About real clouds, weather, cloud seeding and science autobio life stories by WMO consolation prize-winning meteorologist, Art Rangno
Author: 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.
Yesterday saw a gorgeous sight after our long cloudless spell; Cumulonimbus anvils approaching from the south-southeast in the later afternoon, our summer friends with their winds and rain squalls. The bottom of those thunderheads disappeared before they arrived over Catalina, and were just anvils, that icy portion above 30,000 feet or so, but they harbinger a great rainfull day today as degree of moisture improves. The dewpoint in Tucson was only 39 F yesterday at this time, and is now a robust 58 F! Welcome water molecules! This means that if you condensed all the water out of a cubic meter of air today you would get about 8 grams while yesterday you would have only gotten about 4.5 grams, so almost a doubling of water content in the air swirling around us.
And with this, instead of having cloud bases at 14,000-15,000 feet above sea level (about 11- 12 KFT above us) as we did yesterday, they’ll be closer to 10-11 KFT above sea level, or 7-8 KFT above us (maybe even topping Ms. Lemmon). This will mean that less of the precious rain falling out of those Cumulonimbus clouds today will evaporate before it reaches the ground. And with that, some very dramatic skies later today.
Check the U of A local model here to see what the great “Beowulf Cluster” is thinking about rain today in AZ. Looks good. Note some favored areas just to the SW of us might get an inch of rain today! (But, don’t count on the EXACT placement of those strong rain areas; they’re often off by many miles. Its just a good indicator of strong showers very near us today.)
The past two days have seen some rain fall in SE AZ, but the cloud bases were so high, not much reached the ground. So, the chances of a significant rain here in Catalina this afternoon and evening are good, indeed.
Farther ahead…and remembering 1955.
The models are still making it look like a normal uptick in rain chances around the 4-5th of July, pretty usual for us here in Catalina, with a bit of a dry spell before that uptick in rain chances.
One interesting facet of the weather pattern these days is how a cold spring and summer in the Pacfic NW in 1955 translated into a bountiful summer rain season here. This June will be one of the coldest/wettest ever in Washington State. Many of you out there probably remember the great summer rains of 1955 and those string of hits by The Platters. While weather never quite repeats itself, and there hasn’t been a group like The Platters back either, its something to hope for, that is, that the cold in the NW, wet in AZ pattern will recur this summer.
Lots of complainers now in the Pac NW these days with the continuing rains and cool weather there as the longest day of the year has passed, the days beginning to shorten, with no sign of summer yet.
Here are a few shots of those approaching Cumulonimbus clouds from yesterday:
First Cumulus over Ms. Lemmon about 1 PM AST.Just after 3 PM, first Cumulonimbus sighting, and its moving this way!5:22 PM: Cumulonimbus complex moving this way, but looking like too much anvil cloud, not enough connecting clouds.6:24 PM: Its gone, faded away as the afternoon heating faded and all the lower Cumulus were gone. Just an icy mass drifting toward us.7:36 PM: a nice ice cloud sunset, but no chance of rain.
Below is an updated chart showing the frequency of rain in Catalina from June 1st through September 30th. These data are mostly the courtesy of Our Garden here in Catalina on Stallion Place, supplemented in the past few years by obs here on Wilds Road. Thought you’d like to see this to get your day started thinking about rain. Its pretty self-explanatory, which saves me a lot of work.
For really pretty charts of temperatures and rain frequencies, go here to WeatherSpark, a very nice site. No stations at our elevation and near us are available in their station list for Arizona, however. We are, as you know, very much affected by our higher elevation than those longterm stations around us like Tucson (rain increases in Arizona mainly with elevation) and because of our nearness to the Catalina Mountains which are a spawning ground for the summer showers that often affect us.
The weather ahead
Models are still showing rain creeping into SE AZ tomorrow. If nothing else, we should see some Cumulonimbus tops off to the SE by late afternoon or evening.
