This first one grumbled a bit, sent a bolt or two earthward last evening. Dropped a quarter inch on Ms. Lemmon. Hope you caught these brief scenes from two modest Cumulonimbus clouds:
7:05 PM.7:05 PM.7:31 PM. A different, very modest Cumulonimbus cloud that’s almost totally composed of ice (from this view). Note how the orange of the cloud is seen in some solar panels in the foreground. Pretty neat. Eyeball top, upper 20s, temp -20s.
Spurred from hibernation by these scenes somewhat like the flying ants we have around here by a good rain , AND by the amount of rain indicated in SE Arizona in the latest model run, the one based on the 5 PM AST global data. Here’s what happens in that run:
A tropical storm (what is likely to have been a Category 4 or 5 hurricane earlier in its lifetime) whizzes offshore of Baja in in 11 days or so, rather unusual for July, and lassos a humongous amount of clouds and rain, dragging them Arizonaward.
Here are the ark-like outputs from our best model, the “WRF-GFS”, as brought to you by IPS MeteoStar.
Rains move in on the night of the 19th-20th. This output showing the 12 h rain areas ending at 5 AM on the 19th.
The panels below are for every 12 h after the one above.
These heavy rains just go on and on, about three days worth in that run. Have NEVER seen so much rain predicted for this area, and while its too far away to have much confidence in it, its still worth considering as a possible event. You might want to perform some leak checks around the house just in case.
While the rainfall predicted above is somewhat moot, the likelihood of a strong hurricane in the Mexican Pacific is almost assured by our ensemble model runs (spaghetti plots). The signal is strong for one to form down there. Really, this kind of forecast is a remarkable thing that our models can do now days!
Such a hurricane will be fueled by the continuing extraordinary and vast areas of sea surface temperature anomalies; the entire eastern Pacific is aflame in unusually warm water. Check it out:
Sea surface temperature anomalies as of yesterday, July 9th.
As far as today’s weather goes, well, you can see those thin low clouds topping Ms. Lemmon this morning. Dewpoints continue high, around 60 F. And with a trough moving in, should be another breezy, pretty day with scattered Cumulonimbus clouds.
But, for a man’s forecast, not a little wispy one like the one above, see Bob’s site for an outstanding analysis! CMP (Cloud Maven Person) does not have the time to do a good, thorough one, if he could.
But rather these many “Panels of Rain” from our friends at IPS MeteoStar, rendered from yesterday’s 18 Z WRF-GFS model run, these suggesting an earnest few days start to our summer rain season beginning around June 24th.2
Since these are probably wrong….but we can hope.
The End
—————-
11980s techno-pop hit. You remember the 80s don’t you? B-52s? Black Flag? Oingo Boingo? Circle Jerks? The Residents? Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys and their “Holiday in Cambodia3” hit, celebrating Pol Pot? Of course you do. You probably had a mohawk haircut, too. Maybe acted out on stage during midnight showings of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”….
2Sometimes mistakenly called the “monsoon.” The “monsoon” actually occurs in Asia, centered around India. Our American Indians did not call our summer rain season, “the monsoon” and neither should we. We don’t call hurricanes, “typhoons” do we? OK, this is a pitiful commentary, but I like it.
3Used it in seminar….that’s right, to set the mood for a cloud seeding talk.
Well, let us define “cool”….that is, cool for Catalina in May; that is #2, below normal temperatures.
What led to this thought?
I was gasping when I saw this from last night’s NOAA spaghetti factory, as you will as well, and decided I would have to say something about it.
Valid on the 17th of May, 5 PM AST. Wow! And with a persistent pattern like this (red lines dipping so far toward the Equator (which is that dashed line that goes through Hawaii and Mexico1), which we now seem to be in following our little warm up, now in gradual retreat, big flooding will occur in the central and southern Plains States, the kind that makes the 5 o’clock news (or is it 6 o’clock?). Wow.
Pretty unbelievable.
What does it mean for Catalinans: a personal view?
Oh, big windy episodes from time to time during the month, good chance for above normal rain for Catalina, and probably most interesting, the late spring ovenly weather that we like to brag about how we get through wherein so many of our Catalinans and “Tucsonians” flee to the high country, or to Michigan, is held at bay by recurring puddles of cold air up top.
