Art Rangno – Page 10

Last of the Cumulonimbus

10:56 AM. Things looked promising except clouds like this over the Catalinas moved away from us. And no Cumulonimbus clouds formed over them, but rather downwind toward and beyond the town of Oracle late in the afternoon.

Ann DSC_8118 — 3:30 PM. Not much going on; a very thin veil of ice was dropping out of these clouds, once the tops of the Cumulus cloud to the right and out of view. Hope you caught it. There weren’t very many ice displays until later.

5:31 PM. That blasted haze/smoke layer is still evident! at the center is a glaciating turret, giving hope this whole cloud cluster could erupt into something. The model from the overnight run suggested just such an event!

6:09 PM. Hah! A shower at last! And the movement is in the general direction of Catalina!

6:36 PM. Stupendous sunset view, and this cluster is getting closer!

6:42 PM. Zoomed view near last light. Portions of this complex consisting of a weak thunderstorm did pass over, but no shafts, just a few drops for a “trace” of rain. By this time bases had risen to about 14,000 feet above sea level, or about 11,000 above Catalina and near the freezing level, so a lot of evaporation on the way down for those poor droppies.

Last call for Cumulus clouds today, maybe a distant Cumulonimbus top off to the north. Then one of those long clear and dry spells of fall gets underway….

The End

Goodbye summer storms; new book out about clouds!

First, I will shamelessly plug a book on clouds, “A Sideways Look at Clouds”, by a well-published and acclaimed author friend, Maria Mudd Ruth. Its about her odyssey into them, mentally and physically, after she realized they were something she really had not paid much attention to before mid-life, then she had to know EVERYTHING about them! Its a great read, infused here and there with humorous anecdotes.

You can sample the contents here.

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Now, on to Catalina’s clouds and weather…

6:43 PM yesterday. If you look hard you can see there wasn’t much of a rain shaft with these guys. Bases were too high, updrafts pretty weak, so not a lot of water “topside” to come out.

Not that there have been that many rainstorms since the end of July.

But it would seem that today marks the meteorological end of the summer rain season as dry westerly winds sweep our remaining tropical air to the east today. The mods think there is a chance for a couple of high-based thunderstorms in the area around Catalina late in the day. But bases will be so high that not a lot of rain will reach the ground even if one passes right over us. And, they’ll be moving in from the SW or W today due to encroaching westerlies.

In a little over a week, too, you’ll be hearing about early snow in the Rockies and West! We’ll have a day or two of those gusty, dry southwest winds that accompany our winter storms as well. You’ll get a real feel for the season change then.

Check out this plot from the NOAA spaghetti factory showing (blue lines) that an unusually strong upper trough will absolutely dominate the West in just over a week

spag_f216_nhbg — Valid on Thursday, September 21st at 5 PM AST. As this develops it draws a tropical storm northeastward out of the Mexican Pacific into New Mexico. Lucky for them!

1:48 PM, September 11. Nice to see those blue skies again after so many smoky days! Here Cumulus humilis, Cumulus fractus (shred clouds) dot the sky.

4:56 PM, September 11. The remaining smoke is still enough to produce crepuscular rays below Stratocumulus and Cumulus (blob on the right).

6:30 PM. Orangey sunset speaks to remaining smoke. The clouds are a Stratocumulus with Cu underneath on the right.

4:46 PM yesterday. The drama of lighting and shadows is about the only drama we might see now for a LONG time! Still these kinds of scenes are so wonderful; never get tired of them, which is strange.

4:57 PM. Even yesterday, amid all the blue, you could still see a lofted layer of haze, typically thickest near cloud base and within cloud layers where the relative humidity is highest and some of the haze particles have “deliquesced”, adsorbed water, fatten up and scatter the light more effectively helping to produce that hazy look in toward the sun (called, “forward scattering.”) Can you see the slender icy top protruding down there in Mexico. We’ll go zooming next so you can see it. Good for you if you entered it in your cloud diary!