Here, from the U of WA, valid for tomorrow evening at 8 PM AST. Note lightly colored regions in SE AZ:
Looking WAY out ahead, the NOAA spaghetti factory has turned out plots that make it seem like the summer rain season will get started for real (steadily) on July 4-5th, as suggested by the rain frequency chart above. Here what came out for 5 PM AST, July 5th, some 14 days from now that makes that seem likely.
Why?
Note that dark region to the north of Arizona, that region mostly located in Utah and Colorado. This spaghetti plot/ensemble runs of the model after introducing slight errors or changes in “initial conditions” those at the very start of the model run. That dark region represents a pretty strong signal in the data that our big fat anticyclone (at 500 millibars, around 20,000 feet here in the summertime) will be located in a favorable position for good rains here in southern Arizona. The red lines are those lines that pretty much represent the boundaries of that high, and you can see that they are located to the south of us, as well as to the north. In the summer, you want to be in a LOT of red lines to the south of the high, representing in this case, nice easterly flow with a lot of humidity in it across northern Mexico.
Looking forward to seeing some real rain, and how this plays out.
in southeastern Arizona/ Looks like the first chance for rain in sight from Catalina is on Friday, a minimal beginning, but a beginning.
Thereafter, rain appears somewhere in AZ in last night’s model run from that ONE green pixel of rain over the Catalinas Friday afternoon-evening, everyday for the next 10 days! Let the summer rain season begin! BTW, if you would like the latest official government update on the summer monsoon, go here. As you will see, there are no strong forcings that will help us figure out where it will be juicy or not. So, expect somewhere around normal, but hope for MORE.
Test your map skills and see if you can find that green (indicating rain) pixel, forecast to “occur” between 5 PM and 11 PM AST on Friday:
From the Washington Huskies version of the WRF-GFS model, this panel for Friday afternoon at 5 PM AST (more detail on that first chance of rain in those colored regions below). Below is the rain expected in SE AZ between about 2 PM and 5 PM. Sweet. That whole sequence can be found here.
Not only did Tucson set a daily record for rain on June 16th with 0.29 inches, breaking the old record of 0.20 inches that fell in 1918 (!), but here in Catalina, the 0.11 inches was the first measurable rain on June 16th in the 35-year combined record maintained at Our Garden, and then here for the past few years.
It was only the second day with measurable rain in Catalina since mid-April, and that prior rain was only a paltry 0.01 inches that fell in mid-May.
Regional rainfall totals for yesterday’s magnificent day can be found here, courtesy of the Pima County Flood Control District. Two sites in the Catalina Mountains got hit hard, with 0.94 inches at Pig Spring, and a whopping 1.54 inches at CDO at Coronado Camp. Those two gages are close to one another near the top of the CDO watershed. Here is a map having those locations. You can also get 24 h rain totals, ending at 7 AM today, from the U of A network here.
The best part, though, may have been those desert aromas that spring out of the desert when it rains, and that cool air that rushed around Catalina yesterday afternoon and evening. Makes you happy to be alive. However, those two close lightning strikes were somewhat unsettling when you’re running around outside with a camera..
The drop in temperature as the rain hit was stupefying, about 35 degrees, from 100 F to 65 F!
Here are some photos, since I am still alive, the first ones of the Altocumulus perlucidus clouds that were mutating into Cirrus uncinus, a bit of an oddity. The TUS sounding indicates that these droplet Altocumulus clouds were extremely cold, -30 C (-22 F). And their presence was another live demonstration about how odd ice formation is in the atmosphere, still not completely understood.
By late morning the Cumulus were sprouting over the Catalinas, and the Altocumulus/Cirrus were gone. Those Cumulus clouds were a great sight since the models had very little rain indicated, and these were fattening up nicely suggesting those models might not have gotten “the scene” for yesterday right; there was more hope for rain after all.