That’s my prediction for May, which has already been ludicrously posted in a prior post many days ago. We might look back at May some day to see how this incredibly unprofessional forecast for a whole month based on one spaghetti run worked out.
If you want professionalism in medium range weather forecasting, then get the hell off this site now! Maybe you’re the kind of person that would rather see a forecast from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center for Catalina and environs. If so, you don’t belong here.
But lets see what they say, anyway for May, then for the whole of mid-April through July…..to add that bit of uncharacteristic professionalism to this site. See maps below:
Looks like they’re pretty clueless about what the temperature’s going to be like here for May–“EC” means equal chances for below normal OR above normal. So, they could be right no matter WHAT happens! But not me. I think Cal is goona be wrong, too; below normal, not above normal temps. Its great when you can just type things like that!
The Big Boys don’t really know what’s going to happen with the May rain here, either, since we are also in an “EC” area. But boy, look at the May rain foretold for the Plains! Looks like a great place to spend May! OKC, maybe. WCWS begins at the end of May, amateurism at its best.
But, at the same time, for the whole of mid-April through the end of July, the Big Boys at the CPC are expecting the drought in areas of the central southern Plains States to persist or intensify–see dark brown areas below.
It will be interesting, being serious for the moment, to see how these predictions, seemingly in some conflict, work out. Note that in the longer view below, Catalina is in an area where drought “persists or intensifies”, even through JULY! Egad.
Nice clouds yesterday….
6:00 AM. Mamma to the S, pretty big mamma. Indicates unstable conditions aloft, maybe some showers will reach the ground.10:01 AM. Heavy vIrga pummels air above Catalina/Saddlebrooke.4:20 PM. High-based Cumulonimbus clouds approached from the south promising blasts of wind, maybe a few drops. No drops here, though.6:47 PM. Cumulonimbus and rain reaching the ground passed to the W-NW of Catalina. Darn.7:04 PM. The moon AND pink virga in the SAME photo! Yours today for $900. Trying to follow through on an Atlantic Mag article, “Blogging for Dollars.” That would be great, but it hasn’t happened yet.7:09 PM. Your Catalina sunset, May 2nd, 2015, Altocumulus castellanus with Cumulonimbus capillatus, along with a Cal palm silhouette.
—————-
Yeah, I saw that report that America’s kids don’t know much about geography, so we’re just checking here to see how bad it really is by suggesting that the Equator goes over the Hawaian Islands (hahaha). But, maybe, they’re really the Galapagos Islands… Am I being too subtle? Sam Cook once pointed out about himself, “Don’t know much about geography”…in his song, “What a wonderful world it would be“. it was a movement that apparently caught on.
Been dreaming about a white Lemmon for quite awhile, ever since the New Year’s Eve snowstorm here. Finally got one yesterday, as we saw. Here are a few extra Lemmons for you:
3:11 PM.3:42 PM.Finsihing off here with an orange Lemmon, if that’s possible, at 6:50 PM.
Yesterday’s clouds
(includes photo of a small, cute dog)
7:58 AM. Not one, but two layers of Stratocumulus.7:58 AM.7:59 AM. Interesting how the scattering of diffuse light through the clouds lights up our cherished cholla cacti.8:57 AM. Paper flowers still going…. They’re not used for making paper, btw.9:30 AM. Occasional sprinkles fell from these clouds. Likely was due to ice, but texture if the precip also suggests drizzle formation (or warm rain processes, wherein larger cloud droplets collide to form drops big enough to fall out.) I hope your cloud diary also reflected this ambiguity.3:42 PM. Later in the afternoon, small Cumulus provide the light and shadow show on the Catalinas, one of the best things about living here. No ice evident.
Looking closer, I hope you recorded the slight fall streaks (fallstreifen, ger.) in the scene above. It would have been quite an important observation for you to have acquired since these small clouds had not shown ice prior to this time. See below for the VERY delicate trails emanating from this Cumulus mediocris cloud; look between and above the orangish rock faces on the top of Sam Peak and a bit to the left:
6:48 PM. Fine snow trails fall between and above the two orange colored rock faces on the left side.The baloooooon sounding launched from the U of AZ at 3:30 PM yesterday. Where the lines pinch together was likely around cloud top, or about -10 C, close to the natural ice forming temperature we usually see here in AZ. More ice fell from layer clouds to the north at sunset, that were colder still.
