About real clouds, weather, cloud seeding and science autobio life stories by WMO consolation prize-winning meteorologist, Art Rangno
Computer computations continuing to ____________
I wanted to add some suspense to this blog today, and to enhance readership beyond one, I would do like TEEVEE news and weathercasters do who get people to hang around by saying silly things like:
“Will it rain for the Arizona fubball game tomorrow? We’ll tell you at 11”
when an answer consisting of a single word would do.
These are one of the dumbest, outrageous and annoying lines that weather and newscasters come up with over and over again, and I hope I am NEVER on TEEVEE and have to say something like that unless I am making a LOT of money, and then I might say almost anything! (Haha, just kidding, I think, but not positive.)
Valid for 5 PM AST Thursday, December 4th. The location of Arizona and Catalina on a map of the United States is shown. Areas of rain are generously pointed out by arrows to help the reader comprehend this map.
Well, since the supercomputer calculations, these based on earth data from last night at 5 PM AST (00 Zulu, Greenwich Time, Central Universal Time, etc.) continues to show early December rains in Catalina (see illustrative figure above), we need to have some spaghetti to see if a trough in the middle troposphere has much chance of being here:
Also “valid” for 5 PM AST, Thursday, December 4th, corresponding to the storm map above from NOAA, and also based on earth data from last evening at 5 PM AST. Areas of high confidence and cluelessness are pointed out, FYI. The yellow lines are what the model actually predicted. (Hint: doesn’t match up that well with itty-bitty error-laden runs, one that try to account for “chaos” in the atmosphere (where itty-bitty things like a single thunderstorm mislocated in the initial run can cause the forecast to go bad; and, of course, real errors in measurements. Sometimes this strange plot, deemed a major advance in weather forecasting, is called by CM, anyway, a Lorenz Plot, after E. N. Lorenz who liked to publish papers on chaos. OK, as you can see, I hope, not a lot of confidence is suggested for a storm on December 4th at this time; mods will continue to see it come and go. Here, you will only see those forecasts that have a storm for Catalina.
Went on a hike yesterday morning, about 4 h worth up the Baby Jesus trail to the Deer Camp trail and back down again. Here are some scenes from later November from a desert having a lot of rain in September and October. Octotilloes are blooming here and there! Amazing! Morning glories hanging on, too. Cement trough, though, was dry. Boohoo. Didn’t expect that.
Ocotillo in bloom, November 22nd, 2014.Arizona fall color as evidenced in a coral bean bush.More Arizona fall color in something, maybe a wild cotton bush. Was hiking with the Cottons, too.Some kind of green grass. Most of the grasses, though, were dried up.Morning glories still abound!Typical riparian scene seen on the hike. Crossed this wash several times, and all of the views were as good as this.A weed. Burrowweed in bloom. Kind of pretty, I thought, but who cares what I think?Expected to see water here at the old “Cement Trough” where water is often counted on by horsemen and horsewomen.People from all over gather at the Cement Trough scenic area for a hike respite.Two stage arrowhead.
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.
