From your Pima County ALERT gauges, these 24 h totals ending at 3 AM this morning (covers the whole storm):
Gauge 24 Name Location
ID# minutes hours
—- —- —- —- —- —- —————– ———————
Catalina Area
1010 0.04 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Road in Saddlebrooke
1020 0.20 Oracle Ranger Stati approximately 0.5 mile southwest of Oracle
1040 0.08 Dodge Tank Edwin Road 1.3 miles east of Lago Del Oro Parkway
1050 0.20 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 miles west of Charouleau Gap
1060 0.55 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 miles northeast of Charouleau Gap
1070 0.08 Cargodera Canyon northeast corner of Catalina State Park
1080 0.08 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash northeast of Saddlebrooke
1100 0.04 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Road
Santa Catalina Mountains
1030 0.75 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 miles north of Rice Peak
1090 0.00 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon
1110 0.75 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 miles south of Coronado Camp
1130 0.24 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge
1140 0.83 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge
2150 0.12 White Tail Catalina Highway 0.8 miles west of Palisade Ranger Station
2280 0.20 Green Mountain Green Mountain
2290 0.24 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 miles south southeast of Marshall Gulch
The absence of precip at Mt. Lemmon is not because the storm went around it, but rather because it fell as snow.
Here in the Heights, 0.08 inches fell between 1 PM and 3 PM. Clouds accompanied the rain.
But what kind? That’s why I am here for you. See way below.
First, some techno-babble. Rain was an on and off event for Catalina and environs in the models run after run. A forecaster friend sent many e-mails that went from “looks good for rain” here, and just about as many that said, “doesn’t look good for rain.” In fact, the (WRF-GFS) model run for just 12 h before it rained, had no rain here, but just a bit to the north. What happened?
Extra sag.
Here’s the amount of trough “sag” (“amplitude”, as we would say) over Arizona predicted just 14 h before it started raining in Catalina yesterday afternoon:
![12 forecast valid for 11 AM yesterday morning. Note that the wind maximum is NORTH of Catalina, and over central AZ.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ann-forecast-bust-2014042606_CON_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_012.gif)
![Areas of rain forecast to fall in the 6 h ending at 11 AM AST yesterday morning.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ann-rain-bust-2014042606_CON_GFS_SFC_SLP_THK_PRECIP_WINDS_012.gif)
![A computer analysis of the actual winds at 5 PM AST yesterday showing that the trough had more amplitude (sag, droop, etc.) as it crossed Arizona yesterday than was forecast just a day or so in advance. That meant we in Catalina were more embedded in the deeper, and colder clouds with this trough. The jet stream circumcribes those clouds during the cool season here in AZ and most of the SW US.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/2014042700_CON_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_000.gif)
In case you think I am lying again, just because I am a meteorologist and say a lot of wrong things, below is the REAL map for last evening with wind data from rawinsonde balloons on it.
![From the Huskies, this 500 mb map over satellite imagery. Strongest winds in our trough run from San Diego, Tuscon, to El Paso, with the tightest spacing of contours and strongest winds at this level in extreme northern Mexico](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/2014042700-H500.jpg)
I hope you’re happy now.
Here’s what the temperature did as the windshift and rain began, in case you missed it:
![Yesterday's temperature trace for Sutherland Heights.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Ann2-close-up-of-cold-front-passage.png)
Yesterday’s clouds
The sequence: cloudy, sunny “sucker hole” (one of Biblical proportions), cloudy, raining, sunny, dusty.
![6:06 AM. Altostratus and Cirrus combine to produce a gray sky.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSC_02451-150x150.jpg)
![9:44 AM. Lower level moisture layer produces an Altocumulus lenticularis just beyond Pusch Ridge. Seems sky will cloud up real good at this point.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSC_0251-150x150.jpg)
![Also at 9:44 AM. Looks real bad off to the N, too, in dense Altostratus and lower Sc or Ac.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSC_0252-150x150.jpg)
![10:57 AM. Sucker hole! Its real sunny, warming up. You're thinking as you ride your horse as I was, "What a bad weatherman we have! Said would be windy, cold, and might rain, and yet here is the sun and warmth. What a bad weatherman we have!"](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSCN7836-150x150.jpg)
![11:44 AM. Sucker hole starts to fill in... Haha!](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSCN78521-150x150.jpg)
![12:10 PM Sucker hole filling in!](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSCN7863-150x150.jpg)
![1:17 PM. Rain showing up to west-southwest, upstream. Wind shift hits and ten degree cool off begins. You're glad you finished your horseback ride none too soon.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSCN7882-150x150.jpg)
![3:54 PM. A remarkable thing is happening. While there's plenty of dust in the air. it is also still raining slightly, almost from drizzle-sized drops. Eyeballig the cloud depth of the backside of the raining clouds from which the drops MAY have fallen from, CM opines that these drops are comprised of melted aggregates of needle or sheath ice crystals that were, as single crystals before aggregating as they do when in high concentrations, were really in high concentrations in those clouds, implying a strong ice multiplication phenomenon was at work. Was really a weird scene to have so much SUN and drops falling from clear sky overhead. I would be very proud of you if you noticed this few minute event at the end of our little rain.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSC_0270-150x150.jpg)
![Rawinsonde balloon temperature and dewpoint profile near the time that it rained in clear air from the backside of our rainband. As you can see, cloud tops were around -10 C or a little cooler, pretty warm for raining clouds here. The main part of the rainband likely had somewhat cooler cloud tops. Thought you like to know. This sounding supports the idea that an ice multiplication process was at work, at least on the back shelf of these clouds that rained.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Ann-SKEWTC2014042700.gif)
![4:34 PM. Shelf of rainband exits the Catalinas. Nice lighting, though.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSC_0277-1024x682.jpg)
![6:32 PM. While the rain may have washed a lot of dust out of the air, more dust invaded the area as soon as the rain ended.](https://cloud-maven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DSC_0308-1024x682.jpg)
The End, finally.