Ice clouds on the left, droplet clouds on the right side.Parhelia (sun dog) in the fallstreak of a former Altocumulus flake.1:16 PM: Cumulus mediocris, center right, portends a good shower day.2:11 PM. We are underway!2:32 PM: Heavy rain falls on the upper CDO wash watershed.3:01 PM: A strong shower complex appeared to the S toward TUS, giving hope of some rain here.3:02 PM: Two very strong dust devils developed ahead of the outflow winds coming into Marana. They seemed odd since they were under the cloud cover and you start looking up to the base to see it there is a tube up there, and whether it is one of the dry tornado funnel cases.3:09 PM. The thunderstorms over the Catalinas propagated to the west and here Saddlebrooke gets a dump.7:33 PM: After our nice little rain, and as happens so often here in the summer rain season, we polish the day off with a spectacular sunset.
The weather ahead
The next chance for rain, the best one I could find, of course, is next Friday and Saturday afternoons. For Friday afternoon, this, from the U of WA’s model. The lightly colored, filled in areas represent rain.
Looking for just Cumulus today, maybe a very isolated Cumulonimbus cloud.
Lots of haze this morning as I am sure you are aware. Not good. The rising sun whitish-yellow color indicated that the particles over all, are quite large for aerosols. This makes you think of dust. But, it hasn’t windy around here or really anywhere else much.
So, where is the haze coming from?
Here is a backtrajectory plot ending in Tucson, last evening at 8 PM AST, for two levels, about 5,000 (red) and 9000 feet above sea level (blue), clearly levels that are impacted by this aerosol. It seems doubtful that any of the aerosol came out of the eastern Pacific, so the 9,000 feet above sea level trajectory can probably be ignored.
The best answer seems to be from smoke and or dust along the Mexican west coast and over the Sea of Cortez. Below is the visible satellite image that shows a heavy concentration of aerosols in the southern Sea of Cortez, near Mazatlán, northward to Guaymas-Hermosillo, MX. (You’ll have to click a couple of times to see this whitishness over the Sea of Cortez and get the largest image.)
——————–
Cumulus clouds and isolated showers knocking at the door
In that visible satellite image you will see that there are Cumulus and other clouds at the SE AZ border.
The models are now indicating a crease between the upper low pressure area that is forming off San Diego today, and an upper high over northern Mexico that will allow a little rivulet of moisture to flood northward for a day or two. Two different models now have scattered showers/thunderstorms in SE AZ, mostly tomorrow! It is likely that bases will be high, and so with that comes strong downdrafts and not a lot of rain. Still, a quarter of an inch might fall in isolated areas.
Of note, there has not been a day with measurable rain here in Catalina on June 15th or 16th in 35 years of record keeping!
Here’s our trough (green lines) as seen on a 500 millibar map from the U of Washington:
Another nice day of high heat and high, patterned clouds. at times. Here are a few shots of the latter, beginning with another flaming sunrise shot. The U of AZ time lapse movie for yesterday is really informative. The clouds shown in the second shot go by just after 6 AM, soon after the movie begins and you can really see the ice/snow falling out of those guys.
Those central clouds could be called Altocumulus floccus virgae. But then they are at 29,000 feet above Catalina at -35 C, too high for Ac! In spite of the temperature, those tops look an awful like droplet clouds with ice crystals falling out underneath. So, "CIrrus floccus" would be a better designation, if you care.Some more of them CIrrus floccus looking like Ac floccus virgae
"Webby" Cirrus, probably best designated as "perlucidus" (honey-combed).
At first, it appeared that the Cirrus "perlucidus" might be the result of a droplet cloud. But here, that delicate pattern was developing in the distance without a droplet cloud (as at left).
They’re not zero, but the chances of rain twixt now and the end of the month are pretty small. However, a tremendous surge of humid air is indicated as the month closes from the remnant of a tropical storm-hurricane along the Mexican Gulf of Mexico coast. Of course, that’s so far out it can’t be TOO reliable, but its something that would bring substantial rains. Here’s what it looks like in green (moist air) and brown (dry air) from IPS Meteostar. All that “green” air to the east of us is heading our way.
Probably most people didn’t notice much yesterday, but at times, especially in the mid-afternoon it was spectacular up there due to delicate little patterns within Cirrus and Cirrocumulus clouds. Some examples below.
1. Cirrostratus undulatus (Cs having waves in it).2. Cirrocumulus.3. Cirrocumulus (upper), Altocumulus floccus in distance.4. Cirrocumulus.
