Art Rangno – Page 32

No clouds of note yesterday, so no blog today

But, on second thought, people who have nothing to say, often say it anyway….and that’s pretty much what happens here everyday anyway….to repeat “anyway” again anyway.

Things continue to roll along for a juicy dump of rain, snow and wind beginning here on Monday.

Its windy outside now.

OK, a coupla clouds from yesterday….

8:15 AM. Pretty Cirrus fibratus (has delicate strands, filaments of falling ice crystals).

12:15 PM. "Micro" snowstorms. I bet Boston folk would like to have these instead of the ones they've gotten. — 12:15 PM. “Micro” snowstorms. Look at the snow trailing down! It would be composed of itty-bitty crystals (a couple of hundred microns in maximum dimension), probably “bullet rosettes.” I bet Boston folk would like to have these snowstorms instead of the ones they’ve gotten.

4:00 PM. There were some Cumulus fractus, poor guys never even got to the humble or "humilis" stage. You should still have logged them in your cloud diary, however. — 4:00 PM. There were some Cumulus fractus, poor guys never even got to the humble or “humilis” stage. You should still have logged them in your cloud diary, however. Note the horrific vertical wind shear here as indicated by tops being ripped off to the left, showing how much the wind increased with height from the bottom to the top of even these shallow clouds. I guess I can’t expect you to have a sophisticated comment like that in your diary, but would hope for it.

6:20 PM. Some Cirrus eye candy. Sunset seems to be happening later and later. — 6:20 PM. Some Cirrus eye candy for you. Sunset seems to be happening later and later.

The End

Phony Cu fractus hint at moderate to severe turbulence aloft; the BS ahead

Immediately, “BS” is for “Big Storm” ahead, not something untoward.

OK, first a piece about yesterday’s unusual clouds at Cirrus levels; you wouldn’t want to be flying in, or underneath these:

1:25 PM. Suddenly, a patch of phony Cumulus fractus appeared at Cirrus levels! I wondered how many CMJs were fooled and thought these clouds were just a little higher than Ms. Lemmon's top. — 1:25 PM. Suddenly, a patch of phony Cumulus fractus appeared at Cirrus levels! I wondered how many CMJs were fooled and thought these clouds were just a little higher than Ms. Lemmon’s top.

1:25 PM. Zoomed view of phony Cumulus fractus.

1:26 PM. Compare to real Cumulus fractus, and the imitation, knock-off, phony, generic brands like to say about the real thing, and they're not as good are they. They don't think that you're REALLY going to compare them and that's why they say that. — 1:26 PM. “Compare to real Cumulus fractus,” as the imitation, knock-off, phony, generic brands
like to say about the real thing you like, but they’re never as good are they? They don’t think that you’re REALLY going to compare the real one with the phony one and that’s why they say that. They think you’re lazy. I’m thinking of Danny Elfman¹ and “Grey Matter”…..

1:46 PM. Here CMJs can easily tell that those clouds, though they appeared tufted and like they might have had droplets, were at ice-forming levels high in the atmosphere. That height also indicated by their luminosity, whiteness, as they first formed. — 1:46 PM. Here CMJs can easily tell that those clouds, though they appeared tufted and like they might have had droplets in them when they first formed, were at ice-forming levels high in the atmosphere. Here you see the expanding “ghosts” of several of the tufts that formed (upper left center), originally a dense concentration of ice crystals or a momentary droplet cloud, a dense cloud of ice that disperses in time, no further ice forms and so acts like a puff of smoke, and thins out, often disappearing as some of these did.

You can also these specks fly by in the U of AZ time lapse film. If you look at the film when they do, you can see them twisting around. Cirrus at that level (CM estimated 25,000 to 30,000 feet above the ground) are normally like sculptures; frozen in time as they pass by this time lapse camera with little or no internal movement.

You could also detect internal movement from the ground in real time in these specks (as we can with Cumulus clouds all the time, since we’re so close to real Cumulus fractus) so it must have really been churning up there.

This patch of specks only took a few minutes to pass by, so you were lucky if you say them.

Of course, you’re only interested in the Big Storm just ahead, not turbulence….probably have grown impatient by now, not wanting to read about itty bitty specks in the sky that might have been associated with strong turbulence. Well, its still “in the bag”, no need to worry. See below this map from our Canadian friends’ model. I really like this map, so no need to look farther. Also, I wrote some things on it for you:

Valid for Monday, 5 AM AST, March 2nd. I just had to go, "wow" when I saw this forecast map. — Valid for Monday, 5 AM AST, March 2nd. I just had to go, “wow” when I saw this forecast map.

