Art Rangno – Page 88

Castellanus anyone?

Lots of nice Cirrus clouds yesterday, but no Altocumulus castellanus later in the day yesterday as it was asserted there would be. Only a flake or two of Altocumulus “uncastellanus”, (flat-as-you-can-get lenticular) clouds off in the distance (see bottom of page). BTW, I obsess over being right. I thought you’d want to know that about me since you come here every day and I am part of your life now. So, I made up the word “uncastellanus” because it sounds like in some way I might have been right about yesterday if you are reading quickly.

BTW#2, as per usual tendencies, the bottom of the moist layer where the Cirrus clouds were yesterday did slide down toward us during the day, from about 24 kft above the ground at 5 AM and -34 C to 21.5 kft and -27 C at 5 PM, the latter still pretty cold for clouds comprised of droplets, but they were there.

Below are a few “character of the sky” photos from yesterday. If you want the whole day, go here to the U of A time lapse. In this movie for yesterday are a few spectacular Cirrus castellanus clouds just after 11 AM AST. You’d swear they were real Cumulus clouds at first, but then you see them moving along at the same speed as the Cirrus clouds, glaciated with fall streaks beginning to come out as they go by.

You’ll also see in this movie, a lot a wind shear, changes in wind direction and or speed, with height, quite at lot visible early on. It will be easy to see how those trails of ice crystals get skewed away from the parent cloud producing these sometimes incoherent patterns when viewed from below.

Expecting castellanus TODAY, dammitall!

I think you can kind of sense my ferocity here about getting things right… A LOT of weatherpersons are like this, so its not just me.

As a potent trough blasts into Cal today, AZ will be in the rising motion part of that trough. So what happens? The air temperatures aloft begin to fall as the subsiding air pattern over us lessens and moves off to the east. With that tendency for subsiding air gone, some layers of the atmosphere will develop larger drops in temperature (lapse rate) as you go higher, a situation ripe for castellanus clouds, ones that look like miniature clouds that have been on a growth hormone. Those clouds (Ac cas) are probably my most favorite clouds, itty-bitty towering Cumulus clouds and so I do have a tendency over predict them based on a desire to see them. You can see what the TUS sounding is supposed to do here from the U of A model run. You’ll see the temperature falling just that bit over us late in the day. Well, it will be interesting to see what really happens!

Lots of other kinds of clouds are likely, too, such as a patch of Cirrocumulus, more Cirrus, and a lenticular here and there as the winds continue to increase over us. Gee, with the air coming from so far to the south, maybe even a scruff or two of small Cumulus clouds may show up, too, though Mr. Model doesn’t think so! Quite a cloud day possible.

Due to the high altitude the Altocumulus are likely to be at today, above 15, 000 feet above the ground, they’ll likely be cold enough (tops colder than -10 C, 14 F) to produce ice crystals and snowflakes, which we will see as virga coming out. Again, a fabulous sunset is possible because of the presence of more than one cloud layer.

Still only a dusty cold snap in the offing as the main upper trough bashes Cal Thursday and Friday before settling in over AZ on Saturday and Sunday.

SONY DSC — Cirrus spissatus center (mostly).

Addendum; yesterday’s and today’s clouds

Addendum on beer

BTW, if you’re still interested in beer and clouds after yesterday’s blog about CIrrus being “on tap”, get this book:

Clouds in a Glass of Beer: Simple Experiments in Atmospheric Physics, Dover Publications, by Professor Craig Bohren. In spite of having an interest in beer or perhaps because of it, he is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Meteorology at Penn State University, one of the leading party schools in America. Writes about optics, too, a real atmo optician. Kidding aside, his book above is one of the best you can get on how the atmo works and has been popular for decades; was updated in 2001.

I forgot about it, darn, but added it to yesterday’s blog to “go with the theme….”

Yesterday and today

Nothin’ but filmy Cirrus clouds yesterday enhancing the skies over Catalina. Here’s are two examples. BTW, if you were really noticing, they tended to be thicker and more widespread to the north, as in the second photo, closer to the main jet stream up thataway.

