Let’s look at March, now that its already underway; cloud and weather talk, too

First, a water year (Oct-Sept) update.   You won’t like it:WY through February 2013

One caveat about February’s total: It might be as much as 0.25 inches higher since a good bit of snow during the historic February 20th storm probably did not get into the Davis Vantage Pro gage located some six feet above ground level where wind raises havoc with snow measurements in particular. Gauges day had more all around mine. You can go to the U of AZ rainlog.org home, plug in the date (in this case the 20th, and see what other folks had compared to the crummy 0.52 inches the gauge here got following the meltdown. Generally, while there are a couple of goofy obs on the rainlog site, the amounts around here were 0.70 to 0.90 inches.   Thus, our February 2013 total is more likely around 1.20 inches, not 0.95 inches as shown in this graph.  Dang.

Here’s the March daily measurable rain climo:March Daily rain

Current and just passed weather

Traced last night, I’m sure you logged it.  Drops were falling, pretty big ones, at 2:42 AM. Only lasted about a two minutes.  If you want to see what happened in radar and clouds, go here.  Shouldn’t be surprising that it traced here given all the virga, and isolated spots where drops were already hitting the ground last evening.

Here are some shots after I got back from PHX-Anthem late yesterday.  Some drops hit the window, too.  First, I thought I would share with you a wildlife response to coming changes in the weather, something you’ll begin to notice as you traverse the long road to cloud maven juniordom.  Here, shelled creatures demonstrate a preoccupation with the sky over due to increasing Cirrus cloudiness in Anthem, late on March 2nd,  the day BEFORE all the heavy virga.  Its something to note when these creatures do this.  They are telling you something about the coming weather.  Well, anyway, that’s what you should say when you see this turtle formation;  your neighbors will then think you’re some kind of turtle “whisperer” AND a weather guru all in one.

At the Anthem Community Park. Wildlife turtles becoming increasingly concerned about the increasing cloud cover late on the 2nd.
At the Anthem Community Park:  Wildlife shown here were clearly becoming increasingly concerned about the thickening cloud cover late on the 2nd.

 

3:53 PM. Tentacles of virga from deep Altostratus clouds reach down toward the Tortolita Mountains.
3:53 PM. Tentacles of virga from deep Altostratus clouds reach down toward the Tortolita Mountains.
5:53 PM. Altostratus with virga and mammatus, a term reflecting certain female mammalian characteristics. As I have reported here in the past, some of the female grad students at the U of WA weather department were offended by such nomenclature, asking why such clouds couldn't have have been termed, "testicularis."
5:53 PM. Altostratus with virga and mammatus (left side), a term reflecting certain female mammalian characteristics. As I have reported here in the past, some of the female grad students at the U of WA weather department were offended by such nomenclature, asking why such clouds couldn’t have have been termed, “testicularis” (quite an unseemly term, really) and drew lines through a label of a wall print of “mammatus”  on a fifth floor hallway. The culprit was never caught, and the “graffiti” was never removed.  Makes you realize the kind of issues that budding, bright female meteorologists at the U of Washington are thinking about.  BTW, this also demonstrates that the notion of “mammatus/testicularis” are always  associated with,  or indicating a thunderstorm, is quite goofy.
SONY DSC
6:30 PM. Had a late “bloom” as a distant hole in the overcast let the sun under light our Altostratus clouds with virga. Only lasted a few minutes. Nice.

 

The weather ahead

Of course, the big media weather stars with their gigantic salaries are all over this next storm, I am sure. Its mind boggling how much money they  make having fun with weather on TEEVEE…

Here’s is the latest forecast from our friends in Canada, most of whom want to live here in the good ole USA!; that’s why the entire population of Canada is so clustered near the US border. You can feel them up there (hahah, I like to tease my Canadian relatives):

Valid for 5 AM AST, Friday, March 8th. "Vorticity maximum poised to strike AZ from low over central Cal. "Vorticity maximum"? Cloud and weather maker.
Valid for 5 AM AST, Friday, March 8th. “Vorticity maximum poised to strike AZ from low over central Cal. “Vorticity maximum”? Cloud and weather maker.  There’s some writing on this;  hope you can read it.
"Bee" sting. LOOK at all the precip indicated for AZ! THis is so great, one of the great model forecasts of our time, well, this winter anyway.
“Bee” sting! LOOK at all the precip indicated for AZ! THis is so great, one of the great model forecasts of our time, well, this winter anyway.

Range of amounts with this next storm: I think in view of the wetting up of the models, I too, will wet it up. Bottom amount, almost surely in the bag, 0.25 inches now, up from 0.10 inches. Top? Wow, in view of passage of this system in the afternoon, you have to think about enhanced convection, thunderstorms here and there, and with those, and luck, the top has to be around 1.00 inches now. Notice how similar the track of this in the Candadian model is to our historic Feb. 20 storm, one in which amounts over half an inch to an inch were the norm.  Can’t wait to see this go by, no matter what!

The End.

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.