That “kicker” trough just off the Cal coast is going to kick that trough “ball” just off Baja at us as in a field goal in American football, and we are the goal posts.

When a trough is booted out like this one will be out of its nest, the upward motion in front of it is in enhanced, so that the clouds and precip intensify, become more widespread. Its going to head right for us, as it accelerates toward the NE.

This means, in turn, that the very strong rain band already in place in western Arizona, will intensify as it moves east across the State. This is pretty darn exciting because from here it would mean quite the downpour, hours of rain, and almost certainly thunderstorms on March 2nd. However, flooding is likely as rainrates will likely get up to an inch an hour or even more as the band passes over us.

Still sticking with 0.9 inches as “best guess” here in Catalina, top amount, 1.50 inches, if band lingers longer. Secretly hope I’m low….

In one last forecast panel, this MONSTER approaching the Cal coast. Its pretty far out there, as I am being today with the notes on band favorite, Oingo Boingo and sociobiology below, to be reliable, but its shown up a couple of times now in our model runs. It is unbelievable in strength to be forecast as far south as off central Baja, and I wanted to show you what an amazingly strong storm for so low in latitude would look like, if nothing else:

Valid at 11 AM AST, March 11th, Wednesday. A trough from this low a latitude barging into southern California would likely bring rains of 10-20 inches. And, while we’re downwind behind mountains, it would still bring appreciable rain here, too. BTW, rains of 10 inches or more, even in just 24 h, are not terribly unusual in the mountains of southern Cal.

The End.

PS: A powerful jet stream is near us now, so more strange clouds, lenticular-sliver clouds, and fine granulations in Cirrocumulus and such, are likely to be seen over the next couple of days. Have camera ready.

PPS: Still some flow in the Sutherland Wash as of yesterday.

——————————-

¹The genius of Danny Elfman, that is, composer of the Simpson’s theme song, and the only composer to be nominated for two film scores in the same year, and also the leader of Oingo Boingo, an LA punk rock/ new wave band in the early 1980s, formerly known as , “The Mystic Nights of the Oingo Boingo”, more like a Spike Jones gag band. An early influence on Elfman was the concept of sociobiology, as represented in “Only a Lad“, a song about an inherently bad “lad”, satirizing some popular, widely held concepts on the causes of mischievous behavior in that song. A sample below, if you care².

“The lady down the block,
She had a radio that Johnny wanted oh so bad,
So he took it the first chance he had.
Then he shot her in the leg,
And this is what she said
“Only a lad. You really can’t blame him.”
“Only a lad. Society made him.”
“Only a lad. He’s our responsibility.”
Oh, oh, oohh oh oh oh
“Only a lad. He really couldn’t help it.”
“Only a lad. He didn’t want to do it.”
“Only a lad. He’s underprivileged and abused.”
Perhaps a little bit confused?”

²Being a rad-lib in those days, I thought it was INCREDIBLE to hear such a song with THOSE lyrics in the early 1980s on the University of Washington student radio station, KCMU-FM, again, if you care.

I think you should see this…..

This just out from Weather Underground:

From the de facto National Weather Service, Weather Underground — From the de facto national weather service, Weather Underground, extraordinary details of our upcoming storm days.

Even more rain that CM’s top amount of 1.5 inches (less than 10% chance of more)! Amazing. (Not changing mine, though; best to ride it out, stay the course…..)

Note, too, the accuracy of WU forecast to hundredths of an inch! Wow.

The weather WAY ahead

With “Stormy Weather One” now bagged as a sure thing twixt March 1 and 4, let us turn our attention far into the future….and see one of the great forecast maps of our time:

Valid at 11 AM AST, March 12th. Based on global data taken at 11 PM AST last evening, crunched by WRF-GFS.

Shows gully-washin’, drought bustin’, tropical air-filled storm crashing into the parched Southwest. Only 13 days from now, too, so it might happen. We get a lot, too, in this storm sequence rendered by MeteoStar.

The End

Moving along; rain to fall in early March (a lot of it)

In fact, the chance of MEASURABLE rain in Catalina is at least 100%, maybe as high as 300%, between 5 AM AST, Sunday, March 1st and 5 AM, AST, March 4th. Namely, its gonna happen.

Now, its not gonna rain that whole time, likely starting later in the day on the 1st. Pretty darn exciting to have a sure thing in the future! Check out this 4-panel presentation of maps from Enviro Can, I really like them:

Valid for Monday, March 2nd. Heavy rains foretold in western AZ by this time. Likely will be here by this time, too, though THIS model thinks the rain is still to the west.

