August 2009 Stats & Weekend Rain

We've moved into September, let's take a look back at how the month of August ended up. Last month was another hot one (second in a row) with temperatures running about 3 degrees above average for the month. That is a little cooler than our very hot July... however we ended up drier than July. Though we picked up .09 inches of rain more in El Paso for August compared to July, we ended up well over an inch below normal. August is typically our wettest month! This doesn't bode well for a possible developing drought across the area. The monsoon season is coming to a close within the next few weeks and for the year we're still running over an inch behind normal. So will we get some much needed rain? The 12z runs of the computer models have just come in and so far they seem to be funneling more moisture our way for the weekend. Everything depends on three major factors. Our upper level ridge of High pressure, which currently sits over North Central New Mexico; an upper level trough of Low pressure that is scheduled to slide across the Western U.S.; and the remnant moisture of Hurricane Jimena; which should be near the Arizona border by Friday afternoon. We need these three ingredients to work together to bring us potential rain for the Labor Day weekend. Our precipitable water values (the amount of water evaporated in a column of the atmosphere and is a measure of atmospheric moisture) will be over an inch in El Paso by the weekend. This means some of the rain could be heavy at times. Again, more updates on this developing weather situation on Newschannel 9.