Same stream of moist air at high levels continues over us, but, what happens over time with these high level streams of moist air? They tend to lower in height as time goes by. Here’s the stream in this loop from the U of WA Huskies Weather Dept.

So, today, we’ll likely see some mid-level droplet clouds, not all ice clouds like Cirrus ones of yesterday, and because its relatively warm up top, those droplet clouds tend to be turreted, i. e., Altocumulus castellanus (has a base) and floccus (base is evaporating upward). Both types indicate the same thing, really, that the atmosphere is a little “unstable” up there; updrafts are easily produced when the cloud forms and a little heat is released in the condensation process.

It looks, too, like those Altocumulus clouds will be around with the Cirrus at at sunset today, and you know what that means: lots of color so charge those camera batteries, cross fingers. Could be especially spectacular.

Cal-AZ storm update

The long, and confidently predicted (think spaghetti here) and unusually strong trough and storm for April 12th is still in the cards for Cal. AZ pcpn, though plentiful for April over a couple of days in the north, may not reach us here in Catalina, and if so, will be minimal it now appears, maybe a few hundredths. Look for dusty breezes for sure after the 12th. Check this loop out for all the details, again from the Huskies.

The End

More Cirrus on tap today

No, Cirrus is NOT a microbrew as you may have thought from the title and if you were visiting this site for the first time. (and to continue being juvenile from yesterday’s “Dusty Parhelia” submission because that’s who I am….)

In fact, Cirrus clouds are the exact opposite of a microbrew. Cirrus is a high CLOUD, 15,000 to 45,000 feet above ground level, lower in the Arctic or when its cold, higher in the Tropics or when its warm, like today here in Catallina. They’re composed of ice crystals with some momentary exceptions at the time of formation. To continue a theme, there are no “ice crystals” in beer; beer is also generally found at ground level.

Q. E. D.

BTW, if you’re still interested in beer and clouds, get this book:

Clouds in a Glass of Beer: Simple Experiments in Atmospheric Physics by Professor Craig Bohren. In spite of having an interest in beer or perhaps because of it, he is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Meteorology at Penn State University, one of the leading party schools in America. Writes about optics, too, a real atmo optician. Kidding aside, his book is one of the best you can get on how the atmo works.

To sum up, it should be another fun day of Cirrus cloud viewing for you and me. What kind will we see?

Yesterday’s clouds

Man, yesterday was great! Some unanticipated Altocumulus castellanus and floccus, middle-level clouds with little turrets, many having long fall streaks of snow (virga) rolled in during the afternoon underneath the higher Cirrus clouds, keeping the temperature down a bit. Here are some shots of what went overhead, in chronological order, in case you missed the “show.”

The show ended with dessert, another one of our gorgeous sunsets; they are particularly so when two or more cloud layers are present. In those case, you see the residual scattered light that has passed through the lower part of the atmosphere when the sun sets, turning the lower clouds gold or orange (the longer, “redder” wavelengths of light are still making it through) while the higher ones, where the sun’s light is not so scattered in passing through the atmo, are that bit lighter in color, white before this last photo. The greater the height difference in the clouds, the greater the differences in sunset colors between them. When you add shadows and highlights where the sun is striking the clouds, well, it doesn’t get any better than this. OK, I am feeling lazy now about captions; been up since 3 AM something. Can YOU name these clouds? If not, just enjoy.

The End.

Dusty parhelia

No, that’s not a baseball player that played for the Dodgers or Giants back in the 1950s, that was Dusty Roads; though Dusty Parhelia would be a nice name for a baseball player. Yesterday, with our slightly dusty skies, and on the 22 degree halo ring, and horizontally from the sun’s position, was a couple of sun dogs (parhelia) late in the day associated with those cirriform clouds we had. You know by now that those high clouds are comprised of small ice crystals. Here’s a few shots of those clouds, which were often CIrrostratus with embedded other Cirrus cloud species like spissatus, fibratus, and uncinus.

