Plaincast
What the forecast actually says — NWS Area Forecast Discussions, decoded into plain English.
Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for Flagstaff, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.
Chances for showers and thunderstorms increase today as a trough brushes by. Enough moisture remains in place Saturday and Sunday for shower and thunderstorm chances in the higher terrain. Thunderstorm chances ramp up again Monday onward as more troughs interact with the monsoon moisture in place across the state.
Monsoon moisture in place will finally have a trigger mechanism acting on it as a trough brushes by. While most of the trough remains to the north, the southern edge will be close enough to generate some showers and thunderstorms across Arizona. Short term models are showing showers in areas north of Interstate 40 in the morning through the afternoon with areas primarily east of Interstate 17 firing off in the afternoon. Things look like they may remain active into the night time hours over eastern Arizona as the trough moves through. Typical monsoon hazards will be in place, mainly frequent lightning, gusty winds, heavy rain and the potential for some isolated flash flooding.
On Saturday this first trough moves through the area taking its dynamics with it. Enough moisture will remain in place Saturday and Sunday for isolated to scattered thunderstorms over the highest elevations with terrain influence and daytime heating being the main triggers.
Starting Sunday night and lasting through Wednesday a series of troughs move through, each interacting with the monsoon moisture still over the area. This will bring more widespread shower and thunderstorm chances each afternoon Monday through Wednesday.
After the trough moves through Wednesday models are showing some drying behind that trough that could potentially bring a dry spell starting Thursday and lasting through the weekend. Will keep monitoring to see if that indeed holds out.
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Flagstaff discussion at /o/FGZ/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.
Data from the National Weather Service. Translated by Claude. About · For developers & agents · Subscribe: RSS feed for this office · Source on GitHub