Perhaps going farther than one reasonably should, the likely minimum amount will be 0.33 inches (10% chance of less) and top amount, gee, this situation has a big top, 1.50 inches, due to this trough’s deep reach into the sub-tropics, meaning it could pulling extra wet air toward us if everything works out in the “best” possible scenario. The best guess, between these two extremes is the average, or about 0.9 inches during our rainy spell. Should keep the washes flowing, though this one being colder than January’s tropical rains, should pile up lots of snow on top of Ms. Lemmon, so

Moving ahead to yesterday……

A pretty nice 0.09 inches fell yesterday morning in The Heights. “Nice”, because some model runs a few days in advance of this had no rain as a dry cold front went by.

When did the cold front pass?

9 AM yesterday, marked by a freshet from the NW with gusts to maybe 20 mph, with a falling temperature. Fell from 51 F to 42.x F by mid-morning, snow down to about 5,000 feet on Samaniego Ridge, too, though it melted almost immediately.

A push of wind like that virtually always builds a cloud above it, and yesterday was no exception. Here’ the cloud associated with that “freshet”:

8:31 AM. Wind shift line cloud shows up NW-NE of Catalina. Get ready!

8:32 AM. Mini-rainbow appeared for just a moment.

8:34 AM. Tiny holes in clouds produce pretty highlights on Eagle Crest as the windshift line cloud approaches.

9:03 AM. Windshift and line cloud pass over Sutherland Heights. Starting to rain here, though very little.

9:03 AM. Close up of the bottom of the windshift line cloud.

12:39 PM Post frontal passage quiet time with flattened clouds.

1:28 PM/ Clouds swell up, first ice seen. Can you find it? More to north at this time.

2:24 PM. Lots of pretty cloud "streets", Cumulus clouds aligned in a line. Here's a common one that comes off the Tortolita Mountains on Cumulus formation days. — 2:24 PM. Lots of pretty cloud “streets”, Cumulus clouds aligned in a line. Here’s a common one coming at you, one that comes off the Tortolita Mountains on Cumulus formation days with a westerly wind in the boundary layer (the layer between the ground and the tops of these clouds).

3:19 PM. Walkin' dogs, ice overhead in that SAME cloud street coming at me. Uh-oh. — 3:19 PM. Walkin’ dogs now, but spotted trace of ice overhead in that SAME cloud street coming at me from the Tortolitas. Uh-oh. Do you see the trace of ice up there?

3:21 PM. Few raindrops beginning to fall. Can you detect that bit of a rain haze on the left of this photo, out toward the Torts? — 3:21 PM. Few raindrops beginning to fall. Can you detect that bit of a rain haze on the left of center in this photo, out toward the Torts? Very hard to see, but there was an nearly invisible “shaft.”

3:33 PM. Tiny snow shaft hangs from this same cloud line as it began to shift to the south and east. Can you find it?

Of course, the best part of days like yesterday is the play of the light and shadows on our mountains:

5:58 PM. Stratocumulus clouds above the Charouleau Gap.

The End.

100-150 mph winds overhead bring pretty patterns in Cirrocumulus clouds; also, an experiment in detecting the phase of clouds

If you thought those high clouds were moving faster than usual, you were right. The winds were about 120 mph at that level, about 28,000 feet above sea level, and just over 150 mph a few thousand feet above that level.

You may have noticed two things, if you are good, that there were repeated formations of delicate Cirrocumulus clouds, likely starting as liquid drops, but quickly transitioned into Cirrus. Sometimes, it was just flocculent Cirrus the whole way to us from the west.

The second thing that you may have noticed was that there was always an upwind clearing zone that remained stationary until late afternoon when it finally passed overhead. Yesterday’s high clouds formed at that back edge.

How can you tell that the upwind edge of that sheet of clouds was initially composed of liquid droplets, but then froze naturally within a minute or three as it jetted downstream?

Perform an experiment to demonstrate the two phases.

In this case we will have an ice producing aircraft fly through both regions, the droplet region, and also the region where no droplets exist because they have frozen and are growing larger and larger as ice crystals.

What will be the predictable result of two ice-producing aircraft flying through these two different phases?

In the liquid cloud region, an ice canal will develop as the appearance of ice in a droplet cloud results in the evaporation of liquid droplets, the molecules of vapor from the evaporating droplets provide “food” for fattening ice crystals, where “deposition” takes place. Under a microscope you would see the crystals getting larger, growing extensions; you would not be able to see the molecules producing that, of course.