The weather ahead, way out there
Next rain chance in about a week. Looks like May will start out hot, but “too hot not to cool down”, to quote Louis Prima and Keely Smith doing the Porter songbook, and pretty much that cool down before the month is hardly underway. I am sure lingering snowbirds, not wanting to have their feathers singed, will be glad to receive this news.
How can we say that with any acuity?
Check the spaghetti! Looky below at how troughy the flow is by about the 8th of May (red lines dipping toward the Equator along the West Coast). No extreme heat then, just normal warmth or below average “warmth.” This is a circulation pattern that persists, too. And with “troughy”, there’s always the chance of a rogue rain.
Valid on May 8th, 5 PM AST. No heat here. Some snowbirds have clearly left too early IMO.
More possibly illusory water on a hot Arizona desert highway in the 12-14 day range. Massive events are predicted, really; thought you like to see these mid to late April blows, even though they’re likely as phony as a two dollar bill1.
1. Major April rainstorm exits Cal, brings generous rains to AZ. From IPS MeteoStar, these:
Valid (or invalid, probably) for 5 PM AST, April 21st.
2. Second in sequence, shown off Orygon, moves in position for a followup Cal blast.
For April 22nd, 5 PM AST.
3. “Jumbotron 2” marches toward the Cal coast. For mid-April, southern California and Arizona folks would be wondering about “climate change” should this happen, which it probably won’t, but we can dream. Truly, a map like this is really exceptional for the 20th of April due to how strong and deep that low is off ‘Frisco, and the strength of the jet stream at the latitude of Baja below.
For April 23rd, at 5 PM AST. A storm in this configuration, being out of the main jet stream, would take a long time to go by. Might rain for two or three days, so it COULD be a real drought denter. In any event, spaghetti is strongly suggesting “troughiness” in our area over the next couple of weeks, and that will lead to some real rain chances. However, April marks the real beginning of our dry season, averaging only about half an inch here in Catalinaland, compared with over an inch and three quarters in March.
For April 20th, 5 PM AST. Looks very promising for storms during the second decade and beyond in April, as you would know, of course. BTW, we still have some of the Dry Fittm Tees of “I Heart Spaghetti” available for $12 plus $62 shipping.
To help you further understand a perspective on the “gigantism” of the predicted late April storms that came out in yesterday’s 5 PM AST global data crunch, as they are seen in the eyes of meteorologists, let us compare dinosaurs of the Mesozoic as a metaphor:
Valid 65 to 250 million years ago. Humans back then had to be especially careful; death by trampling was quite common.
Speaking of the Mesozoic, I think you would like to hear some birdsongs of the Mesozoic. Its quite good.
About clouds
Been having some fairly nice ones lately. Miscellaneous array from yesterday below:
The End
———————————
1Recall spaghetti has been keeping a trough, i.e., a dip in the winds to lower latitudes, here and in the eastern Pacific for some time; these maps are likely an exaggeration of the REAL troughs that happen in ten days to two weeks, since in these eyes, this series of two storms shown above would likely break April rainfall records in some southern California locations before reaching Arizona with generous rains. So, the more extreme the weather prediction in the 10-15 day period, the more reason to treat it as a knee-slapper. Still, it COULD happen….
Haven’t had much weather/clouds to gab about; maybe I’ll help reader with some extra material today, not usually associated with a site about clouds; kind of go outside the lines a little.
Miscellaneous item 1
The Oracle Road report. Thought you’d like to see that.
Yesterday afternoon’s report. Seem to be some people working. That’s good. You can see some curbing going in, too. Kind of reminds me of how high pressure has been “curbing” our storms lately, to introduce a weather theme. Photo not taken while driving, of course.
Miscellaneous item 2
This. Its quite good. You’ll see people really liking it, too. It may raise the question in your mind, “How many other people are “‘question marks'”? Cloud Maven person?
Clouds?
Well, we had some nice Cirrus yesterday, and for the past few days. Lots more to come, too, but that’s about it for awhile.