5. The after life of those Cc and Ac clouds was Cirrus!6. Oddity: extremely thin Cirrocumulus with holes.
The Tucson rawinsonde sounding indicated that these initially liquid droplet clouds (Cirrocumulus and Altocumulus) were at 26,000 feet (at the 330 millibar level) above Catalina at -30 C (-22 F) . So, being that high, its no wonder those delicate Cirrocumulus clouds (Cc) became fuzzy masses of ice. Long ago it was noticed that nature liked to produce a droplet cloud before it froze to become ice, even at these low temperatures. Only around -35 to -40 C does ice form directly without going through the water phase, though liquid drops have been reported at -44 C!
To watch some of this transition happen before your very eyes, go to the University of AZ time-lapse and, about 1:02 from the finish (about 15:35 PM if you can read the time on this movie!) before the end of the movie, a really nice patch of Cc appears on the left, but by the time its about to exit the field of view, it has magically transformed into a thin patch of ice cloud. This little patch of Cc in the movie is likely the same one I shot at 15:32 PM in photo number 4.
Just ahead, our upper air anticyclonic summer regime
And with that big mound of hot air over the Southwest US, the first onset of summer rains are now indicated in the models twelve days from now, around June 25th. Too far in advance to bother showing, but am very hopeful of an earlier onset of the summer rain season, and we hope, a LONG, juicy one!
In the meantime, we will be in a trough for a few days, but, as tantalizing as that is, the models still see insufficient moisture for rain in AZ when the trough peaks over us this weekend. However, rain is shown in Sonora near the AZ border this weekend so its not impossible that a few Cumulus might get overly enthusiastic and bust those model predictions of complete dryness this weekend in the mountains. If rain did unexpectedly develop over the weekend from our little trough, it would probably fall from very high-based Cumulonimbus clouds producing mostly virga.
More flaming cirrus this morning, perhaps reminding us of the ascension of the temperature later this morning. In some photographic razzle dazzle, two photos have BOTH clouds and THE MOON! The IR sat image loop makes it appear that we may have these kinds of clouds for at least a couple of days. Below, I also am having a climate issues tantrum due to an unfolding story at Oregon State University.
Later, with more light, Cirrus fibratus.Cirrus fibratus with hints of floccus elements (more compact, dense areas where Cirrus is forming).
Below some of the interesting patterns seen in yesterday’s Altocumulus/Cirrocumulus clouds. Most of the Cirrus had long departed by this time.
Cirrocumulus (liquid cloud elements) with moon.Iridescence caused by the refraction of the sun's light around tiny cloud droplets.Cirrocumulus at the top of the photo. Elements broaden and thicken some downstream and would be termed Altocumulus where the shading starts. Cirrocumulus clouds can have no shading by definition.Cirrocumulus with a lenticular-like upstream edge (bottom of photo).
Dark Ages of science?
Here are two links below to a disturbing science story that is just unfolding in Oregon:
A senior chemistry instructor was fired without notice APPARENTLY because he did not follow the global warming line. He was a skeptic, posted stuff about his views, and spoke on talk shows in the Oregon area. The exact details of this firing are not yet known.
Unfortunately the average temperature in the Pacific Northwest has been falling over the past 10-30 years, particularly very lately (see dip at the end of the record), and this has given rise to some skepticism about the effects of global warming since the temperatures are supposed to be INCREASING, not DECREASING. And ESPECIALLY “lately” with all that extra CO2 that’s been pumped into the air in the past 10 years.
Now, the ORDINARY person might understand why some skeptics might pop up in view of these data. What is going on? But instead of reacting in the ideal way, “Wow, this is interesting data! I will have some of my grad students look into this for their Masters or Ph. D. dissertations”, it is ignored, it is pretended as though it doesn’t exist, but riles people when it is brought up by those outside their organization/discipline, as has happened here.
Those social scientists who study science and how it works will yawn at such “non-idealistic” science behavior. They have been telling us for decades that we are a bastion of White Male Culture, and that no science worker can really be objective in his or her work, be disinterested, only care about “truth” and not where the chips fall, but will always be intrinsically influenced, biased by that culture, even those female workers.