4:57 PM. Zoomed view of that little protrusion of ice. Only a few drops would come out something like that as it developed. Here its pretty much in its dead phase, likely no base under this ice cloud. The horse icon wind vane is that of a trotter racing horse. Mom was a horse trainer and this is hers! In case you don’t believe me again, see below:

Mom in 1957 or so. She passed a year ago in July.

4:58 PM yesterday. More shadow drama. Expect more of this later today.

The End

Smoky days continue; TSTM develops overhead, shafts Saddlebrook some

Rain almost certain today and/or tonight in Sutherland Heights.

Yesterday’s cloud jumble

6:22 PM. Looked like something might develop for a time.

Tiny cell develops overhead with thunder and a few drops at 3:40 PM. Moved NW.

Ugh continues in southern AZ

See for yourself:

5:43 PM. Poor clouds (Cumulus humilis and fractus having to ingest all that smoke).

Smog report from the US NAVY Monterrey branch for the West. And look how bad it is in the Pac NW! (Lower right panel).

Our persistent easterly flow is dragging smoke that circulated from the Pac NW and MT fires into AZ since that smoke was circulated southward into the southern Plains States as we saw in those back trajectories from a couple of days ago.

Ten day back trajectory for 3000 m above ground level, ending yesterday at 11 AM AST. Huh.

134842_trj001 — Ten day back trajectory for 200 m above ground level ending yesterday at 11 AM AST. Looks like some air from Houston drifted came over us. Wow, what a surprise that is!

134726_trj001 — Ten day back trajectory for 1500 m above ground level ending yesterday at 11 AM AST. Another, “huh.”

134355_trj001 — FOUR day back trajectory for 500 m above ground level ending yesterday at 11 AM AST. Probably pretty accurate. As you can see smoke has come all the way from the Gulf of Mexico across southern Texas to get here. Amazing. Most likely, its still smoke, though, from the widespread and numerous fires in the Pac NW and MT that drifted all the way down there before heading over here.

Some Cumulonimbus clouds are foretold to develop in the region today, more tomorrow. This should mean some clarification of the air as the smoky air is mixed over a great depth. Also it appears that the air will be coming from a less smoky direction, more from the south in two or three days, along with a much greater chance for significant rain, and that should help get Arizona skies back to the ones we love!

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Everything you could want in a summer rain season day except a good rain; toad finds relief in dogs’ water bowl

8:11 PM yesterday. This surprising and humorous sight! We kept wondering why there was dirt in the dogs' water bowl in the morning. We thought a javelina or coyote had sipped out of it. Looks pretty happy in there! — 8:11 PM yesterday:. this surprising and humorous sight! We kept wondering why there was dirt in the dogs’ water bowl in the morning. We thought a javelina or coyote had sipped out of it. He looks pretty happy in there! But how did he get in without tipping the bowl over? He just barely fits !

Now for some disappointing weather and cloud talk…

Well, not much rain, anyway, just 0.04 hundredths here. Nice to see, though. For a time it looked like we were going to get fully shafted by that complex coming over Sam (Samaniego) Ridge around 5:30 PM AST.

On the one hand. we got to enjoy plenty of thunder and some big booms a few times, on the other, an OK rainbow as the rain crept closer on lion’s feet, some gusty winds, 25-35 mph, that blew stuff around, and on a fourth hand, an OK summer rain season sunset.

But let us begin by going back to Sunday for a moment and view an interesting contrail, an old one that looks like a version of CIrrus uncinus.

10:07 AM. Cirrus uncinus anthrogenitus. Yes, that's the new name of older contrails. The long hooks mean that the air was pretty much saturated with respect to ice below the contrail, allowing the contrail tufts to produce long streaks before evaporating in a dryer layer below the moist one. Got it? — 10:07 AM, Sunday, Sept. 3rd. Cirrus uncinus anthrogenitus. Yes, that’s the new name of older contrails that resemeble natural Cirrus The long hooks mean that the air was pretty close to saturation with respect to ice below the contrail, allowing the contrail tufts right behind the jet to produce long streaks before evaporating in a dryer layer below the moist one. This contrail remnant is likely more than an hour old, the oldest portion to the right, the younger portion to the left.