3:19 PM. Pretty CIrrus uncinus.3:20 PM. If you on Mt. Everest this would quite a little passing snow shower of tiny crystals, quite fun, because it would only last a minute or so. Well maybe since the wind would be 100 mph, maybe it wouldn’t be THAT fun because the little crystals, likely bullet rosettes, as you would know, would sting your face if it wasn’t protected.
There’ll be a lot of Cirrus over the next two weeks, we hope with some rain underneath, with the best chance being
For yesterday afternoon, 5 PM AST. The green areas represent moist conditions at Cirrus levels, here for about 300 mb or 30,000 feet. Streamers of Cirrus are coming at us for awhile from the sub-tropics. You can see a lot more green in this two week forecast from IPS MeteoStar.
Regime change?
Yep, mostly for Cal, though, as far as rain and snow go. Folks in Cal are quite excited about the drought they’re having, but this April will put a damper on that excitement as the storms roar in from the Pac like they should have all winter. It won’t end the drought, but it won’t be quite as dire, either. You can read about direness here from the LA Times. You’ll read that Governor Brown1 has declared a water emergency in California. Of course, most of the water use is in sometimes inappropriate agricultural practices, like growing rice around Bakersfield in the San Joaquin desert, that kind of thing, not by home owners.
California can be very wet in April. For example, in 1926, and in 1965, Los Angeles got over seven inches, and five inches, respectively. So, “It ain’t over til its over”, the Cal rain season that is, as they say. It will be interest to look back as May arrives, and see how much the drought was alleviated.
How does Cloud Maven know for sure there is a regime change taking place that will help Cal? From a helping of spaghetti. Lets look at spaghetti two weeks out, way more longer than weather models can be considered reliable. Cloud Maven person was VERY excited when he saw this, as you will be as well!
Valid on April 17th, 5 PM AST. Note how the red lines (contour number 576 dm) are squished in the Great SW, drooping southward into Mexico! This is tremendous, since it virtually guarantees a trough in the SW. The other plots are similar. You just don;’t see this much in squished contours very often this far out in the model run in our area. Usually these contours are like the ones off Africa. I hope you know where Africa is…. Those blue lines (number 552 dm contours) are in the heart of the jet stream, really on the poleward side, and notice how some of them dip into the SW. This is good, too. Now, for California, olden studies have shown that its the contour BETWEEN these (564 decameters) that delineates where rain falls when a trough hits the Cal coast. That contour is between the red and blue lines, and so there would be plenty of rain falling in Cal during these first two weeks, with no sign of let up here at the end of the model run. SO, in conlcusion, that’s why CMP is sticking his neck out about a wet, drought-denting April in Cal.
What will our Catalina weather be like in April?
Under this new regime, whether it rains or not, you can expect windier conditions than normal during the month since storms exiting Cal will be close enough to excite not only meteorologists, but a “Tonopah Low” in the lee of the Sierras, something that helps generate wind here as they progress into the Great Basin after forming.
Wow, this is really too much detail for an entire month to come2! Oh, well. Remember our motto here at C-M:
“Right or wrong; you heard it here first!”
The End.
——————————-
1Remember how we used to call him, “Governor Moonbeam” when he was governor of Cal the first time around in the 1970s due to his quirky, ascetic lifestyle? That was fun. Lots of quirky people in the Haight-Asbury district then, too. How many question marks were among those folks…and where are they now?
2We’ll be looking back at April come the beginning of May, by which time you will have forgotten anything that was written here, and I could almost anything.
“I think a year ago I sent you the early alert that Eel Ninyo is coming!!! Well, I think I was about 1 year early … the real deal seems to be gearing up for a more major appearance this year … check it out: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml
“My fingers are crossed for a much more typical event for 2015/16, but then again we seem to be in a very similar place as we were last year at this time (caveat part of e-mail) only a bit warmer in the tropics.”
“We shall see!”
—-from Nate M., NOAA SW Fisheries Center El Niño expert, personal communication, received just yesterday! Excitement abounds!
But, we will see as well…
Below, a different SST anomaly visual from NOAA:
Global sea surface temperature anomalies from NOAA, as of March 30th. The eastern Pacific and eastern equatorial waters are aflame, figuratively speaking, of course. Both the “Classic Niño” (off Peru) and “The New Niño” regions, the latter in the mid and eastern Pacific, have above normal water temperatures!