The ice crystals in those clouds are typically hexagonal (six-sided) plates, ones that fall face down. If you could be there in them, and see them falling, at eye level you would see only the sliver side of them, but if you looked down at one that went by, you would see the whole hexagonal plate. The way that they fall is why aircraft laser imagery, when the laser is oriented in the vertical, captures such beautiful, full images of plates and other flat crystals in ice clouds as the aircraft flies through them.

The sun’s white light is separated into its colored components in these hexagonal crystals (but only at certain specific angles) and for this reason, the bright spots are at the same locations relative to the sun. Since I am not an atmo optician, I am relying on the links above to provide more complete, comprehensible explanations.

Note: Caption function stopped working again in WP for the fourth photo, and after half a dozen tries, will write it here:

Photo 4 caption: An especially vivid parhelia can be seen just above the horizon at lower left. The brightest ones like this are usually associated with aircraft contrails since those have high concentrations of pristine crystals. A flying saucer, or a bird with its wings closed at the instant the photo was taken, is also visible.

Continuing….

Sat image loop from the U of WA weatherfolk show lots more cirriform clouds in route to AZ next few days with occasional breaks. So, keep your camera ready for optics and sunrise/sunset color.

The weather ahead? Dusty cold snap.

“Dusty” is kind of the word of the day today.

Long foretold big Cal storm on the 12th-13th affects southeast AZ mostly with wind and dust on the 13-14th followed by unusually cool weather for mid-April. A hint of rain excitement for Catalinians has begun to show up in model runs, such as this one from the U of WA for early Saturday morning on the 14th. Yay.

The End

Stories from the field; yesterday’s clouds

While waiting for the next big thing, that big Cal storm on the 12th, one that buzzes AZ with a chance of rain a day or two later, but one that will certainly dredge up dust here (you might say that an occurrence of dust is “in the bag” with it, as it should be with this one), I will occasionally devolve into a “Stories from the Field” essay. These will involve strange, humorous, or interesting things that happened in field projects. So, here we go. You may or may not be too interested in these. If not, skip to next section about clouds well below here.

In 1972, I was loaned out in one summer from my main job in Durango, CO, one with a randomized cloud seeding experiment. I worked for a State of South Dakota cloud seeding project. That SD project, operating from May through August, was run under the aegis of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City.

As a baseball player, one that continued playing long after his years of HS and JC ball, I played ball games there in Mitchell, SD, where I was stationed at a radar. I played for the newly formed, Commercial Bank baseball team. When the forecast was for no threatening weather near Mitchell, I was able to leave the radar and join my team for a game. It was the best of all possible scenarios since the games were likely to be rained out when I had to work at the radar.

Threatening weather might require launching one or more of our four Piper Twin Commanches, ones loaded with cloud seeding flares, at our Mitchell Airport site to go up and do some seeding. I was one of the several “radar meteorologists” scattered around the State that year that were charged with launching and directing aircraft around Cumulonimbus clouds that were deemed targets for seeding. Never mind what that was right now; I haven’t finished my baseball story…

One late afternoon, I was playing for the Commerical Bank team against the Woonsocket, SD, team (I did NOT make that town name up!) The “pretty good” Rich Linke was pitching for Woonsocket. It was a good, well-played game; close right to the end.

However, the forecast for “no weather” that afternoon of the game was going bad. I did not have a cell phone yet in 1972, and there was no way to reach me in Woonsocket where I was catching for that Mitchell team that afternoon.

Instead, one of our pilots, who also had a sense of humor, had an innovative thought: He (Bud Youngren) would buzz the diamond at tree top level to let me know our cloud seeding planes had been launched to go out to some hail storm farther west.

So, unbeknownst (is that still a word?) to anyone, and with a Woonsocket runner on third in the bottom of the 8th inning, and the game tied at 2-2, our Twin Commanche ROARS over the field at tree top level! You could see the rivets on that plane!

It was VERY exciting! Stunning! Jaw dropping! An incredible sight! Everyone was amazed!

The punchline. We lost the game, 3-2.

The Woonsocket runner on third base, taking note of the distraction caused by the treetop buzz and remaining calm himself apparently, scored what proved to be the winning run in the bottom of the 8th as we all looked to the sky marveling at what had just happened!

