Airplanes slice through clouds; leave icy canals and trails

WHAT a gorgeous day was yesterday!  Perfect.  No wonder the northlanders come here in their droves now!  Its great to see (via the increasingly larger number of out-of-state license plates) all the people that want to be where I am already!

While waiting for the storms and cold air just ahead now, this cloud commentary:

Along with the pretty high and middle clouds was a rarely seen phenomenon, aircraft flying into those “supercooled” Altocumulus droplet clouds were converting them to ice in their wakes.  These are similar to contrails, called by me, APIPs, Aircraft Produced Ice Particles.  That’s right, your Catalina Cloud Maven person named that phenomenon, though its not a great name since it could apply to usual contrails as well.  Modest brain strained hard, but couldn’t come up with anything better.  So, given that background, he’s probably going to make a big deal out them when he sees one or two here.

Its rare because the Altocumulus have to be pretty cold, -15 C (5 F) or so and colder1, and at a level where aircraft are flying, usually in a descent or climb pattern to their normal flight altitudes up around the higher Cirrus levels (30-40 kft above sea level and at temperature generally below -35 C).  Typically because of climbing or descending, the ice canals, or holes with icy centers, are short and small.  Here are a few examples from yesterday, but you really want to look at the U of AZ timelapse movie to see a bunch of them going by in those pretty Altocumulus clouds and mackerel skies we had.  Note that as cold as these Altocumulus clouds were, they were not producing ice:

12:21 PM. Ice strip produced earlier by an aircraft that flew through supercooled Altocumulus clouds. Usually these events lead to optical displays like this sun dog almost overhead. You have about 10 seconds to see it, but of course, Mr. Cloud Maven person was waiting for it to happen.
12:21 PM. Ice strip produced earlier by an aircraft that flew through supercooled Altocumulus clouds. Usually these events lead to optical displays like this faint sun dog almost overhead. You have about 10 seconds to see it, but,  of course, Mr. Cloud Maven person, on a hike with friends, was waiting for it to happen.

 

11:21 AM. One of many.
11:21 AM. One of many.
12:19 PM.
12:19 PM.
11:50 AM. Note Cirrus-ee part upper right.
11:50 AM. Note Cirrus-ee part upper right.

And there were other fine sights! Look at this display of Altocumulus perlucidus undulatus, rippled mackerel sky:

11:12 AM.
11:12 AM.
1:19 PM during hike with friends, not just people standing there, in case you thought someone who would write like this and take cloud pictures all day might be a recluse and have no real friends. Shown are Bill and Vollie, George and JoAnn, who are admiring the Cirrostratus shield coming over the horizon.
1:19 PM during hike with friends, not just people standing there as I walked by, in case you thought someone who would write like this and take cloud pictures all day might be a recluse and have no real friends. Shown are Bill and George, JoAnn and Vollie, admiring the Cirrostratus shield coming over the horizon.  (I do see why you might think that, though.)
4:42 PM. Day ended up with a great big halo; haloes are pretty rare here in the kinds of Cirrus clouds we get. More Altocumulus out there, too.
4:42 PM. Day ended up with a great big halo; haloes are pretty rare here in the kinds of Cirrus clouds we get. More Altocumulus out there, too.

Weathering ahead….

Looks like cold spell will last, once underway, into the middle of the month.  SNOW indicated HERE in Catalina-land on the morning of December 11th from a crazy model run based on last evening’s global obs at 5 PM AST yesterday.  Here’s what that morning looks like overhead, at 500 millibars:

Valid at 5 AM AST December 11th. Thinking about making snowballs that morning. Also, in appeal to youthful readers, I have texted some here.
Valid at 5 AM AST December 11th. Thinking about making snowballs that morning. Also, in appeal to youthful readers, I have texted some here.  Astonishingly deep cold air piles into Arizona,  Those northlanders will be piling into their jeeps and heading home.  Unfortunately, an examination of the reliability via the newly named, “Lorenz plots” from NOAA, show virtually no support for this “solution.”  It appears, at least for the moment, dang, as a crazy outlier, likely due to some goofy error (s) WAY upstream somewhere.  But, its fun to contemplate snowballs here in Catalina.

 

BTW, the local weather services all around the SW are already worked up over the coming cold wave and have issued Special Statements, quite fun to read because they reflect the excitement we weather folk are feeling now as we look ahead to wind some rain, and a big frontal passage followed by cold air.  After all, the weather’s pretty dull here in SE AZy most days of the year, and by “dull” I mean that not much is happening except for pretty clouds and nice temperatures, a weatherperson’s “dull.”

The End.

 

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1 Yesterday afternoon’s Tucson balloon sounding which I forgot to look at until now:

Rawinsonde balloon sounding data from Tucson. Balloon launched around 3:30 PM local, rises at about 1,000 feet a minute.
Rawinsonde balloon sounding data from Tucson. Balloon launched around 3:30 PM local yesterday;  rises at about 1,000 feet a minute.

By Art Rangno

Retiree from a group specializing in airborne measurements of clouds and aerosols at the University of Washington (Cloud and Aerosol Research Group). The projects in which I participated were in many countries; from the Arctic to Brazil, from the Marshall Islands to South Africa.