunch, northeast of Socorro.

Meanwhile, the gust front from the mesas near Acoma has completely crossed the Rio Grande and is climbing onto the East Mesa east of Los Lunas.

These gust fronts might collide.

Meanwhile, the prior gust fronts, from Mt. Taylor and Jemez, that essentially collided NW of Rio Rancho, were inadequate to trigger storms NW of Rio Rancho. I wonder why they weren't strong enough? Paradoxically, maybe the terrain is a bit too high there. The first gust front was probably quite attenuated, because it it was climbing out of the Rio Puerco Valley. Farther south, the terrain poses less of an obstacle. It probably will require storms to move in from the south to get this convection going. and there seems to be something popping up in Rio Rancho now, just north of the Sandoval/Bernalillo County line.

(later: 4:10 p.m. PDT)
That eastward-moving gust front, or whatever it is, is running smack into the Manzanos. The westward-moving one is triggering convection NE of Socorro. And now there is practically a wall of thunderstorms from Isleta to Bandelier.

Meanwhile convection is slowly-weakening around Mt. Taylor.

(later: 4:20 p.m. PDT)
There was apparently a second gust front coming from the NW, down the Jemez River Valley, but probably originating from the storms near Cuba, moving simultaneously with the gust front that reached the Sierra Nacimiento. This second gust front seems to have been the trigger for the convection along the West Mesa, particularly NW of Rio Rancho.

Convection really firing up in the southern Manzanos now as the easterly-moving gust front reaches that area.

(4:30 p.m. PDT)
The storms on ABQ's west side just might miss the city: they seem to be moving north. But as the gust front from the NW sweeps across the Bernalillo area and moves towards the Sandias, storms there finally seem to be firing up. There is also some sign the southern Manzano storms are moving north, so ABQ may still get some rain out of this.

(4:45 p.m. PDT)
There's a little storm cell going in Tijeras Canyon just north of I-40. Southern Manzano storm cells are collapsing. I just bet there will be a gust front from those cells in a few minutes, heading west into the Rio Grande Valley!

Storm cells look like they are deliberately-avoiding the rain gauge at the Sunport. Figures!

There is now a broad arc of thunderstorms from Jemez, along the West mesa, then along I-40 to Grants; then straight south. There is a semi-coherent ring of storms around the flanks of Mt. Taylor, but not on Mt. Taylor.

(4:55 p.m. PDT)
From the southern end of the Manzano storms, there is now a gust front heading straight for Socorro.

(5:15 p.m. PDT)
Storms firing up East of Bernalillo, and towards Placitas. Socorro gust front triggering new convection just SW of town. No new gust fronts....

(5:25 p.m. PDT)
Magdalenas firing up, as well as SE of Socorro.