Localized trace of rain

Won something of a cloud lottery yesterday. A trace of rain might have fallen only on ME…as a single rain-producing cloud went over my house.   I felt pretty special.    Here’s the story in photos:

3:17 PM
3:17 PM.  Just a cloud, Cumulus one you know, no ice around so no hope for some rain.
3:23 PM.  Ice overhead!!  First ice of day!
3:23 PM. Ice overhead!! First ice of day!  Can you find it?  That’s why I am here, to learn you about seeing ice in clouds, my specialty.
3:23 PM.  Zooming on ice.
3:23 PM. Zooming on ice.
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3:24 PM. Going, going…..
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3:26 PM. Gone. All ice on the left.
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3:27 PM. Base and trunk of cloud approaching! Should be some drops any time! Note cloud street that this Cumulus is a part of, going over Pusch Ridge. This is a pretty common scene when the cloudy air is from the SSW.
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3:30 PM. Drops! Sparse large ones,  representing soft hail (graupel ) or hail that’s melted on the way down. They seem to be falling only on ME! Had just predicted to wife that the fall of large drops was imminent!  Remember, this kind of rain IS NOT DRIZZLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  End of educational module.
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3:31 PM. Drops falling in sunlight here through the trunk of the cloud; you could see them falling from probably 50 feet or so above you. Those little white specks in this photo are those drops. Click on this, then click again to see drops.  Pretty cool, huh?

 Today

Looks like an active photogenic one with dense rainshafts around.  Lots of excitement for weather guys like me.   Hope we get shafted reel good here.

In unrelated matters, an extraordinarily strong hurricane still set to develop off Mexico in the next few days.  If nothing else, surf will be up along the coast of Mexico and southern Cal.   Will let you know when the winds in it have reached 140 mph or more.

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.

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