The result of our experiment, something you likely will never see again in my lifetime:

3:36 PM. Letting the font size demonstrate the excitement I was feeling, that excitement filling the whole sky! Maybe the temperature in this inadvertent experiment would be stupefyingly low, like -40 C (-40 F), in which case I might get a publication of my photos. Another great aspect was that this canal was streaking toward me (us)! It just could not have been a better situation. And I would add, in retirement mind you, to my CV and I don’t even have a grant! It was going to be a great day!

3:47 PM. Normal contrail in ice cloud continues to evolve as ice canal gets closer.

3:49 PM. The aircraft contrail that was emitted in all ice clouds. Still are all ice, though you may say they look awfully tufted like they could have droplets. They're glaciated, all ice. Go with me on this. I'm the cloud maven. — 3:49 PM. The aircraft contrail that was emitted in all ice clouds. Still are all ice, though you may say they look awfully tufted like they could have droplets. They’re glaciated, all ice. Go with me on this. I’m the cloud maven.

3:26 PM. The scene before the experiment. The upwind edge where the Cirrocu and CIrrus were forming is just above the horizon. — Helping hand points out ice canal. By this time the clouds around that ice canal had also transitioned to ice.

Also at 3:47 PM, a zoomed view of ice canal. You can see the little ice fibers in that clearing, the ones than caused the evaporation of the droplets around the initial ice formation. Likely at this point that the surrounding cloud, though rather "flocculent" looking was also now ice. — Also at 3:47 PM, a zoomed view of ice canal. You can see the little ice fibers in that clearing, the ones than caused the evaporation of the droplets around the initial ice formation. Likely at this point that the surrounding cloud, though rather “flocculent” looking was also now ice.

3:52 PM. As usually happens with aircraft produced ice, the tiny, overabundant crystals are pristine, perfectly shaped hexagonal solid columns or hexagonal plates, and that perfect shape usually results in strong optical phenomena at the point where a sun dog or 22 degree halo is observed due to the refraction of sunlight in those crystals. You only had seconds to see this, those clouds were moving SO FAST, and I missed the brightest point.

3:53 PM. One final look at our receding ice canal, gradually being filled in by natural Cirrus.

Was holding breath, thinking about that CV enhancement, waiting for the TUS sounding, which was already in the air when these last few photos were taken, and, more importantly, it was going up near where the clouds were forming, so the moist level intercepted and its temperature would be pretty accurate for this shots. Now, if its -40 C, oh man, we got a pub! -36 C, maybe. Temperature greater than about -35 C? No pub, well, except here, which is something. That’s because liquid drops at temperatures between -30 and -35 C have been reported by remote sensing and aircraft repeatedly. Nature abhors forming an ice crystal in clouds without going through the liquid phase first.

Within a couple of hours the TUS sounding was in, and here it is:

The TUS balloon sounding launched about 3:30 PM, rise rate about 1,000 feet a minute. Shows Cirrocu layer was "only" about -33 C (-27 F). Boohoo. — The TUS balloon sounding launched about 3:30 PM, rise rate about 1,000 feet a minute. Shows Cirrocu layer was “only” about -33 C (-27 F). Boohoo.

I wasn’t going to get a journal pub. I thought about that guy that thought he was going to win the Nobel Prize…..and I know now how he felt.

Now about those pretty patterns, by Simon and Garfunkel. Enjoy.

Today’s take

Jet core at 18,000 feet now passing overhead and DRIZZLE or very light rain from warm processes now (4:15 AM) evident on the Catalina Mountains. The passage of that jet core at that level (500 millibars) seems to be an almost black-white measurable rain or no rain discriminator in the Southwest US, so as that happens right now, chances of some measurable rain are good. Still not expected to be more than 0.25 inches, but will now at least be 0.01!

The low clouds are pretty shallow now, and, if they rain, shallow clouds with tops warmer than -5 C (23 F) have to be pretty clean for that to happen. Clean clouds is got bigger droplets, ones that reach the Hocking-Jonas threshold of between 30-40 microns in size and can collide and stick together forming still much larger drops that collect more and more tiny cloud droplets, kind of a chain reaction, as Nobel Laureate in chemistry Irving Langmuir described it back in 1948 after he got interested in clouds and rainmaking.

However, the “collision with coalescence process will be short-lived as cloud tops go up to well below freezing level this morning, and real rain falls (as is happening now (7:18 AM) down in TUS and to our NW.

Measurable rain should be just on the doorstep, and it will have to develop in upwind clouds as they approach us and the air begins to rise as it goes uphill from the lower deserts and encounters the Catalinas’ there isn’t much in the way of radar echoes upwind of us now.

