Upside down moon, emptying itself of water, suggests bountiful summer rain season ahead

When the moon is upside down, that is,  turns it concave face down toward the earth, it’s a sign of bountiful rains ahead, in this case, during our summer rain season.  That’s because, according to folklore I made up yesterday, it is figuratively  “emptying itself of its water” onto the land, in this case, onto Samaniego Ridge as you can see below.  (Note to the person who follows this blog:  there is no actual water on the moon,  hence, “figuratively” emptying its water.)

2:34 PM, July 1st.
2:34 PM, July 1st.

DSC_4678This folklore, which I just made up due to mental impediments caused by heat combined with rain starvation, is NOT reflected in the Climate Prediction Center’s forecast for July,  just out.  See below their daunting temperature and rain forecasts for AZ and the US.  We must now take solace that these forecasts can be disastrously WRONG, as we saw last winter for the West.  Stupefying rain and snow amounts occurred in the face of forecasts of not much was to go on.  Doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, thank heavens!  Sizeable error might be our only hope besides bogus folklore.

off15_temp off15_prcp

No cloud pics, of course.  But here is a photo of an odd-shaped twig that blew up against the window and somehow stuck there for awhile.  Thought you like to see that:

DSC_5595

The End

And,  back to work!

(Oh, yeah, baby, cloud-maven person has unretired in a sense, working on technical manuscripts (to be rejected later) in his specialty, weather modification/cloud seeding.  Cloud maven person gets worked when he’s writing in that domain, and reviewers don’t like to read manuscripts by people who are “worked up.”  On the other hand, “worked up” provides energy, and thoughts like, “someone has to do something about this”, whatever it is….)

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Categorized as The moon

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.

10 comments

  1. Good to see you back, Art! Yes, I think that weather proverb about the moon is off the mark, here as well; I haven;t seen a drop of rain here since summer officially began! And no rain in the foreseeable future. Have a great day!

  2. Just for a moment, Roland. Thanks for noticing.
    A silly moment grabbed me as I saw the moon come up. We are rain-starved here after the generous early winter rains. Lots of mesquite trees did not put out pods (at least yet) in the surrounding desert, this possibly due to the LONG spell of dry weather after those early rains. Also, there are many wildfires in AZ that need those “big boys of summer” to put them out.
    Odd its so dry up there, too….

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  3. Sure that’s a twig, sure looks like a walking stick (insect) to me!

    What, no post from Chief CM after are long awaited valley rainfall? Did the heat kill you off?

    1. Yep, you’re right, Russ! You know, its the usual sophomoric joke.

      Presently I am in a journal kerfluffle, and a have a deadline on a second piece coming right up, and have had to do some MAJOR journal catching up in my specialty, weather mod/cloud seeding.

      So, have had to bail on blogging for awhile.

      BTW, if you would like to hear my mini-lectures on cloud seeding, let me know:

      One is, “Cloud seeding magic: Looks real but its not.”

      The second is: “How to become a cloud seeding magician!”
      Hint: Don’t randomize or declare controls in advance. You’re only asking for trouble.

  4. More clouds pictures, please. More weather news. Seems the moon really has dumped water on us!

    1. That’s pretty funny about the moon! Strange how that pseudo-folklore has worked out this July. I am just beside myself about how much rain has fallen, really out of control.

      Am taking lots of photos, as usual, but have a deadline on a review paper (“strangely believe it”) coming right up, and so most of the day (I’m lying now), to repeat, most of the day (when I am not out snapping photos of stupendous cloud scenes which is actually most of the day lately), I am frantically trying to catch up on reading and critiquing journal literature for, well, this: “Cloud Seeding and the Journal Barriers to Faulty Claims: Closing the Gaps.” Its kind of in my specialty, that is, finding faults in the work of others (rather than contributing solutions to problems).

      “Hey”, thanks so much for your comment, Kelly! Maybe I have three readers!

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    2. That was a funny line about the moon! Thanks for a laugh, Kelly. I have been so preoccupied fighting “windmills” (as one friend put it, that is, I have no chance of persuading journal powers to send an ms out for peer-review), that I have just not had the time to think much about blogging. I’m still taking lots of photos, especially of those mid-day powerhouses today in the immediate area of Catalina/Tortolita Mountains. Was hoping something would move in here, but, no. I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I’ll update my water year chart…..
      Thanks for your comment, Kelly!

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  5. I heard recently about the “monsoons” in Arizona. Wasn’t that a tragic story with the family drowning?! Meanwhile up here in BC, I’m still waiting for my first measurable rainfall this month.

    1. That was a horrible story about that family in Payson, one of the worst ever here for that kind of thing. I wonder if a cloud knowledgeable person might have been able to read the sky and have foreseen something drastic was happening upstream. I did not hear, though, how far away the flash flood was.

      Interesting that you haven’t had rain in BC. Must be pretty unusual!

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