12:09 PM. Nice to see Cumulus almost leaping off the Catalina Mountains at last, though in continuing smoky skies. Huh. “Smoky Sky.” Could be a western singer from LA, maybe Burbank.

2:29 PM. Cumulus congestus stage reached!

3:32 PM. The drama of lighting, not lightning, though not AS dramatic.

3:32 PM. At the same time as the shadow drama, thunder is being heard from this stuff–doesn’t look well organized now. A few drops hit just after this shot.

3:33 PM. A crown up there! Wow. Indicates a stupendous updraft went right up over me! That's why this little guy is producing thunder, though no real shaft came out. — 3:33 PM. A anvil crown up there! Wow. Indicates a stupendous updraft went up right over me! That’s why this little guy is producing thunder, though no real shaft came out.

3:37 PM. Grew a bit AFTER passing over, of course, though still no major shaft, just an occasional rumble.

4:26 PM. Weak, almost pathethetic, Cumulonimbus clouds with an occasional rumble, formed over the Catalinas. The rainshafts were weak, like this one, implying not a lot of water was lifted up. Bases were cold, below freezing is one reason. — 4:26 PM. Weak, almost pathetic, Cumulonimbus clouds with an occasional rumble, formed over the Catalinas. The rainshafts were weak, like this one, implying not a lot of water was lifted up. Bases were cold, near the freezing is one reason, lack of size and depth, too, chipped in to create a sprinkly puff.

4:40 PM. Its upwind from Sutherland Heights, but looks as weak as the prior Cbs.

5:29 PM. Was inside for an hour and came out to this monster right upwind of us! Yay! CONTUS thunder, too! Wow.

5:37 PM. This is looking "awesome", finally a big dump headed our way! — 5:37 PM. This is looking “awesome”, finally a big dump headed our way!

5:43 PM. "Incoming!" — 5:43 PM. “Incoming! Incoming!” I wonder if the neighbors can hear me? But, wait a minute, that looks like a tinge of blue on the left over there towards Oracle. Oh, no, not a wide as thought. Wind hitting real good, though. Maybe it will push something up over us. (Nope.)

6:42 PM. The day ends with collapsing Cumulonimbus clouds and their fine (that is, transparent) rainshafts.

6:43 PM. The day ends with a rosy glow. Huh. Rosy Glow? Could be a name for a western singer from Tucson! Its amazing how many western singers cloud maven person can come up with! — 6:43 PM. The day ends with a rosy glow. Huh. Rosy Glow? Could be a name for a western singer from Tucson! Its amazing how many western singers cloud maven person can name.

U of AZ WRF-GOOFUS mod doesn’t think a shower will happen for another couple of days. Since we have Ac cas this morning, I am looking askance at that output, hoping its dead wrong!

The End

August disappoints: a look back at a disappointing August, and then a look forward at haze

August rainfall total in Sutherland Heights: A measly 1.10 inches, to editorialize that bit, rather than to just report facts. Average August rain here is 3.16 inches. Egad.

End of looking back….”What’s the Use” (Tuxedomoon) said it best, well, maybe.

What about the haze? Where’s it coming from and its awful! And its here again today. Reminds one who lived in southern California of summer skies in southern California, hazy, whitish, the orange- colored sunsets that people sometimes thought were “so pretty” but they were ugly because they were orange because of smoke and smog and s like that.

Where’s it coming from, to repeat? Not sure. But see back trajectories below.

These suggest its coming from the east in the last day or so of the trajectories. The trajectories start high up because we’re in the descending air branch of an upper air anti-cyclone that’s dessicating the air, preventing even little baby Cumulus from forming.

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Lidia’s moisture will help some, but it appears no rain will reach us today, Dang.

But things get more promising for at least a short return of the summer rain season (remember, the real monsoon is in India) in the immediate days ahead, phrasingly vague enough to insure a great forecast verfication! haha

Looks across Catalina and Oro Valley toward the Twin Peaks area yesterday afternoon. “Egad”, to repeat a mild expletive.

