Arizona Weather Force has issued a Tornado Watch for Central to Northern Arizona, including the Northern Phoenix Valley areas, Yavapai County cities, Flagstaff, and Payson effective today as an upper-level low is expected to move into the region.  Already, showers and thunderstorms have hit right on time to the previous update, stating that the next storm chance would be October 5th, which was written back on September 30th.  So really there is no need for an update other than this watch area.

Shear and instability along with upper lift on the eastern periphery of the upper-level low will make this possible.   This is similar to the pattern many years ago when Flagstaff’s forecast area had a tornado outbreak.  I expect a number of tornadic storms today in or around the watch area …