Of course, we folk who actually practice science get mad about those kinds of allegations, conclusions; I do anyway. Those of you who follow this page know that I parody that inability to be “disinterested” by only showing those model runs with the most rain in southern Arizona, because that’s what I want to have happen.
But here again, in the case of Oregon State University, those sociologists who study sceince have been proved correct. Dissenting opinion is not really allowed, particularly by an “outsider” to the climate science social-science cult, even when it is based on contrary evidence that clearly needs explaining.
OK, the Oregon State guy that was fired was not a meteorologist/climatologist. Maybe we should muzzle anyone who speaks outside of his/her trained domain, like Linus Pauling the Nobel Laureate in chemistry who then thought he could cure cancer with vitamin C.
Or Alfred Wegner, the METEOROLOGIST who first proposed the theory of continental drift around the turn of the 20th century but was laughed at by the geologists/geographers of his day. He would have had the last laugh, had he still been alive when they finally accepted his tenet.
The OSU “firee” wasn’t a tenured faculty member, either, and so he wasn’t protected by the golden shield of academia, that shield that once attained allows lifetime employment far beyond productive years. Perhaps when these lesser persons (research staff, instructors) at a university speak out on something that causes us some discomfort, provide a dissenting opinion on something, they SHOULD be fired immediately!
Yes, that’s it! No dissent!
Think how great things would be if there was no dissent on anything in the scientific realm! Whatever the majority thought, that would be the end of the story. No reporters asking difficult questions, kind of like things are now, , no reporting of any digression in opinions; there would only be the official line.
Think how happy we’d be not having to THINK or be disturbed by contrary thoughts!
Of course, not thinking is appealing, but, its not right.
Dissenting opinions/findings, if they are WRONG, have a way of disappearing quietly. Remember the NPR story back in the 1980s about the Newman Motor, the motor that produced more energy than it consumed? NPR gave it a lot of credibility back then, but, of course (!), it was bogus.
That’s OK. Mr. Newman tried real hard to get something for nothing, and failed.
Remember, too, “Cold Fusion”, the promise of endless power generation at room temperature, as reported by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishmann of the University of Utah? Hey, they gave it a good shot, but that, like the Newman Motor, its gone, too.
Crackpot ideas have a way of disappearing. Let the dissenters have their say. IF the earth’s temperature rockets upward in the immediate future, they, like Henry Newman, Pons and Fleishmann, will quickly disappear. But don’t fire them!
So, to take action as the Oregon State University did, in my mind is shameful, and is the worst kind of anti-science I have seen lately. Shame on you, Oregon State!
Something in the sky to look at, Cirrus! And more!
Some Cirrus, Cirrocumulus, Altocumulus clouds from the tropics have floated over in time for a nice sunrise presentation. Some of these clouds should be around all day. From this morning:
Also, let me reprise our June rain frequency chart for Catalina. “Upon further review”, I have altered some text box wording to reflect a more accurate picture. In reviewing some Tucson rain days in early June, where I had asserted that they were associated with “cold troughs”, I learned from an review of old weather maps that, while those rains were associated with troughs in the upper levels, they weren’t nearly so cold and strong as I had believed. And those troughs had tapped the tropics for the rains that fell, and I had not indicated that. It bugged me that I had got that wrong and so here is the corrected version of that chart.
Also with “only” 35 years of data here in Catalina, the “transition” zone below could be a statistical fluke. In checking the Tucson 100 year plus record, there has been rain on days in this “transition” period, so its not impossible. No rain is indicated during this period in the models right now, either, but there is a threat of rain developing. More on that below.