But I knew what it meant by the type of aircraft going overhead. I had to leave the game immediately to go back to the Mitchell radar I manned.

——————–

That year, 1972, of the statewide cloud seeding project, was also the year of the devastating Rapid City flash flood that June in which up to 14 inches of rain fell in a six hour period or so. More than 220 people were killed in the ensuing flood. Up in an aircraft seeding that storm with salt (called “hygroscopic seeding”) was a School of Mines scientist, Kumud B., a genial, gentle man always with a smile. Kumud, who left the SD School of Mines later, was my officemate in a lab at the University of Washington’s Cloud and Aerosol Group for many years when I joined that group in 1976.

BTW, that type of cloud seeding, “hygroscopic”, was absolved of having any measurable effect on that devastating flash flood in the bitter lawsuits that followed¹. But with such a gentle man, we practiced a form of gallows humor, “Man, I can’t believe how many people you killed!” Only with someone you, in a sense, love, can you tease like that.

However, it was an awful “joke” in retronspect, something I am guilty of from time to time, but Kumud always smiled at it. In truth, the type of seeding he was doing would NEVER have had much if any effect on such a potent storm that Nature had thrown together that day; it was organized by a potent upper level feature combined with strong, moist winds from the SE over the whole State that day, elements far beyond the control of humans or seeding. However, a seeding plane (not mine!) should never have been near it; it had been kind of a forecast bust in itself by the lead Rapid City forecaster that day.

Below, in memoriam, Kumud B., who killed all those people in 1972. (Hey, I didn’t say I wouldn’t stop kidding him. I am sure he is smiling upward from wherever he is. “I loved you, man!”)

——————-

Yesterday’s clouds

Hmmm, kind of a sidelight now after all the above. All high clouds yesterday, Cirrocumulus (Cc) once in a while, Cirrostratus fibratus (Cs fib) at one time, and some distant lenticular clouds, Ac or Cc ones. Too far away to tell. Here are a couple of shots. In general, these kinds of clouds just tell you that there is widespread lifting going on as when a “trough” approaches; ahead of a trough (to the east) the air tends to rise gradually. If the layer (s) being lifted are patchy in moisture, or the lifting is uneven or both, you get patchy clouds. Does precip necessarily follow? Almost always in Seattle in a few hours, but here, nah.

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¹It is often the case that when people or property are injured/damaged in cloud seeding operations, that the purveyors of cloud seeding claim it had little to do with that damage or the injuries and deaths. It is only when there is no damage or deaths that cloud seeding is effective. (hahaha, a little sarcasm there.)

Big storm to strike California on April 12th; maybe it’ll bring some rain here though I doubt it

If you have had your spaghetti this morning, you would be able to write headlines like this. Here’s the plot, no, not like in a detective story, but an actual plot from the Spaghetti Factory at NOAA, valid for 192 hours from last evening, or in plain speak, next Thursday afternoon at 5 PM, April 12th, AST:

SInce you’ve had lessons in spaghetti, you should be shrieking when you see this one, “My gosh, look at that potent, powerful storm about to strike California! I can’t believe one that big would strike in the middle of April. Quite unusual.”

OK, calm down that bit, but still stay excited. Yes, the Dark Void radiating from approximately where Santa Claus lives in this plot shows you where there can great confidence that a big trough is going to be present where the Dark Void ends. Notice the dark tube extending from Nome-Anchorage, AK, all the way SSE to off northern California. And another one in eastern Canada, etc. That, as you know, is where a trough will be at 00Z on Friday, April 13th (in ordinary time, 5 PM AST on the 12th, and with that, a strong low center is coiled and ready to strike. Exciting.

Let’s go to the next chapter of this plot, one but a day later, valid for 5 PM Friday the 14th and see if the Darkness is able to extrude (I really like that word because its fun to stretch it out and make it sound like what it is describing–“ex-TRUDE”, you can feel it oozing along, its an onomatopoeia, like “thunder”). Now where was I?

Oh, yeah, the plot, revealing the plot (story-line goes), for the next day is below.

