9-05-09: CA

Severe weather across the SoCal deserts and western AZ, with at least a half-dozen severe-warned storms in the area. However, I was not able to accomplish a quality chase to any of them, except for a late afternoon early evening attempt to intercept an unexpected severe storm in the Coachella Valley opposite the mountains east of me. This huge monster erupted in response to an outflow boundary that raced west through the southern deserts out of a massive storm complex along the CA/AZ border between Blythe and Yuma. It produced flash flooding around Borrego Springs and radar was indicating 2.25" hail. Cloud tops were an astonishing 55k ft!

My intercept attempt was squashed when the storm encountered the diurnal affects of the westerly seabreeze causing it to reverse direction and head east back towards AZ. I was never able to catch up to the storm and I gave up the chase in Indio, right after dark.

I was able to capture these pictures of the storm from several vantage points near where I live. Some of the best mammatus I have seen in this area.