Looking troughy enough for a rain threat in a few days
From our Canadian friends, this four panel prog chart for the afternoon of June 16th. Note “trough” (upper left panel) extruding southward from Montana all the way down to Cabo San Lucas. The models have had this figured out for many days, but the magnitude of the trough, the strength of the winds around it, and how much cool air it would contain way down here in the SW US, has been subject to some wild variations. Now it appears that the trough will be pretty weak, not much cold air in it, BUT, with the amplitude it has (how far south it extends) makes it possible to fetch us some tropical air. None of the models have much in the way of moist air reaching us YET. Take a look at the lower left panel for moisture at 700 millibars, or around 7,000 feet above the ground here in Catalina. That blue shading shows that the moist plume drawn northward will mainly be in eastern NM and west TX, which will be good for them, but not us. Still these kinds of things are dicey and one of those rare days with rain in mid-June is not out of the question. What is life without hope?
As expected, the odd pattern of just 24 h ago disappeared on the later model runs.
Is it really gone?
Nope. Might pop back up on a subsequent run.
While our usual June inferno continues for a few more days (here’s the NWS forecast for Catalina), a cool trough of air is destined to come here 6 days from now and linger for a few. Here’s the totality of evidence for that assertion, this plot valid 8 days from now, Friday afternoon, June 17th. In case you have forgotten where Arizona is, I have repeated the map below this one with an arrow to help you out.
What do you see in the western US?
A lot of blue lines! Ones that outline where a cool-cold trough of upper air will be. Notice where the red lines are, those ones that outline where the southern periphery of the jet stream will be located, those being the outer boundary of the cool air trough. They’re ALL WAY down in Baja, California! This VIRTUALLY guarantees an a trough of cool-cold air along the West Coast in 8-10 days! Along with that, the possibility that tropical air will move up from the south and get into Arizona.
Yesterday, the model believed a hurricane would form and move northward, its remnant dribbling into Cal and AZ. The model (at 00 Z last night) saw tropical storms forming, but they remain far to the south of even Baja!
Well, that prediction I showed yesterday was SO STRANGE it certainly wasn’t going to happen nine days out into the future. It was an outlier.
But, what is guaranteed from an inspection of the maps above, is a trough along the West Coast, and with that, comes the possibility of a rain here, not from the cool air part of the trough, that won’t happen, but rather from tropical air being whooshed up around the outer, warm boundary of the jet, marked by those red lines. Right now, if you’re in the mountains of New Mexico, eastern plains of NM, and west Texas, you are just about guaranteed to get that tropical air and with it, showers and thunderstorms.
A climate note: it has not rained in Catalina between June 9th and 19th here in Catalina for 35 years; NO measurable rain on those days yet. I’ve reprised the June daily rain frequency for our 35 years here:
What should you take from that?
There are likely climatological factors, one’s having to do with the march of the seasons, that work against even the presence of clouds! Chances are it is what we would call in climate, a “singularity”, something akin to the January thaw in the northeast US. Here its a June transition season from the time a cold trough can bring us a bit of rain, and the onset of the tropical air regime with its Cumulus and showers, jet streams not involved then. (I’ve assumed that 35 years is enough to suggest a real feature, not a statistical fluke.)
So, with this big trough foretold to occur during our normal dry spell-transition period, you’d have to go against the chances of precip in a knee-jerk fashion. We’d most likely end up BETWEEN where there are showers in cold Pacific air inside the trough, and dry regime outward from that zone, to a plume of tropical air just to the east of us over NM and TX. Doesn’t mean rain can’t happen, but don’t bet on rain during this period through June 19th.
As a final comment, note the dark area in the central Pacific on these maps. That dark area repersents and extrusion of cold air well toward the tropics out there, also an unsual occurrence, and it is vital for us. Note that even the blue lines, noting the core of the jet, has extruded southward out there. That extrusion (my favorite word I think), in essence, creates a “bounce” in the latitude of the jet downstream, a southward extrusion along the West Coast. The dark hole out there indicates that even 8-10 days out, the computer predictions are extremely confident that there will be that extrusion of cold air toward the equator out there, and that, in turn, strengthens the likelyhood of a unusually strong “bounce” trough along the West Coast 8-10 days out.
It will be fun watching this develop, since we’ll like get a much cooler day or two about that time. But, it would be even better if the hurricane shows up again, and is steered thisaway as it was yesterday!