Sorry you you have to see this. After explaining the above plot, and with the background on spaghetti plots I have provided you in ealier blogs, I don’t have to tell you how disappointing the one below is. Only a slight chance of rain here exists, and there is not much confidence in configuration of the trough and jet stream around it after it rockets up to the Cal coast on the 12th.

There is another chance of rain indicated from last night’s run, that on April 19th, a day in which it has not rained in 35 years here in Catalina. Odd. Are we due? Or are there climatological factors at work to minimize rain around the middle of April? I really don’t know the answer. However, it is not a very reliable prediction at this point. It will likely come and go in the model runs in the days ahead.

In the meantime, today’s clouds

Here are a couple of shots of the Cirrus/Cirrostratus-with-contrails¹ mesh we have overhead this morning, ice clouds, as you now, with a hint of lenticulars off to the distant west. Should have nice Cirrus-ee clouds all day, and again, a chance of Cirrocumulus or very high Altocumulus lenticulars. Not much chance of anything below about 15,000 feet above the ground today.

¹I HATE contrails except when I am flying to some fun place I want to get to in a hurry!

The End

April precip climo; yesterday’s cloud

Well, no surprises here. The chance of rain continues to diminish overall in April, with an especially dry period in the current 35 year record in the middle of April. It has not rained on the 9th and 19th in all those years! Odd.

Since rain at this time of year has to be associated with cold troughs (like the Joe T of yesterday), these frequencies also tell you when a passing trough is more likely. We had one go by yesterday evening, and its still nearby, fitting the pattern above of an enhanced chance of rain day or trough passage in the first few days of April.

BTW, most of these data are from the folks at Our Garden in Catalina, who happen to be very weathercentric, thank heavens. You should really go there and buy everything they have as a “thank you.” (hahahah, sort of.)

Today’s upper level configuration from the U of WA is shown below. You can see that “Joe” is still around; in fact, he’s in the process of forming a closed center just over the horizon in New Mexico. This will eventually be a great rain producer, as mentioned yesterday, for portions of the southern Plains States. It would be great to be there during those downpours. Anyone for a road trip to OK? (hahahahah, sort of#2).

Yesterday’s cloud and its shadow

Here it is, in case you missed it. Well, OK, there was more than ONE, but not too many more. And, disappointingly, they faded before sunset! What were those clouds? Cumulus fractus, maybe as “large” a one that it could be termed a Cumulus humilis, but that was it. No ice, of course, not cold enough, only about 32 F at top; just droplet clouds.

The weather ahead? Dry now

That mid-April chance of rain has disappeared on the models, now seeming to fit the 35-year climatology of it being VERY hard to get measurable rain here in mid-April. Dang. Nothing in sight now for the next two weeks in the latest model calcs.

Old “Joe Trough”; cool temperatures move into Catalina later today

Mr. Cloud Maven person tried to trick you by titling his “piece” (“piece”, hah!) using a popular but not quite proper weatherspeak phrase, “cool temperatures”; something he ranted about a few days ago. Properly, and we try to be quite proper here, but probably aren’t, its cool “air” that’s moving toward Catalina.

As a demonstration of this assertion about cooler air moving thisaway, here, from our friends at Intellicast Inc., ones who hate Accuweather I’ve heard, is today’s 24 h temperature change chart (like to throw in some gossip from time to time, helps build ratings):

That blob of blue is associated with the encroachment of a cold front, where cooler air is replacing warmer air. Its the cold front that came ashore with Joe Trough (that trough that was so well predicted in its path across the Pacific Ocean for more than a week in advance) and his big low pressure center that brought hurricane force winds to some portions of the Oregon coast yesterday.

Unfortunately, both the warm side of the cold front (east of the cold front’s windshift line) and the incoming Pacifc air are both too dry for precip here. However, there should be a few small Cumulus later in the day as that cooler and more moist air arrives here in Catland. Also with a bit of moisture at mid and high levels, we could also see an Ac or Cc lenticular–keep an eye toward the NE and downstream from Mt. Sara L. Expecting a nice gold-lined small Cu sunset.

201204010900_500mb — "Joe Trough", the one we've been following, goes from Vancouver Island to San Diego here.

