No tornado, but powerful storm left swath of damage across Tucson

A large complex of storms with high winds and many microbursts left extremely widespread damage in Tucson early Sunday evening.

“This is the strongest (monsoon) event for Tucson I’ve seen in my almost 20 years,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Glenn Lader.

National Weather Service Meteorologists have received reports of downed trees, and even building damage focused in areas of central and northwest Tucson and up into Marana as a result of the storm.

“Just on my drive in to work (from Marana) I probably saw 50 downed trees. There had to be thousands of downed trees across the metro today,” Lader said, adding that at the University of Arizona, where the weather service office is, there are toppled trees across campus.

The storm started started Sunday afternoon between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. and lasted until about 7 p.m. before continuing on to Pinal County and towards the Phoenix area, said National Weather Service meteorologist Kiera Malarkey.

During the storm, the temperature dropped significantly.

“At 4:40, it was 100 degrees. By 6:30, it was 74 degrees,” Malarkey said.

Despite a couple of rare tornado warnings issued by the weather service during the storm, and despite many residents’ social media posts insisting there was at least one tornado, meteorologists do not think a tornado was the cause of yesterday’s damage.

“There isn’t enough evidence to support that there was an actual tornado on the ground so we do not have any teams out,” Malarkey said.

“It was seemingly straight-line winds. Microbursts,” Lader said.

Each of the many storm cells or clusters in the line of storms that moved through likely brought numerous microbursts, he said.

The highest wind gust recorded was 76 mph in the Tucson Mountains, but winds in the 60-70 mph range were recorded at quite a few sites, particularly from midtown and up to the northwest side.

A tornado touched down earlier this month, causing some damage in a concentrated area of Tucson’s southeast side, but no injuries were reported. In June, a woman was killed when she was swept away in the Rillito River during a weekend of strong monsoon storms here.

Sunday’s storm left more than 31,000 Tucson Electric Power customers without power after high winds and storm activity damaged or toppled more than 40 poles, the utility said Monday on social media Monday. “Our crews have been working all night and about 5,000 customers are without power this morning. We are prioritizing parts of our system that provide power for the largest number of customers. We know it’s frustrating to be without power, particularly in such hot conditions,” the post said.

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For more information on cooling centers that can provide relief can be found here, and watch the outage map for updates.

Damage reported on X and Facebook by residents, TV news crews and What’s Up Tucson, among others, included:

More than 20 tall trees uprooted and downed at Mission Palms Apartments on West Orange Grove Road just west of North Oracle Road, with some of them smashed into numerous buildings and several flattened cars.

The side of an Auto Zone store on Prince Road was torn off, in photos shown by KOLD News 13.

A long swath of trees toppled and strewn onto the Interstate 10 frontage road between West Prince and West Ruthrauff roads, in KOLD video.

Twisted and torn metal, and signage ripped off and dangling to the ground, at Circle K at West Congress Street and I-10.

A destroyed metal parking structure at Redondo Tower apartments downtown.

Long-lasting flooding at West Speedway and I-10, where there was reportedly one of several swift-water rescues during the storm; and a car trapped in the North Stone Avenue tunnel.

Westbound Congress Street between North Church and North Granada avenues was closed, and streetcar service was suspended there, due to a large tree blocking the road, the Tucson Department of Transportation & Mobility reported.

During the storm, a mere .11 of rain was recorded at the airport, where the city’s official readings are taken, but rain totals elsewhere in the metro area included 2.24 at West Ruthrauff and North La Cholla Boulevard, county flood control district data show. And 2.09 inches fell at La Cholla at Rillito Creek. At West Ina Road and the Santa Cruz river, 1.14 inches of rain fell and 1.61 inches fell just south of there near The Loop.

“This was a pretty uncharacteristically strong storm. But that isn’t to say that this is not something that can happen again or in the future. It’s something that people want to prepare for.” Malarkey said. “Thunderstorms are a very common thing for monsoon season and you should be prepared for storms like this.”

Malarkey said it is important to remain vigilant to adverse weather, and to seek out a safe place during severe storms.

Photos: Monsoon 2024 in Tucson