Arizona storms bring rain, hail, and flood warnings

You're watching the Fox 10 Weather Experts with meteorologist Crystal Ortiz on Fox 10 News. Hi, welcome back. Take that look right now. Tempe Town Lake, dark clouds. There are some showers now approaching the Tempe area. They're just starting to bubble up. Good news is these things are not looking severe at this point. This is just some rain that is starting to fire off in the valley, but we're at 74 degrees in Tempe and winds are calm. And then rain coming down in Flagstaff. Check out that one. Those clouds look like they're just touching the ground. We've got some good steady rain that's coming through the Flagstaff area currently, and they are moving fast. As you can see, those clouds literally look like they're kind of flowing along with the atmosphere. Here's our view on Fox Vision. Scattered areas of thunderstorms, some are strong to severe. You can see a line that's firing up over parts of Yavapai County and into Coconino, and then this nice cluster that's sitting in eastern Arizona. This has been the area where we've had severe thunderstorm warnings all morning long. They've been kind of popping up here and there so the latest severe thunderstorm warning until 7:45 for this cell that may produce some large hail as well as damaging winds it just hopped over an area along the edge of St. Johns and we're going to zoom in closely there so you can see look at the hail tracker it was showing that some hail size of maybe three quarters of an inch to an inch in diameter enough that may cause some damage just rolled through looks like the latest hail tracker update doesn't have it quite as heavy but still heavy in that neck of the woods. Then we look to the Heber to Snowflake area where there are additional thunderstorms. These are not severe but heavy rain and some lightning with those and they stretch up to Holbrook where there's some steady rain falling along Interstate 40. There's the rain we just took that shot from Flagstaff really coming down good over the San Francisco Peaks where Snowball's getting additional rain and thunderstorms as we speak. A very strong thunderstorm cell that is moving right along the highway here outside of Cottonwood. This is lifting northward, but again, heavy rain and lightning, kind of the theme of the morning with these cells. And then finally, let's drop down into the valley, where we do now see a little line of showers that's fired up. All morning long, most of the computer models were suggesting it would start in the West Valley and then run east, but Mother Nature does what she wants. So this has started in the East Valley, just along the 101 and parts of Scottsdale, where we do have some thunder that's rumbling out there. Heaviest rain is right over the 101. It looks like right around what is that close to where like Odyssey is and right up along to the areas south of Taliesin West where we've got the heaviest rain. Some of the thunderstorms that are hitting the East Valley are hitting around the 202 between say the 101 and like Country Club currently. On the future cast, the storms that we currently have are going to continue to kind of pass by the valley, just skirting the valley with storms up through Prescott, Flagstaff and eastern Arizona as well. Notice the model by one o'clock does have the storm starting to clear Phoenix and some sunshine taking place behind it. But there are additional strong to severe storms likely through this afternoon into eastern Arizona before finally tonight everything should start to clear and by Friday we are back to a dry pattern. Still though there is a severe thunderstorm watch that ends later this morning for the high country and closer to midday for central Arizona. This is because large hail, damaging winds, as well as that low tornado threat are still present in this forecast. The flood risk is still there too. So the area shaded in yellow, which extends from Flagstaff to Phoenix and all the way eastward through Safford and to the state line under that scattered flooding potential because of the fact in part that we had a good deal of rain yesterday. So in areas the ground is saturated, now we're getting extra rain falling on it today. Creeks, streams, rivers may already be kind of getting close to flood stage. Any extra rain today could be enough to put it over. Look at the wind forecast. In the valley, 20-25 mile per hour winds are expected, so it'll be breezy regardless of storms because the area of low pressure triggering all this is coming in from the west right now, so that's going to kick up our winds. And for the high country, that does mean quite gusty afternoon in the 30 to 40 mile per hour range expected. Your forecast temperatures for today, we're looking in those 80s here in the valley. Low 80s, though, so still quite comfortable. 62 for Show Low and 56 in Flagstaff. And as we go to the 10-day forecast, there is not going to be a lot of warming these next few days. Only upper 70s for highs. Friday, Saturday, 81 on Sunday, and back to middle 80s. But, guys, that's not until next week.