201204010900 — Joe Low, or just J-Lo, is trying to reform around Tonopah, but the main center is way over there in eastern Montana.

Where Joe T is this morning, brought to you by the U. of WA, is shown in the next panel, and the third one shows that Joe’s Low, or “J-Lo” for short, is all the way into eastern Montana! However, a second low is attempting to form around Tonopah, of course.

As Joe Trough ages, moving SLOWLY across the Southwest today (passes over Catalina at 8 PM AST), it will cast off by the main jet stream and will eventually become an isolated, enfeeble-ized meandering cut off low with a weak circulation over Texas, finally ending up, like so many old things, in Florida six days from now.

Not a great way to go, but with more moisture rising up from the Gulf of Mexico, this moisture being something of an age enhancer for “Joe”, huge amounts of precip will fall in the southern Plains food basket of the US. You don’t need so much strength as a weather system to generate huge clouds when you have Gulf air to play with. Think of our summers. No lows required, just that high dewpoint air and a blazing early sun for a good downpour here and there.

Note the new header today, along with an AZ Cat color scheme implemented by my web page person, Jenny Rink. She’s great! Go Wildcats! Huskies, too, though.

Speaking of summer and humid air….

Longer range models have something akin to a summer rain regime breaking out on April 10th, blazing hot with lots of tropical clouds streaming up from Mexico. Rains in SE AZ for three days, ended by a sharp trough and cold front on the 13th. Something to keep an eye on, dream about.

Will have some April precip climo tomorrow.

Cirrus altocumulus castellano-floccogenitus

We had a rare form of Cirrus yesterday, whose name I have made up in the title as a hint of where they came from, due to the very high altitude and low temperatures of some Altocumulus yesterday. Those Ac morphed to Cirrus, hence the strange, unpronounceable title.

Reminder, weatherscience mavens, its more proper to say “low” temperatures; not “COLD” temperatures, FYI, though you constantly hear it. (“Things”, like coffee, air, chairs in the sun, etc., are hot, warm, cool, tepid, and cold; temperature is not a physical thing, and is high. moderate, or low, etc.))

Still bristling over some unexpected clouds yesterday, so I wanted to complain about something minor, bring some discipline to the field.

Mr. Cloud-maven person was not paying attention, asleep at the wheel, etc., when some Altocumulus castellanus and Cirrus castellanus came a truckin’ over the horizon and floated over Catalina after dawn yesterday, but had not been mentioned in this blog in advance. I am sure, since they had not mentioned from this keyboard, you may have been in some distress yesterday when they showed up and you weren’t sure what was happening. My apologies. It will almost never happen again.

Here are some photos of the interesting clouds that passed overhead yesterday. I was quite excited to see them partly because I had not prepared myself mentally for them. Now, there is something strange in the first caption. But I wrote it that way on purpose because I REALLY want to know if YOU know WHERE the HELL you are, and where the mountains are around here. Next, after that outrage, some interesting banded Cirrus. Then a hint at where those Cirrus came from in the background of the 3rd shot.

DSCN1187 — This banded Cirrus gave some hint as to its origin. Might be termed, Cirrus uncinus, or floccus, or fibratus, its a pretty complicated set.

Caption function not working now for this third shot in WP, so here it is:

3) A nice example of Cirrus uncinus in the foreground, tufted or hooked ice clouds trailing tiny ice crystals. In the background, a clue to the origin of the patchy, banded Cirrus.

4) Another shot of the approaching Altocumulus castellanus (Ac cas) and (Ac floc) floccus clouds as they arrived overhead, some of which have morphed completely into ice (Cirrus) clouds, such as that larger element over the house in the foreground! In the upper left quadrant of this shot are Ac clouds that, to this eyeball, are still liquid.

Droplet clouds have more sharply defined edges because droplet clouds have MUCH higher concentrations of particles in them than ice crystal clouds (which tend to make them “fuzzy”, ghost-like, striated, fibrous, etc.

Why this visual difference, which I want you to learn, to see for yourself and impress your friends?