There is a LOT of warmer than normal water out there! As we know now, the newly discovered “California Niño” helped tropical storms whisk into Arizona late last summer and fall stronger and wetter than they normally would be by providing warmer waters than normal over which they traveled while heading toward AZ. Think of something like the highly-caffeinated “Jolt Cola” in sea surface temperatures for those storms.
Slackening onshore winds along the West Coast last spring and summer created the Cal Niño, something now known to occur from time to time over the decades. And that warm water wasn’t much perturbed by strong storms during the winter, ones that can mix colder water to the surface. The Cal Niño means that IF any storm strikes the West Coast, they would be a little wetter than usual since the air holds more water in it when its warmer.
In the meantime, the much-heralded El Niño of a year ago1 deflated like a New England Patriots game time football into a pile of nothing, wrecking the expectations of frequent late winter and spring rains in the Great SW. Thankfully we had that ONE great, several inches rainstorm at the end of January2 and a couple of vegetation-sustaining rains thereafter.
What does all this mean for our immediate future? Will the late spring be wet? Will we have a great summer rain season?
I don’t know.
But, next winter could be great!
Today’s clouds and weather
Rain is expected to be around today, sprinkles, maybe some thunder due to a weak low aloft passing to the south of us. Cloud drift is supposed to be from the east off the Catalinas, and with the unusual warmth, the day will LOOK like a day in July or August, nice Cumulus building off the mountains in the later morning, reaching the ice-forming level fairly quickly, and then, as you know, out pops the virga and precip. So, it will be a nice photogenic day for you. Check this nice graphic of the expected temperature profiles today from the U of A.
The weather WAY ahead
Recall that today and tomorrow, at one time, as was mentioned here, we were going to experience one of the greatest storms ever observed for this time of year. Well, today’s situation is what’s left of that forecast, a coupla puny showers around, and, sure a trough is here all right, but what a disappointment!
In the meantime, forgetting about the perpetual disappointments for big rains foretold about two weeks in advance, we are once again excited by another great rain here in the far model horizon of just two weeks from now, in mid-April!
Valid at 5 PM AST, April 14th, only 348 h from now! Could put a real dent in our usual April dryness! Colored regions denote those areas where the WRF-GOOFUS model has calculated through VERY sophisticated means, where precipitation has fallen in the prior 12 h! This from global obs taken at 5 PM AST last evening.
Yesterday’s clouds and more
From two days ago. Another comet passed over. Didn’t read anything about it, though. I guess the astronomers have seen enough comets. Probably a little jaded by now by so many of them.Close up. You can see its trailing ice and dust, burned off by the sun. Its great to live in a place where so many comets go over! I think that’s two or three in the past year!Awful green here in Arizona. I wonder how many people know how green it is here? I think a LOT of people have no idea how green it is here (at this time of year).
5:58 PM. Thought for a fun shot I would show you some castellanus from yesterday.6:45 PM. Post sunset, Altocumulus under patches of Altostratus, or, Cirrus spissatus if you like.
The End
———————-
1Not just here, but by people that know more than I do, like the CPC.
2Water is still coming down from the mountains from that 4-6 incher in the Catalina Mountains, water that can be seen still pouring over great boulders in the higher reaches of our mountains producing the morning “glistening rocks” phenomenon. “Glistening Rocks”…. That would be a great title for a love song, a sad one, because as we all know, sooner or later, we won’t see the water producing glistening rocks anymore from the big January rain. So it would have to be about a love that starts out so strong, but then fades over time, finally disappearing altogether.
Litterfolk continue to prefer Bud Light cans and bottles over craft beers. While its interesting to make these surveys, CMP reminds readers, “Litter responsibly; in a receptacle.”
The trash you see here was collected during a single trip to the Sutherland Wash and back.
The Sutherland Wash Flow Report
A little water has resumed flowing in the Sutherland Wash hereabouts due to our recent rain:
The Sutherland Wash yesterday near the Baby Jesus Trail Head. Dog head also included.
The Cottonwoods Blowdown Report
The wind damage below was confined to an area only about 100 yards wide, and at the bottom of a small canyon leading down from Samaniego Ridge. Once suspects that a narrow microburst, some supergust, hit just in here as a rivulet of air collapsed down from the east-northeast after having gone over the mountains. It was likely further funneled by that little canyon and blasted these poor trees.
