Starring Justin Bieber as Harry Potter in the upcoming 12th Harry Potter movie, the musical….
(There, that should grab some attention. But then people would be disappointed, maybe mad, but still they might see something here about Cirrus uncinus clouds that they didn’t know before.)
Had some great Cirrus uncinus clouds yesterday! I was not thinking about uncinus at all yesterday, but rather amorphous blobs of Cirrus, but there they were. Maybe you saw those “Ci unc” with their great tails hanging down, streaking across the sky. And there was something “wrong”, too.
What was it? Its rare when it happens.
The tails were going the “wrong” way, evident later in the day. As streamers of crystals from the “head” of Ci unc trail out, the wind nearly always decreases going downward, and the tails fall back behind the head TOWARD the west, or toward whichever way the wind is blowing FROM. Yesterday, the tails went in front of the head, a real odditity telling you the wind was a little stronger below the head. Hope some of you logged that anomaly. Its hard to get your CMJ T-shirt without having noticed that.
Some photos, too many, no doubt, but that’s what I do, and I’m quite good at it:
But how do these long-tailed Cirrus get that way? How do they start?
With seed clouds, cloud specks with tiny quasi-spherical ice crystals in them, sometimes the ice called “germs” because they’re so small, maybe 10-20 microns in size; tiny dots.
Next is a sequence showing the fleck seed cloud stage to the tail growing stage of Cirrus uncinus, in which the larger ice crystals start to fall out. Unfortunately, by the time the tail is as long as those seen in these shots, those original Cirrus fleck clouds might be a 100 miles away.
Now, is any of this information useful for everyday life? Of course, not! But, let’s say you get on Jeopardy, the TEEVEE program and you have chosen, “Clouds” as your category and the hose (oops, “host”, damn autospeller!) asks you, “This kind of ice crystal is found below the tops of CIrrus clouds.”
You’re answer from today’s “lesson”:
“What is a bullet rosette?” Some kind of prize happens when you say that, and you’re happy for the first time that you read all this.
Today’s clouds?
COLD, cold trough going over us again today and this evening. Air should moisten up some in the lower levels as this happens allowing for some Cumulus to form, ones likely to develop a little ice in them, which means a little virga here and there is likely. There are also likely to be a couple of Altocumulus or higher based Stratocumulus patches, too, during the day. U of A has predicted soundings over TUS here.
The weather ahead
Temperature extremes pattern still ahead in just a few days now; warm in the West, darn cold in the East. Rain has shown up here on the afternoon of the 27th in last evening’s 5 PM AST global data model run.
Speaking of extremes
A number of low temperature (not “cold” temperature) records have been broken in AZ. Here are a few, as reported by the NWS. Some of these records that were broken go back 100 years, such as the 7 F at Wilcox, set two days ago, breaking the 8 F in 1913, the same time as when the TUS low temperature record was set. The two patterns must have been similar, 1913 and now. Makes you feel special, doesn’t it?
SXUS75 KFGZ 140119 RERFGZ RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FLAGSTAFF, AZ 600 PM MST SUN JAN 13 2013 ...RECORD LOW HIGH TEMPERATURES FOR NORTHERN ARIZONA ON JAN 13 2013... CITY (PERIOD OF RECORD) NEW LOW HIGH PREVIOUS RECORD/YEAR GRAND CANYON NP N RIM (1926 - 2013) 11 16 IN 2007 PAYSON (1949 - 2013) 33 35 IN 1960 ...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES FOR NORTHERN ARIZONA ON JAN 13 2013... CITY (PERIOD OF RECORD) NEW LOW PREVIOUS RECORD/YEAR FLAGSTAFF (1899 - 2013) -7 -6 IN 1963 GRAND CANYON NP N RIM (1926 - 2013) -12 -5 IN 1926 THESE RECORDS ARE PRELIMINARY PENDING OFFICIAL REPORTS. $$ SXUS75 KFGZ 132320 RERFGZ RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FLAGSTAFF, AZ 1000 AM MST SUN JAN 13 2013 ...RECORD LOW HIGH TEMPERATURES FOR NORTHERN ARIZONA ON JAN 12 2013... CITY (PERIOD OF RECORD) NEW LOW HIGH PREVIOUS RECORD/YEAR FORT VALLEY (1909 - 2013) 20 23 IN 1963 MCNARY 2N (1921 - 2013) 22 27 IN 1964 SUNSET CRATER NM (1970 - 2013) 21 25 IN 1985 ...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES FOR NORTHERN ARIZONA ON JAN 13 2013... CITY (PERIOD OF RECORD) NEW LOW PREVIOUS RECORD/YEAR FLAGSTAFF (1899 - 2013) -7 -6 IN 1963 THESE RECORDS ARE PRELIMINARY PENDING OFFICIAL REPORTS. $$ SXUS75 KTWC 131605 CCA RERTWC RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TUCSON AZ 841 AM MST SUN JAN 13 2013 ...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES SET FOR JAN 13... LOCATION RECORD OLD RECORD BISBEE-DOUGLAS AIRPORT 07 15/1975 FORT THOMAS 11 12/1962 SIERRA VISTA 16 18/1916 WILLCOX 07 08/1913 $$ SXUS75 KTWC 131542 RERTWC RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TUCSON AZ 841 AM MST SUN JAN 13 2013 ...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES SET FOR JAN 13... LOCATION RECORD OLD RECORD BISBEE-DOUGLAS AIRPORT 07 15/1975 ...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES SET FOR JAN 12... LOCATION RECORD OLD RECORD FORT THOMAS 11 11/1962 KITT PEAK 12 19/1989 $$ SXUS75 KTWC 131458 RERTWC RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TUCSON AZ 0746 AM MST SUN JAN 13 2013 ...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE SET AT DOUGLAS AZ... A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE OF 7 DEGREES WAS SET AT DOUGLAS AZ TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 15 SET IN 1975. $$
