Catalina/Sutherland Heights gets its own hourly predicted weather from the U of AZ

On this station plot map for the Tucson area, generated by the University of Arizona’s Hydro and Atmospheric Sciences Department, now has a point for little Catalina/Sutherland Heights!   Check it out.  Sample map below.  Now you can see how our predicted weather varies with those points around us over the next few days.  How great is that?Ann Catalina:Sutherland Heights stationSome rain from our incoming cold front is just about here as a line of showers approaches from the west.  Hoping now for a tenth of an inch is all.

Yesterday’s clouds

Had some nice scenes late of little Altocumulus castellanus shedding light snow showers or “virga.”

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6:01 PM.
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6:01 PM. Looking at this line farther downwind, you can see, maybe, that its converting to ice on the far right. So, these Altocu must be awfully cold, at least -25° C I would guess. Estimated bases are at about 18,000 feet above the ground.
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Also at 6:01 PM. Here you can see that those little tufts of water have completely converted to ice down stream (lower right). For this to happen at Altocumulus level takes very low temperatures. Now I will look at the NWS balloon sounding and see if I have come close at all to this height and temperature. Its gotta be way up there.
Ann 2017032300Z_SKEWT_KTUS
The TUS sounding launched from the U of AZ yesterday around 3:30 PM. I had not seen this until just now! But you can see that the height and temperature estimates were pretty close. Height above Catalina was about 18,000 feet, 21,000 above sea level.
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6:51 PM. The clearing before the storm. Those higher clouds departed, and the lower moisture and clouds that will comprise our chance of rain, began to appear on the NW horizon. Can you see that those tops have ice in them?

 

The weather ahead and way ahead

March. a lamb upon entry,  will roar on the way out.  While only a little rain will likely fall today, several more troughs are in the works, during the next ten days and they are looking much more potent than today’s trough and front passage, probably bringing cold enough air that some people will start complaining about how cold it is; probably me.  Looks, too, like abnormally cool weather will cruise right in to the first week or two of April.  Bye-bye heat!

The End

By 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.

2 comments

  1. Hi Art; Those castellanus clouds are my favourite clouds to look at- sure better than the ones I’ve been seeing here almost all month!

  2. Glad you liked those shots, Roland. We’ve been having lots of company and other distractions, and so have been “inactive” in posting. Will get back to it before too long as company moves on.

    I guess you’ve been seeing a lot of Sc and Ns….
    a

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