Note shoe size in lower left of photo.
Yesterday’s clouds report
Cumulus got off to an early start, a line of Cumulonimbus to the north providing a hint of what was to come when the sun came out.
7:06 AM. Cumulonimbus line the northern horizon.7:07 AM. An interesting set of very narrow shadows appeared briefly. The darker one might have been due to a young contrail. They seem too narrow to have been caused by cloud turrets.10:34 AM. Cumulus congestus clouds arose early and often on the Catalinas, becoming Cumulonimbus clouds later in the afternoon.12:07 PM. Some Cumulus congestus clouds sported the rarely seen “pileus” cap, suggesting stronger than usual updrafts pushing moist air above the top upward slightly, just enough to form a sliver of cloud.12:07 PM.12:54 PM. Before long, 47 minutes actually, big complexes of Cumulonimbus capillatus had formed to the north, and distant SW of Catalina.1:47 PM. While pretty, but this expansive Cumulonimbus capillatus incus (has an anvil), pointed to a potential rain-inhibiting problem: perhaps the exuberant convection would lead to an over-anvilated sky? Yes, it became a concern, I’m sure to all of us. Cumulus cloud killing anvilation.3:54 PM. While lightning forked in distant rainshafts, over-anvilation pretty much terminated any chance of rain in Catalina due to Cumulus buildups. The anvil debris clouds are termed, “Altostratus opacus cumulonimbogenitus.” Only clashing winds due to outflows from showers could possibly force rain now.4:43 PM. Clashing shower winds (SW in Catalina, NE towards Oracle) did produce a large final shower in the area. That lower cloud on the left side marks the area above and a little behind outflowing NE winds. Sadly, that wind push from the NE, one that could have launched a big shower here, fizzled out.
The weather ahead and WAY ahead report
More pretty Cumulus clouds today, likely some will reach Cumulonimbus stage (develop ice) and shower here and there. Flow will be off the Cat Mountains and so we here in Catalinaland are a little more elgible for a shower building on those mountains and drifting this way.
WAY ahead?
The models continue to occasionally produce a very heavy rainstorm in southern AZ on or about April Fool’s Day, once again appearing yesterday on the 18 Z (11 AM AST) run. See below, a really pretty astounding prediction again. This system comes from deep in the Tropics, so deep you wonder if it might have some hair from a giant Galapagos tortoise with it. It comes and goes in the models, but there is continuing modest support for a low latitude trough to affect Arizona in the “ensemble” outputs, or “spaghetti” plots.
The End
————————–
1“The Cottonwoods” is a local name given to a portion of the Sutherland Wash next to the Baby Jesus Trail Head. It appears on most trail maps, and is a popular spot for underage drinking parties on weekends.
Precipitation Report for the following time periods ending at: 05:19:00 03/19/15 (data updated every 15 minutes)
Data is preliminary and unedited.
—- indicates missing data
Gauge 24 h total Name Location ID#
Catalina Area 1010 0.20 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.20 Oracle Ranger Stati approximately 0.5 mi SW of Oracle 1040 0.24 Dodge Tank Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.31 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 mi W of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.20 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 mi NE of Charouleau Gap 1070 ——1 Cargodera Canyon NE corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.24 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash NE of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.16 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Rd
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.39 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 mi N of Rice Peak 1090 0.43 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 0.24 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 mi S of Coronado Camp 1130 0.51 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.47 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.59 White Tail Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.63 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.39 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Marshall Gulch
More rain is possible, but likely less than yesterday. For the best possible forecast at this hour, check out the U of AZ model.
And why izzat, more precip in mountains?
Let us turn to the cartoons of Rangno 101, summer of 1987, below, where Rangno was forced into teaching a 101 summer class that year in the Dept of Atmos Sci2, University of Washington, when the Ph. D. student that was supposed to do it opted out a the last second, maybe transferred to another team. U of WA accreditation suffered that summer because Rangno did not have the Ph. D., nor even the Masters Degree and yet he was teaching a class. How wrong is that? It can’t be worse than that.