There are more cloud droplet condensation nuclei than there are ice crystal nuclei. For example, liquid Altocumulus clouds might have 100,000 to 500,ooo drops per liter in them, while ice crystal clouds may have only tens to a few thousand per liter (and then only in newly formed elements) of ice crystals. In general, there are more cloud condensation nuclei than ice nuclei, too.

Today

While “Joe” is spinning up into his little hurricane-like self in some kind of weather tantrum off the California coast today before heading to Oregon, our skies over Catalina will be marked by various forms of Cirrus clouds, ice clouds well above 25,000 feet above the ground, and not much else. BTW, you can follow Joe’s progress here from the U of WA, if interested.

If you’re interested, instead, of following our Cirrus clouds as they approach and go overhead today, go here, also from the U of WA. You see the Cirrus clouds pealing off the main frontal band in the Pac NW and then fading as they head this way. (I would increase the speed of the loop for maxium excitement.)

The End.

Joe the Transformer

“Where’s Joe?”, a new game for kids and adults. I’m talkin’ “Joe Trough” here, that little big boy we talked about a coupla days ago that’s going to bash the West Coast now in a little over 48 h. Try to find “Joe” here.

Did you find him in the satellite clouds on these weather map? He’s entering the scene, “stage left” as a hint. If this was a silent film, there would very a dramatic and dark organ accompaniment at this time: “Joe” is a villain, about to transform into a monster. Yes, that’s right, “Joe” is a “Transformer”, to recall movies that we’ve all enjoyed where things turn into bigger things (I am so kidding here). But, “Joe” WILL destroy some stuff in a couple of days.

For us little older weather-centric folk, it was obvious where “Joe” is. Of course, I know you, too, are weather-centric, hungering for more information, thinking about quitting your current job to become a weatherman, “why did I chose my current profession in the first place?”, the kinds of things that TRULY weather-centric folk ruminate about all day.

So, I will tell you. “Joe” is that comma-shaped cloud in the north Pacific almost due north of the Hawaiian Islands at this time (5 AM AST, 12 GMT today), and oddly, separate from and to the north of the long bank of clouds that stretch from Duckville (sometimes called “Oregon”, sorry Beavs) and northern California into the central Pacific and then on to Okinawa I think.

So, how do we know “Joe” will become a monster? Our computer models are so good these days, they just never miss a situation like “Joe” is presenting to us. All the ingredients are there, sharp air mass contrasts, STRONG upper level trigger (“Joe Trough”) on top and approaching the long frontal band mentioned above, and starting to make it expand and swell up. The most incredible thing to us weather folk, is that now, “Joe” doesn’t even have an eyeball (no low center) on these maps above and in the latest one below for 5 AM AST today! I will show you that latest map with a “no eyeball Joe” below, it’s just a bend in the isobars (yellow lines of equal pressure); his power comes from above. Soon, JT will cause the air to start wrapping around itself and a hurricane like eye-center will form out of what was just a long, almost straight band of clouds.

But look below at what the models say will happen in but 48 h! The transformation is into practically a cold season hurricane striking Oregon. Certainly hurricane force winds and pounding rains of several inches will strike northern California and the Oregon coasts in but two days. There are so many isobars I can’t count them all, and, as you know, the more tightly packed a lot of isobars are, the stronger the winds.

Two things are exceptional about this storm, the time of year, and that its so far south with this kind of intensity. Very rare to see such an intense low strike the West Coast south of Seattle at any time, but in late March? Wow.

Look for some damage reports in the Pac NW and Cal beginning on Saturday.

Here?

Just some friendly, non-threatening Cirrus clouds (ooops, and maybe a lenticular or two since I just saw one–something we meteorologists call, “retrospective forecasting”–really helps your accuracy ratings…and here at 8:03 AM, seeing Ac cas with long virga trails. Better predict those, too, now).

Not much else for the next few days in the skies, but we’ll get a part of the remnant of “Joe Hurricane” on Sunday. Expect a lotta wind and dust in the air, and then a SHARP drop in temperatures after the dry (boo-hoo) cold front goes by. Also, go here to experience more excitement at the Tucson NWS when it gets a bit closer.

The End.