The development of rain in clouds as they approach us in marginal rain situations like this one is not terribly unusual. Sometimes, as a friend pointed out, new echoes in deepening clouds can appear over and over again near where I-10 runs to the SW and W of us in a purely orographic situation.

This is what CMP is hoping for, and the result of that might be a tenth of an inch or more.

The first of many cloud blobs in the days ahead, some rain-filled, passes over during the night

Here it is. You may need an optical enhancement tool to see the radar echo speck nearest Catalina, and its not the one nearest the arrowhead below, but continue in that direction:

Ann 201502230700_SWR2 — Satellite and radar imagery for midnight last night. Notice cloud blob and radar echoes over and near Catalina, Arizona. I really thought there’d be some drops here as this went over!

You can also check on all the rain that fell overnight in the region here, courtesy of Pima County ALERT rain gauges. BTW, they aren’t capable of reporting traces, so if you see bunches of zeroes, it doesn’t mean some drops didn’t fall somewhere in the network.

Non-verification of this rain can also be found via our fine TUS NWS “storm total” view, 10:30 PM to 4:30 AM this morning:

Regional radar-derived storm total from "rainy cloud blob." — Regional radar-derived storm total from “rainy cloud blob.” Arrow almost reaches Catalina; didn’t want to cover up a pixel of rain, if there. THAT radar did not pick up the rain I feel must have fallen, so we have quite a conundrum. If you would like to see for yourself how much rain fell last night, go here. Will be looking for drop images in the dust as soon as it gets light, too!

In the meantime, all those rainy cloud blobs to our NW right now (first image) look like they will be able to just make it to Catalinaland after all.

In our last chapter, it looked like the strong cold front would move through tomorrow as just a dry cold one, but now the chances of having a little rain (a wet cold one) have been zooming up. The models have readjusted their thinking and now that critical ingredient, the core of the jet stream (at 500 mb) passing over us ahead of the trough core itself is being predicted.

And with that configuration as the front goes by Catalina, and believe me you’ll know by the 10-15 degree temperature drop, a tiny amount of rain might fall. Also, look for a pronounced lowering of cloud bases to the W-N of Catalina as it gets close, something in the way of an “arcus cloud”, marking the leading edge of the windshift to the N. Could be nice and dramatic looking tomorrow. Those cloud base lowerings are pretty common with fronts here.

How much rain?

Oh, possibilities range between 0 (a complete bust is still possible) to only about 0.25 inches, tops in the “best” of circumstances. But, this keyboard would like to see ANYTHING measurable; that would bring happiness.

There are some more rain blobs showing up in regular intervals in the days ahead for you to think about, as rendered by IPS MeteoStar. Arrows have been added to show you where you are, if you are in SE Arizona:

Valid tomorrow morning at 11 AM AST. Colored areas denote regions where the model has calculated precipitation during the preceding 6 h.

In the storm below, which is pretty much going to happen now, the range of amounts as seen from here, at least 0.15 inches, top, 0.50 inches, best guess, therefore, 0.33 inches (from averaging the two.)

Val at 11 PM, March 1st. Colored areas are those in which the model has calculated that precip has fallen during the prior 6 h.

There’s great uncertainly in whether this last storm will actually occur, so range of amounts are zero to 1 inch. :} See reasons for uncertainty below, besides being too far in advance or our models to be reliable anyway.

Ann 2015022300_CON_GFS_SFC_SLP_THK_PRECIP_WINDS_264 — Valid Friday, March 5th, at 5 PM AST. Colored regions NOW denote areas of precipitation that have fallen during the prior TWELVE hours. (Mod resolution degrades after about 192 h, and so a coarser view of precip areas is used.)

While a significant storm on the 1st is virtually assured according to spaghetti, this last major event in the panel above is doubtful. See below, in another lesson on consuming weather spaghetti:

Ensemble spaghetti valid for the same time as the panel above, 5 PM AST Friday, March 5th. Not much support for a storm, low confidence is indicated by the LACK of bunching red and blue lines, unlike those off the East Coast, and over there east of Asia. So, while a great storm is predicted in last evening’s model run, prepare for sadness and disappointment as a hedge.

Yesterday’s fine clouds

7:10 AM. A couple of shafts of big virga. Likely a drop or two reached the ground. Could have been caused by aircraft penetrations, or, taller Altocumulus castellanus-like turrets that reached lower temperatures, produced more ice. They look suspiciously like an aircraft artifact due to their very small size.

7:41 AM. Nice stack of lenticular pancakes in the lee of the Catalinas. You can see some great lenticular occurrences in the U of AZ Time Laps movie for yesterday. There are also a lot other fascinating things that go on in yesterday’s clouds, too.