Illustrative diagram of why more in mountains: collection, lack of evaporation. Its kind of what we had yesterday for most of the day. Lower Stratocumulus clouds accumulating on the upwind side of the Catalina Mountains, including Samaniego Ridge, while rain/snow falls from a higher deck. Sometimes this has been called the “seeder-feeder” situation, where the lower cloud is the “feeder.” “Bellevue” should be Catalina, and the “Cascades”, the Catalina Mountains. The main point is that the “feeder” cloud may not precip on its on, but stuff that falls into it gets bigger, increases precip rate.
To emphasize what happens to a drop falling through a collectible cloud, I now show this analog:
An image of precipitation particles arranged by size. Represents what happens when a smaller drop falls into a cloud with droplets above about 20 microns in diameter. They can’t get out of the way fast enough and so are collected by that falling particle. Could be a snowflake or single ice crystal, too, that fell into the droplet cloud.3:30 PM. Lower Stratocumulus builds over Pusch Ridge on a dank afternoon.3:31 PM. Looking at Samaniego Ridge, You can see how the lower clouds are enhanced as the air piles up (gently yesterday) against the mountains.
The incredible weather predicted way out there on the horizon
“Jumbotron” AZ storm showed up again yesterday, in a the second model output. These forecast maps are AMAZING in showing what must be equal to the heaviest rains ever observed in an April in southern AZ. Check this series out (from IPS MeteoStar). I can’t can’t describe how much I love these maps, and I felt, even though the model run is now almost 24 h old (from yesterday’s 12 Z run), that you should see them, too. More importantly, I will ALWAYS have them to look at since they will be overwritten by the next 12 Z run, but they will still be in my blog files. The NOAA “spaghetti” plots has a little support for a trough coming out of the lower latitudes, so we can likely expect something at the beginning of April.
Valid March 31st, 5 PM AST. Possible big rain moves in from the low latitudes.Valid Wednesday, April 1st, 5 AM AST. LOOK at the rain that moves into AZ!Valid Wednesday, at 5 PM AST. Unbelievable for April. Hope it doesn’t turn out that way.Valid at 5 AM AST, April 2nd. The pounding goes on.Valid at 5 PM AST, April 2nd. Two day rains of unprecedented model proportions come to a close.
The End
————————–
1Looked OK when we rode by it a coupla days ago…
2:55 PM, March 15th. The Cargodera Canyon gauge is shown underneath the gigantic writing.
2Widely regarded as the best atmos sci department in the world until that time; you walked the halls with giants in those days.
Kind of a dull day yesterday. Not much to look at. Some Altocumulus with an interesting, slotted wave pattern to start was about the only interesting thing in the morning.
Then some small Cumulus that continued to agglomerate into masses of dark Stratocumulus, with a little rain to the north of us. You probably didn’t see it. The darkness of the clouds was likely due to higher than normal droplet concentrations, which in clouds, causes the bottoms to be darker because the smaller droplets associated with high droplet concentrations causes more sunlight to be reflected off the top of clouds. But you knew that.
You probably also know that the brief, and weak shafts of rain to the north of us in the afternoon meant that cloud tops were barely reaching the ice-forming level, certainly were mounding ones, analogous to the rolling hills of Ireland rather than ones protruding upward very much like Kilimanjaro or something like that.
Sunset was OK, not great.
A stupendous storm showed up in the fantasy part of the model run, out two weeks, or on April 1st. That’s a little late for a stupendous storm, but it was fun seeing the computer maps of one.
Today, and not just because I am lazy and have to go right now to feed some horses, I thought I would just insert all these images in whatever way WordPress decided they should go and let you puzzle them out, e.g., name clouds, figure out what time was the photo taken, or, just look at them as a review of your cloud day.
Btw, whilst out on dog walk yesterday, saw that in the Cottonwoods area by the Baby Jesus Trailhead, several 6-9 inch diameter cottonwood tree branches were blown down during Sunday’s windstorm, one younger tree had been topped. Looked like a very small, supergust burst had done it, maybe less than 50 yards in diameter.
I figure today’s weather is pretty well presented by the NWS, and your favorite weathercaster, so why duplicate good efforts?
10:47 AM. Altocumulus perlucidus undulatus translucidus (has waves in it; is thin).
The End, of one of the easiest blogs yet! Maybe will practice more WordPress chaos in the future!