6:44 PM. Sunset over the Tortolita Mountains, where else would it be from Catalina (at this time of year)? — 6:44 PM. Orangey sunset over the Tortolita Mountains, where else would it be from Catalina (at this time of year)? The orange suggests a smoke aspect in the aerosol.

Back trajectory ending at 500 m above ground at Tucson at 11 AM AST. — Four-day back trajectory ending at 500 m above the ground and at 11 AM AST yesterday over Tucson.

13549_trj001 — Four-day back trajectory ending at 2000 m above ground and at 11 AM AST over Tucson.

Nice sunset again yesterday; local tortoise crosses road unharmed

Giant homework assignments (i.e., controversial cloud seeding manuscripts for journals) seem to go on and on, and so can’t really talk clouds and stuff so much, with all the usual obligations of living (e.g., like vacuuming, washing windows, pulling some weeds, but not too many for habitat saving purposes, removing a pernicious, spreading hybrid cactus with microscopic glockets, akin to growing your own asbestos, and preparing a home we used to live in here in Catalinaland for sale). Perhaps you’d like to make a HUGE offer on it… That would be great! Thanks in advance for making a HUGE offer! Its where I started blogging, so there is that bit of historicity. haha

From yesterday evening, these:

7:01 PM. Dissipating Cumulonimbus sheds its final raindrops.

Seems like another dry day today, though with “Cumulonims” here and there. Rain chances pick up as we close out the month. Way behind average for August; now at only 1.10 inches here in The Heights of Sutherland. Average is 3.36 inches, our wettest month.

In neighborhood news….

Below, the saga of the tortoise. I parked and waited for him/her to get across Equestrian Trail Road. There was a small rise in the road from where he was and someone in a hurry would have smashed him flat. This is who I am and why I write controversial papers about cloud seeding. Some do gooder has to do it, even though in the latter case you become a persona non grata in your specialty, your work isn’t cited when it should be by “scientists” who know about it, etc. Back to torti….

Wonder if anyone out there saw that “The Desert Speaks” program on PBS two nights ago where there was a herpotologist that spent many nights patrolling roads to get critters off the road so that they don’t get squashed. What a guy; a hero really! I think I could do that if I wasn’t so cloud-centric.

The End

The End.

Post includes rainbow photos for popularity’s sake; 0.14 inches of rain (what other “inches” of something would it be?) dampens Sutherland Heights

Nothing much else here of too much interest except the usual cloud blabber… haha

5:50 AM. Moon dodging clouds, Altocumulus ones. Moon dodgers? Did you know that the University of Washington sport’s teams were once known as the “Sun Dodgers”? How funny izzat? It’s truly amazing to me what you learn here.

2:47 PM. Icy tops move toward the Catalina Mountains.

3:54 PM. Not much going on over the Catalinas. But, can you spot the first ice from these clouds? You’d have to be pretty darn good to do that.

ann DSC_6931 — 3:54 PM. Zooming…. There it is! Have to look hard for the arrow and the bit of ice haze below that flat section. This would be a great ob day for an aircraft, since it would mark the threshold of temperature where ice is starting to form. Deeper, colder clouds from this threshold level would have more ice, a lot more. This level can vary from day to day, depending mostly on the sizes of droplets in clouds. With bases near freezing yesterday, this level would likely have been at the -12° to -15°C level, up around 20,000 feet above sea level. Bases were around 14,500 feet above sea level.

5:23 PM. Nice lighting. I like lighting and lightning, no so much lightening, since a storm could be ending then, or if its around dawn, its OK. You can see two eyes, squinting….

5:43 PM. Nice base streaming from Pusch Ridge enlarges as it came almost overhead! Looks promising for a SPKL. Moving car out from carport so's I don't miss a few drops. — 5:43 PM. Nice base streaming from Pusch Ridge enlarges as it came almost overhead! Looks promising for a SPKL. Moving car out from carport so’s I don’t miss a few drops.

5:54 PM. Fine strands of rain now becoming visible!

6:19 PM. Strands of rain in full display in RW-. Its measuring, not just a few drops! Need to roll up windows in car!

7:13 PM. Not much happened just a little west of Catalina. Nice sunset, too.