8:05 AM. Natural virga approaches Catalina. Looked for a drop as it went over, but saw none. — 8:05 AM. Clearly natural virga approaches Catalina. Looked for a drop as it went over, but saw none.

8:22 AM. Pancakes downstream from Ms. Mt. Lemmon.

9:07 AM. Doggies, Emma, and little Banjo, sample and inspect water STILL running in the Sutherland Wash!

1:46 PM. After a brief sunny period, banks of Altocumulus invade the sky.

2:46 PM. Altocumulus opacus clouds continue to fill in, darken.

5:40 PM. Muliple layers of clouds stream ahead of sprinkle producing cloud blob just upwind at this time. — 5:40 PM. Muliple layers of clouds stream ahead of sprinkle-producing cloud blob just upwind at this time. Note how the Altocumulus opacus clouds disappeared, leaving lenticular like formations, with a thin ice cloud (Cirrostratus) above.

The End, though I COULD go on and on and on, and then on some more. Its who I am….

Watch for pretty clouds today, tweet

5:41 AM: “Tweet” Patch of big virga, sprinkles, now in progress SW of Catalina. Could make for a spectacular sunrise if more of that is around.

5:43 AM: “Tweet”: Banks of heavier, middle clouds and high clouds expected to arrive later in day. Forming off Baja now.

5:45 AM: “Tweet”: Still expecting a trace to maybe a tenth of an inch from that system off Baja by mid-day tomorrow.

5:46 AM: “Tweet”: Major cold front goes through tomorrow night or Tuesday but looks dry now with just a big change in temperature. Izzat more that 140 characters?

5:49 AM: “Tweet”: Still thinking about weather things and what to say next.

5:50 AM: “Tweet”: It wasn’t me that fell off that horse with a riding pal, in case you were worried about me, though I ride in that area.

5:51 AM: “Tweet”: Brain still pretty empty.

5:52 AM: “Tweet”: Still waiting for something to enter brain.

5:53 AM: “Tweet” OK, just thought of a joke. See below.

5:56 AM: “Tweet”: OK, its a sophisticated weather joke.

5:58 AM: “Tweet”: Arrow points to today’s little cloud maker, but mods pretty clueless about where it is from the get go; how funny izzat? Can I tweet and use a semi-colon?

6:02 AM: “Tweet”: Have cameras ready!

6:03 AM: “Tweet” Brain empty again. Reminds me of that song, “Running on empty.” Feels just like that. Maybe that will distract some people while I think of something.

6:04 AM: “Tweet”: I haven’t added anything but will update anyway.

6:08 AM: “Tweet”: Rain still expected in March.

6:09 AM: “Tweet” The End.

Not to worry; plenty of model rain still ahead in models

¹While several inches of model² rain has occurred in Catalina and in the nearby mountains this month, most of which cloud-maven person has festooned his blog with model panels of, there really hasn’t been any ACTUAL rain.

But having said that, there is even MORE model rain ahead, some beginning tomorrow in these parts. Tomorrow’s rain comes from a sub-tropical minor wave ejecting from the sub-tropics. You know, as a CMJ, a wave from that zone means a ton of high and middle clouds, i.e., likely DENSE Altostratus with virga, something that was seen yesterday off to the SW of us. This time, though, some rain should fall from these thick clouds, though almost certainly will be in the trace to a tenth of an inch range between tomorrow and Monday morning.

Model rain from 11 PM AST global data then falls in Catalina on:

February 24th

March 1st

March 7-9th

with the model total rain in these periods likely surpassing an inch or more! What a model rain winter season this has been! Astounding. The model washes have been running full since late December, too!

BTW, that last model rain period is really a great one, a major rain for ALL of Arizona!

Some recent clouds I have known and a couple of wildflowers

7:36 AM, Thursday, Feb 19: Iridescence in Cirrocumulus.

7:52 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Iridescence in Cirrocumulus with a tad of Kelvin-Helholtz waves (center, right), ones that look like breaking ocean waves. Kind of cool looking.

9:52 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Altocumulus perlucidus exihibing crossing pattern. Makes you think about football. — 9:29 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Altocumulus perlucidus exhibiting crossing patterns, rows perpendicular to each other. Makes you think about football and people running out for passes.

9:42 AM, Thursday Feb 19: An extremely delicate crossing pattern in Cirrocumulus, center. You’ll have to drill in good to see it, but its worth it.

10:39 AM, Thrusday, Feb 19: Pretty (mostly) Cirrus spissatus, a thick version in which shading can be observed.

6:13 PM, Thursday, Feb 19: No idea what that stick contrail is. Looks like a flight pattern to induce weightlessness. Climb rapidly, round off the top, and then go down. You can be weightless for maybe 10-30 seconds. Been there, done that in a C-130 Hercules, last FACE flight of 1973, Bill Woodley lead scientist. — 6:13 PM, Thursday, Feb 19: No idea what that stick contrail is. Looks like a flight pattern to induce weightlessness. Climb rapidly, round off the top, and then go down. You can be weightless for maybe 10-30 seconds. Been there, done that in a C-130 Hercules, last FACE flight of 1973, Bill Woodley lead cloud seeding scientist. But, you pay a price, get smashed on the floor as the aircraft comes out of the dive. You cannot get up!

Let's zoom in and see if we can learn more about this cloud.... Nope. — Let’s zoom in and see if we can learn more about what happened here. I think a jet pilot was having fun.
Nope.

6:54 AM, yesterday. Altostratus virga provides a spectacular, if brief sunrise over the Catalinas.

From a dog walk this VERY morning, a desert primrose.

From this morning's dog walk. — And a desert onion bloom.

The End. Hope you enjoy the copious model rains ahead!

———————

¹Today’s title is cribbed from Spinal Tap song, which is really quite great, “Tonight I’m going to rock you tonight.”

²WRF-GFS and Canadian Enviro Can GEM accumulated bogus outputs.

Catalina Beach State Park; Canadians come up with a winner!

Its been this way for quite a while, actually since the big rains of late January, but I only found out about it yesterday: “Thousands Gather Under Cloudy Skies for Beach Fun at Catalina State River and Beach Park !” (if one were writing a newspaper headline). See below.

2:40 PM. Here, dozens of kiddies are seen frolicking in the water of the Sutherland River at Catalina State Park.

2:44 PM. Soft Cumulonimbus capillatus and calvus turrets line the distant SW horizon while hundreds frolic in sand and water at Cat State Park.

2:46 PM. A man of Indian descent named, "Ricky" prepares his daughter for sand castle construction. — 2:46 PM. “Ricky” (real name, “Parikit”), who also happened to work in the SAME lab office as the writer for a few years, prepares his daughter for the popular beach activity of sand castle construction.

Before reaching the beach at the State Park, saw some luxuriant spring undergrowth among the trees, and a nice Cumulus turret, one that went on to grow up and be a weak Cumulonimbus:

1:51 PM. Typical of the lush grass growth along the Birding Trail at Cat State Park, also due to the generous January rains. — 1:51 PM. Typical of the lush grasses along the Birding Trail at Cat State Park, also due to the generous January rains.

2:21 PM. Nice. Altocumulus clouds (upper left) lurk around a Cumulus congestus turret over the Catalinas.

3:36 PM. A remarkably summer-like sky, Cumulus congestus in the foreground, Cumulonimbus capillatus cloud lining the SW horizon. Temperature, 70 F.

The weather ahead, as you and I both hope it will be

Been a lot of phony storms in the 10-15 day range indicated by the WRF-GOOFUS model, ones presented here with regularity, then ended up jilting us. So, today when the Canadian model came up with an appreciable rain pattern for AZ in only SIX days, Feb. 21, it was time to exult, switch models, and climb back up on the blog saddle:

Valid at 5 PM AST, Saturday, February 21st. Based on the global observations taken at 5 PM last evening. AZ covered in rain!

What’s even better in this map is that the rain has only begun on the 21st. As you can see, the bunching of the contours off the Cal and Oregon coasts and west of the center of the low, upper left panel, tells you immediately that more rain would be ahead for us if this configuration is correct. That’s because the low will propagate southward, and closer to us, not move off in some untoward direction with a stronger wind field on the back side than on the front (east) side. Also, in a pattern resembling the Greek letter, “Omega¹“ as we have in the eastern Pacific and West, lows like to nest in the SE corner of the “Omega”, getting cutoff, stagnant, out of the main jet stream flow, all of which prolongs bad weather in that sector of an “Omega” (here in the SW US). So, lots to be optimistic about today. Strong support in spaghetti for this Omega pattern, too.

Now I haven’t looked at the US WRF-GFS model based on the same obs because it might have something different, a storm that’s not as good as the Canadian one, and I don’t want to know about it. Still feel pretty hurt by the big storm presentations for AZ that weren’t very sincere in that model. And, as we know, sincerity is mandatory in a relationship, even one with weather maps.

The End

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¹Link added in case you don’t believe me again.