Looks like another day for a chance of rain late….

The End

Powering up

Not much going on lately, so will dip into the archives from two days ago. One cloud in particular was so spectacular in its defiance of gravity, rocketing upward the morning of the 4th. So here are shots from that day…

6:46 AM, Aug. 4: The day began with a pretty normal looking patch of Altocumulus perlucidus (honey-comb pattern). No virga, so its likely not too cold. The sounding suggests it was up at 16,000 feet ASL, or 13 kft above Catalina at about 0°C (32 F).

10:05 AM. Thar she blows! Just a spectacular jut from over the Mogollon Rim area, and a telling sign of what was immediately ahead for us.

10:53 AM. Was doing yard work, under some trees, and then came out to see this amazing sight (Cumulus congestus erectus). Ran for camera, you have just seconds to a minute or two before it begins to fall apart due to entrainment of dry air that makes a cloud look ragged and frayed. Will it form ice? Is it cold enough up top? Should show up in a couple of minutes if it is going to.

11:00 AM. Ice formation well underway as you can see by the frizzy, fibrous texture above the halfway mark up this cloud. At the time it seemed like it might be a big day for TSTMs with this kind of vertical rocket cloud shot so early. But, no. I would term this cloud, a Cumulonimbus calvus or capillatus, even though there is no visible rainshaft yet.

11:00 AM. Going zooming…you can see that virtually this whole top is glaciated, and that fingerling, top left, shows some fallout of ice, likely aggregates of ice crystals. When concentrations are high, as would be the case in this glaciated turret, the crystals often lock together to form snowflakes. In cloud microstructure and modeling terminology, the stuff falling out would be termed , “precipitation ice”, and most of that in the fingerling, “cloud ice.” I hope you’re happy now.

11:05 AM. An icy being seems to be leaping out of the new Cumulus congestus clouds that sprang forth so rapidly. That icy "being" is all that's left of the original turret. — 11:05 AM. An icy being seems to be leaping out of the new Cumulus congestus clouds that sprang forth so rapidly. That icy “being” is all that’s left of the original turret.

11:09 AM. Kind of in the area of “beings” now. Those new Cumulus cloud sprouted up rapidly to fill the void left by our first cloud. But here it appear to take on the shape of a being waving, “Hey, look at my icy left hand!”

11:52 AM. Thought this frizziness, texture of the ice made me think they might be “warm crystals”, that is ones that form at temperatures higher than -10°C, which would be needles and sheaths…. I sure wish I had a Learjet, get up there in a hurry, find out for sure…. The afternoon sounding supports that speculation with tops likely limited to those higher temperatures, but not the morning one

12:49 PM. One Cumulonimbus calvus stage here, was potent enough to produce a bit of thunder, maybe the last we'll hear for many days. — 12:49 PM. One Cumulonimbus calvus stage here, was potent enough to produce a bit of thunder, maybe the last we’ll hear for many days.

1:00 PM. Looking to the west, you could see the drier air moving in as evidenced by the lack of any buildups for as far as you could see, and also in the pitiful clouds over the Tortolita Mountains. It was a hard time, knowing the end was at hand. And there it is, below:

The End

‘Nuf said

Now, that’s pretty funny. We specialize here in too much said! Its a niche thing. Of course, not enough can be said about our past July. Take a look:

This, of course, was a new July rainfall record for Catalina/Sutherland Heights going back to 1977, anyway. Had to adjust vertical axis of this chart, too. Formerly, it stopped at only FOUR inches! The moon lore was right! It’s interesting how the ancient lore of early peoples that I made up a month ago was more accurate than the Climate Prediction Center’s prediction of an equal chance of above or below normal rain in southern Arizona while something incredible was on the doorstep! Kind of like last winter in the whole West where record amounts of snow and rain piled up over a huge region, and that, too, was also unforeseen “going in.” Think how horrible it would be if those predictions were always right. Sure, billions could be saved by such accurate outlooks, but then the element of surprise would be gone. How bad would that be?

After the paucity of rain in the preceding five months, and with June carrying into around July 10th this year with its blazing heat and no clouds, all that rain that followed with thunderations day after day, the attendant rain-cooled “breezes” to 50 mph on occasions, blowing stuff all around everywhere, were sure welcomed (?). (Another case of innovative punctuation to emphasize a point, whatever it is.)

Let us begin today by examining the greenth of the 2017 summer on our Catalina Mountains so far, thanks to July’s copious rains. Hah! The climate really has changed. Looking into growing bananas now… Now for some cloud photos from yesterday:

9:40 AM. Like most of our summer days, it begins with mid-level layers of Altocumulus, in this case shown here, "translucidus" variety (rather thin, it is.) It was up around 13,000 feet above the ground, if you care. — 9:40 AM. Like most of our summer days, it begins with mid-level layers of Altocumulus, in this case shown here, “translucidus” variety (rather thin, it is.) It was up around 13,000 feet above the ground, if you care.

11:07 AM. As the Altocumulus clouds thinned, burned off, the rise of the Cumulus begins, here a gigantic one spurts upward telling you that there are going to be some blasters yesterday. Very exciting to see this. I can feel your heartbeat as you, too saw it.

11:51 AM. Wasn't long before giant Cumulonimbus clouds were dumping over there on the town of Oracle. Nice town it is, btw. However, these clouds weren't much electrified, telling you that the updrafts weren't particularly strong yet, even though tops here were probably pushing around 30 kft. — 11:51 AM. Wasn’t long before giant Cumulonimbus clouds were dumping over there on the town of Oracle. Nice town it is, btw. However, these clouds weren’t much electrified, telling you that the updrafts weren’t particularly strong yet, even though tops here were probably pushing around 30 kft.

11:52 AM. Cumulus congestus, and Cumulonimbus calvus start unloading over there toward I don't know where exactly. — 11:52 AM. Cumulus congestus, and Cumulonimbus calvus start unloading over there toward I don’t know where exactly, but its just on the other side of the Tortolita Mountains. You’ve probably noticed how clear the sky has been, completely free of haze. That’s good for rain production, since the cleaner conditions are the larger the drops can be in the clouds because there are fewer of them compared to clouds forming on hazy days. Nat King Cole sang about summer haze as early as 1963, so we know that haze is not a new thing, like CO2 is. You won’t find people singing about CO2 in ’63!

11:58 AM. The three amigos.... A slight rainshower can be seen in the slight haze in front of the mountains below the center Cumulus. Tops leaned way out again due to weak updrafts, and since rain forms in the upper portions, it fell away from the mountains in these weaker Cumulus. — 11:58 AM. The three amigos…. A slight rain shower can be seen in the slight haze in front of the mountains below the center Cumulus. Tops of these spindily Cu leaned way out again due to weak updrafts and and stronger winds aloft from the S. Since rain forms in the upper portions, it fell a little away from the mountains in these weaker Cumulus.

12:02 PM. Dump truck, fully unloading! Not messing around anymore here. With cloud bases running around 15°C (59°F) there was a ton of water up there. Well, thousands of tons.

12:06 PM. I know what you're thinking: "Oh, look, a baby dump. Isn't it cute!" — 12:06 PM. I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, look, a baby dump. Isn’t it cute!” Suggests an abnormally narrow turret poked to far higher altitudes that those around it.

12:24 PM. More Cumulus congestus clouds joined the fray and this became a major 2 inches or more producing system over on the Tortolita Mountains.

1:01 PM. Now the outflow surge can be seen on the left, pushing new Cumulus turrets above it. This was about the peak of it, as it gradually wound down. Its certain that flash flooding occurred with at least 2 inches having fallen in the core.

Well, the day closed on a disappointing note as Cumulonimbus debris clouds overspread the sky, killing new convection.

5:45 PM. Altostratus "cumulonimbogenitus." The day went quietly into the night. — 5:45 PM. Altostratus “cumulonimbogenitus.” The day went quietly into the night.

The weather way ahead

Looks like below average rain for August. :(, as we say. Hoping for error here. Average August rainfall here in Catalina/Sutherland Heights is 3.16 inches.

The End