“All I have to do is dream”; B-23 stories from the field

The Everly Bros, those two crooners who made such lovely music in the 1950s, come to mind as prior expected rains evaporate in model algorithms, consumed, obliterated by Fortran “End” statements somehow, and but at the same time they produced yet another wet dream (oops, an ambiguous expression that needs to be clarified immediately) , a model rain “dream” of very wet proportions in Arizona, 10 days away. Below, from IPS MeteoStar, whose maps are so good they’ll soon be charging money to see them, this deluge:

A lot of Arizona rain is predicted during the 12 h ending at 5 PM AST, February 22nd. Comes out of the sub-tropical Pacific, as have earlier predicted heavy rains that have disappeared in a succession of later model runs, kind of jilting the writer who developed great emotional attachments to those maps, but, as happens in life, too quickly.

BTW, I am noticing its windy outside now (4 AM).

Stories from the Field

Went to the Pima Air and Space Museum and boneyard yesterday. Saw some nice Altocumulus, some distant ice in clouds on the eastern horizon. The University of Washington bought a lot of planes, well, two, from the boneyard here from PASM, two Convairs over the years, a 240 (non-pressurized), and a 580 (pressurized), which were then subject to having a lot of pylons hung on them and holes drilled in them for instrument purposes.

One pleasant surprise was that they also had a 1939 Douglas B-23 “Dragon”, the aircraft yours truly spent his first nine years in as a “flight meteorologist” with the University of Washington’s Cloud Physics Group (later, “Cloud and Aerosol Research Group”) before it crash landed in Kingman, Arizona, and had to be replaced. No people had to be replaced, which was fortunate.

The B-23 went unmentioned in the PASM tour.

But on field projects here in Arizona and around the world, our B-23 always brought a small crowd of aircraft aficionados who wanted to see something rare, of WWII vintage. Few knew what it was since only about 25 were manufactured. It was a failed project.

Possibly because of not being very fast, could cruise at 65-75 kts, it wasn’t so good as a military aircraft, but that made it great for sampling clouds; you were in them longer, and the instruments worked better at lower true airspeeds. Most aircraft in our era were flying at 100 kts while sampling clouds, and corrections had to be made for measurements that we did not have to make.

Seeing the B-23 was such a treat, bringing back warm memories of vomiting on flights, the cramped crew spaces, lots of G’s in those 90 second returns to the same cloud we had just gone through, wings vertical, blood rushing to the head, then this awful feeling of it going back down out of the turn when leveling off, to get back into a Cumulus turret or back into a power plant plume to see how many noxious chemicals it still had in it.

How did we get so many people (five or so) and so much stuff in there?!

And, of course, with the B-23 being unpressurized meant getting out the oxygen tube, sucking on that, when flying above 10, 000 feet; at times we got well above 20, 000 feet, lips, fingernails turning blue in spite of oxygen anyway.

But it also had a fantastic attribute that made “all the difference” in our scientific work, a viewing dome toward the back of the fuselage, which turned out to be my position as a crew member; sitting in a swivel chair, checking the cloud field for ripe sample candidates.

The dome allowed us to go exactly back to the place we had just come out of a turret, so that how clouds changed as they aged could be measured more accurately than other reseaerchers could do. Here’s a backward view from “the bubble” on the B-23 as it was called, taken by the author.

Looking back at sampled clouds. — Looking back at sampled Cumulus cloud tops.

Having such a great look back also caused us to discover that our B-23 was compromising our measurements in second samples of clouds at below freezing temperatures by producing copious amounts of ice in narrow tubes in clouds that could be as warm at -8 C (about 18 F). We dubbed this phenomenon, APIPs, for Aircraft Produced Ice Particles, in later publications (1983).

It was a controversial, even suspect finding at first due to the high temperatures at which we observed it; no other aircraft researchers had reported it while doing cloud sampling over many years, but the phenomenon was verified a few years later in independent studies using other aircraft (1991). That finding still stands out as one of our most important, most cited ones.

But there were hazards associated with the plastic viewing dome on the B-23 in those days. It was not thick enough to stop grapefruit sized chunks of ice from blasting through it, ice that had been collected on the airframe during long periods of flight in icing conditions, that either melted off, or was ejected suddenly by inflating a rubber boot at the leading edge of the wing.

I had just stepped away to sit down on “Final” going into Sacramento’s Executive Aviation AP in January 1977 when such a chunk crashed through the “bubble” within seconds after I strapped in. Below, what the bubble looked like after it got bashed:

One of the “fun” things about having an old aircraft (1939), too, is the need to manually rotate the HUGE props to get it so it would “turn over”: