Another “awesome” display of lightning flashed over the Cat Mountains east of Catalina early last evening, accompanied by gusty northerly winds, but that fierce thunderstorm couldn’t make it over those mountains, but rather died on the way. Only sprinkles occurred here, giving us yet another “trace” of rain day. Kind of discouraging after the prior night’s nice little rain of 0.18 inches, one that also occurred after night fall. But as we know, weather never repeats itself exactly.
———-Yesterday’s major cloud mystery———–
Many of you, I am sure noticed the remarkable cloud scene below, perhaps as you came out of the house, or during your lunch hour, and likely puzzled over it the rest of the day. I, too, wondered how that little dot of cloud got so separated from its early Mt. Lemmon spawning grounds and brothers and sisters hovering over the mountain, trying to grow up. Notice that it seems like a puff of cloud, ragged on the bottom, a little rounder on the top. Could it be the top of a “smokestack” Cumulus that somehow we missed, whose connecting parts to Mt. Lemmon have evaporated? Its an important question that we shall try to answer.
12:51 PM. Cumulus humilis and fractus begin gathering over Mt. Lemmon. Recall, btw, that this kind of cloud scene began a little after 8 AM on the thundery day before, for perspective–we’re late here, not a good sign of active rain day.)
To solve this mystery, Mr. (he’s not a doctor, nor does he have an advanced degree of any kind!) Cloud Maven Person went to the U of Arizona Department of Atmospheric Meteorology and looked at yesterday’s cloud movie. These are top rated movies, and, if you’ve ever looked at them, you can understand why clouds and what the weather does can be hard to predict; locations of storms missed, etc. No computer model can see all the remarkable little cloud wiggles, sudden comings and goings, that you see in these movies, thus introducing slight errors that tend to degrade those model predictions over time. And lots of the time, the locations of the clouds at the outset of the model run is even markedly off! Below, yesterday’s complex cloud movie linked for you in the word, “Movie”:
You will barely be able to read the time of the day in the lower left hand corner, which adds further complexity in solving this problem, but if you look closely you will see that a minute or two BEFORE the shot above at 12:51 PM, and slender tower rose up from Ms. Lemmon, its trunk evaporating almost immediately, but the last thing to evaporate was the little puff above that sped westward toward Samaniego Ridge.
In conclusion, I think we have solved yesterday’s cloud mystery.
——————-end of cloud mystery module——————–
That such a cloud could shoot up and out from Mt. Lemmon like this one did was a sign that there was great environment for much larger clouds, at least in the fall of the temperature with height (lapse rate), but that more humidity was needed to keep them from evaporating as they tried to grow. It wasn’t long before the hopeful sign of a Cumulonimbus calvus (anvil not formed yet) appeared beyond the Catalina Mountains, and the chance of evening rains, as the models had predicted, began to look better.
2:05 PM. Cumulonimbus calvus top makes its appearance to the SE, likely 70 miles or more, and hours away.
5:33 PM. Threatening clouds and thunderheads were now moving into the Oracle/Mammoth areas, and the chances of a significant rain here were growing by the minute as major radar echoes approached from the east. I remember thinking how how happy I was that such a dreadful Cumulus day over the Catalinas was now going to be reversed by this onslaught of storms as the U of AZ model had predicted.
7:05 PM. Thus far, only “debris” clouds from the thunderstorms upwind had crossed the Catalinas, spreading westward toward the setting sun. But those dark clouds did provide the contrast as the setting sun lit up the Catalinas for this great scene.
7:22 PM. Multiple layers of clouds provide multiple sunset colors.
7:32 PM. That extra brightness in the center of the photo, if you noticed it, is called a “sun pillar”. Its due to a fall of plate-like, hexagonal ice crystals that fall face down and that enhances the reflected toward us. The sun set exactly below this bright spot. For a bit more on sun pillars, go here.
What seems to be ahead…..
The U of AZ mod hasn’t been updated as of this hour….so, being in a hurry, we’ll do an “SOP” forecast (you have to see Bob for a good one. I like Bob, too) but we have plenty of lower level humidity, and there appears to be a weak upper trough passing over us today, and that “should” help to collect storms into larger masses instead of just isolated ones. Oops, let me not forget our TUS NWS computer forecast for the Catalina area, too.
So, today might be the last day for a reasonably good chance of a major rain here in Catalina. After today, and for the next two weeks, the circulation pattern is not so great for summer storms, according to the NOAA spaghetti factory plots, seen here.
It seems more and more like we’re doomed to a drier than normal summer, darn it. (Missed those first great storms, too, that started our summer rain season.)
That’s about it for my cloud world. Camera will be ready for the black shafts of summer today!
Many of you are starved to see some low clouds rather than a few Cirrus or Altocumulus clouds under a blazing sun, about 27 million degrees F in the core, only 10,000 F at the surface we call the “photosphere”, what we see up there. (And you think its hot in Arizona!)
So, I thought I would provide some relief in this time lapse video of the clouds of Seattle from yesterday, as provided by the University of Washington’s Weather Department. You’ll see some great Stratus, maybe some Stratocumulus, and later, little bulging Cumulus that rise up to as much as 5,000 feet (!) above the ground. Maybe some of your neighbors are temperature refugees in Seattle now, so it will be great to see what they are experiencing and logging in their cloud diaries. And, we’ll be checking this day when they get back, for sure.
The current dry spell begins to fade as the days go by now.. In the meantime, since this site is mainly for the display of pretty clouds and not of any other value, here are some shots from the past few days. Have left the captions for you to formulate in silence.
Below, way below, are the 24 h totals for yesterday’s storm from all of the Pima County ALERT gauges, in case you missed seeing them. The south portions of Catalina got the most of that storm around here, while the north portion was “nil-ed”, as in recent, “one-nil”, soccer talk. A real oddity is that the Catalina Mountain stations in this network saw no rain.
I’ve posted these amounts instead of the link to them because its a “rolling archive”, constantly being updated, and so before long, yesterday’s amazing storm will be disappearing as the hours go by while you’re still sleeping, making brain-clearing coffee, etc.
SH (Sutherland Heights got only 0.01 inches, an embarrassing and disheartening total when you think of how close the heavy rain was. Just south of Golder Ranch Drive on Swan, an inch was recorded, and for a few minutes yesterday morning with that cold south wind blowing, low scudding clouds just above the mesquite trees, and frequent lightning strikes just to the east, it appeared the bottom was about to drop on us Sutherlanders.
It was a rare event, not so much in the rain amounts, but rather the time that it exploded over the TUS region; after sunrise through about noon, after which the forces of dissipation took over. For a great look at this development, go here to the U of AZ time lapse film for yesterday.
As we know here, that period between sunrise and noon is USUALLY one of cloud dissipation; nighttime clouds thin and clear, whilst new Cumulus clouds begin to arise over the high mountains. I am going to link to Bob Maddox’s analysis if this event when he is done with it later this morning. You see, Dr. Bob is one of the world’s premier experts on convection and the organization of Cumulonimbus clouds into big clusters. It would be good for you to read what he has to say. Saves me a lotta work, too. Also, he has some great graphics.
On the other hand, Mr. Cloud Maven person’s experience, as a Pac NWesterner in airborne cloud research at the U of WA, is limited to a tremendous, I tell you, amount of flying into itty-bitty Cumulonimbus clouds that top out at or below only about 12,000 feet above sea level. We especially liked them if their tops were not colder than -10 C1. For comparison, yesterday’s powerful storms likely topped out at 50,000 feet and had top temperatures lower than -60 C! Well, really, there’s no comparison.
Catalina Area 1010 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Road in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Oracle Ranger Stati approximately 0.5 mile southwest of Oracle 1040 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Dodge Tank Edwin Road 1.3 miles east of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 miles west of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 miles northeast of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.79 Cargodera Canyon northeast corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash northeast of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.28 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Road
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 miles north of Rice Peak 1090 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 miles south of Coronado Camp 1130 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 White Tail Catalina Highway 0.8 miles west of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 miles south southeast of Marshall Gulch
Santa Catalina Foothills 2090 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 TV @ Guest Ranch Tanque Verde Wash at Tanque Verde Guest Ranch 2100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 DEQ Swan Swan Road at Calle del Pantera 2160 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Sabino @ USFS Dam Sabino Creek at USFS Dam 2170 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Ventana @ Sunrise Ventana Canyon Wash at Sunrise Road 2190 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Al-Marah near El Marah on Bear Canyon Road 2200 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 AC Wash @ TV Bridge Agua Caliente Wash at Tanque Verde Road 2210 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.28 Catalina Boosters Houghton Road 0.1 miles south of Catalina Highway 2220 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Agua Caliente Park Agua Caliente Park 2230 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 El Camino Rinconado El Camino Rinconado 0.5 miles north of Reddington Road 2240 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Molino Canyon Mt Lemmon Highway near Mile Post 3 2390 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.16 Finger Rock @ Skyli Finger Rock Wash at Sunrise Road
Redington Pass Area 2020 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Park Tank Redington Pass, 0.8 miles south of Park Tank 2030 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Italian Trap Redington Pass, 0.7 miles east southeast of Italian Trap Tank 2040 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 White Tank Redington Road near White Tank 2050 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Bellota Ranch Road Bellota Ranch Road near Redington Road 2070 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 TV @ Chiva Tank Tanque Verde Wash 0.5 miles south of Chiva Tank 2080 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Alamo Tank Redington Road near Alamo Well
Rincon Mountains 4100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Manning Camp Manning Camp in the Rincon Mountains 4110 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Rincon Creek Rincon Creek at X-9 Ranch
Greater Tucson 2110 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 TV @ TV Road Tanque Verde Wash at Tanque Verde Road 2120 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 TV @ Sabino Cyn Rd Tanque Verde Wash at Sabino Canyon Road 2300 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.24 Well D-37 Rosewood Street west of Harrison Road 2310 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 Well E-23 Rancho El Mirador north of Broadway Boulevard 2320 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Beverly Well C-51 Beverly Avenue at Hawthorne Street 2330 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 Kolb Boosters Kolb Road at Golf Links 2350 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 Rillito @ Dodge Rillito Creek at Dodge Boulevard 2360 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.22 Rillito @ La Cholla Rillito Creek at La Cholla Boulevard 2370 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Alamo @ Glenn Alamo Wash at Glenn Street 2380 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.30 DEQ Ruthraff Ruthrauff Road at La Cholla Boulevard 4160 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.24 E-8 Irvington Road near Pantano Road 4180 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 Pantano @ Houghton Pantano Wash at Houghton Road 6040 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 Santa Cruz@Valencia Santa Cruz River at Valencia Road 6180 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.59 ArroyoChico@Cherry Arroyo Chico at Cherry Street 6190 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.51 Arroyo Chico@Randol Arroyo Chico at Randolph Way 6230 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.51 Ajo Detention Basin Tucson Diversion Channel at Ajo Detention Basin 6240 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.63 DEQ Cntry Clb Country Club Road near Columbia Street 6250 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Craycroft@Golf Link Craycroft Road at Golf Links Road 6260 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 Tucson Electric Pow Irvington Road at Belvedere Avenue 6270 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.47 Pima Air Museum Valencia Road at Pima Air Museum
Southern Tucson Area 6200 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 Summit Elementary Summit Street at Epperson Lane 6210 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Franco @ Swan Franco Wash at Swan Road 6220 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 PC Fairgrounds Houghton Road at Dawn Road 6280 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 Wilmot Wilmot Road 2 miles south of Old Vail Connection Road 6290 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 Corona Sahuarita Road at Sewage Treatment Plant
Altar/Avra Valley Area Area 6370 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Arivaca Las Guijas Mountains near Arivaca 6380 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 Altar Wash @ Hwy 28 Altar Wash at Highway 286 6410 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 Diamond Bell Diamond Bell near Stagecoach Road at Killarney Avenue 6420 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.16 Brawley@Three Point Brawley Wash at Highway 86 6430 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.31 Vahala Park Wade Road at Los Reales 6440 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.31 Brawley@Milewide Brawley Wash at Milewide Road 6450 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 Hilltop Rd Hilltop Road at Riveria Road 6460 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.83 Picture Rocks CC Picture Rocks Community Center 6470 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.59 Michigan @ Calgary Michigan Street at Calgary Avenue
Marana/Oro Valley Area 1200 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 1.06 CDO @ Ina Road Cañada Del Oro Wash at Ina Road 1230 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 Oro Valley PW Calle Concordia at Calle El Milagro 1240 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.17 Moore Rd Moore Road at La Cholla 1250 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.24 Pima Wash @ Ina Pima Wash at Ina Road 1260 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.89 Big Wash Big Wash at Rancho Vistoso Boulevard 1270 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.26 CDO @ Big Wash Cañada Del Oro Wash near Oracle Road 6020 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.02 Santa Cruz @ Ina Santa Cruz River at Ina Road 6110 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.67 Avra Valley Airpark Santa Cruz River 0.5 miles east of Sanders Road
Vail Area 4220 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 Rancho Del Lago approximately 1.8 miles northwest of Vail 4250 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Pantano @ Vail Pantano Wash 1.5 miles southeast of Colossal Cave Road 4270 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 Salcido Place 6 miles north-northwest of Mescal 4280 Site temporarily removed due to road construction Cienega Crk @ I-10 Cienega Creek at Interstate 10 4290 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 Mescal 2 miles northwest of Mescal 4310 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Davidson Canyon Davidson Canyon Wash 0.25 miles south of Interstate 10 4320 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Empire Peak Empire Peak 4410 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Haystack Mtn. Haystack Mountain
Green Valley Area 6050 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 Santa Cruz@Continen Santa Cruz River at Continental Road 6060 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Santa Cruz@Conoa Santa Cruz River at Elephant Head Road 6080 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Santa Cruz@Tubac Santa Cruz River at Tubac 6310 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.26 Keystone Peak Keystone Peak 6320 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.51 Tinaja Ranch near Caterpillar Proving Ground 6330 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 Anamax Mission Road north of Continental Road 6350 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Elephant Head Butte near Elephant Head Butte 6390 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Florida Canyon Florida Canyon Work Center
Our NWS data are here; click on Regional and State Summaries (“latest”).
Since, like me, you have neighbors in the area that measure rainfall, but don’t report anywhere, you’ll want to call them up and list those amounts as well.
Now that we’ve rounded up about as much rainfall data as we can, its time for some cloud photos, a lot of them to tell yesterday’s story:
8:12 AM. Nothin’ much going on, two layers evident. A higher layer of Altocumulus perlucidus (top right), and a lower deck of scattered Cumulus, not likely formed from rising currents from the ground, but triggered by a general upward motion of the air, enhanced over the mountains.8:12 AM also, looking SSW toward Tucson and Pusch Ridge. The two layers are evident here as well, and towers in the lower layer are evident. Still, not much going on in the radar at this time.By 9:24 AM, the “explosion” was well underway as those turrets began to group into a huge cluster spewing heavy rain and lightning. But would it make Catalina? It seemed to be moving parallel to us and not toward Catalina, spreading westward toward Marana and the south part of Oro Valley. Notice the difference between this shot and the one above.10:10 AM. The storm continues to march across west Tucson and toward Marana. Just a hint of a cloud bank on the side toward us, something that might be fueled by outflow spreading north and northeastward that might cause the storm to grow in our direction.
11:01 AM. Looking to SW toward Marana and more promising as SW wind blowing out from storm causes new Cumulus bases to form on its northeast side! But, with the overall coolness of the morning, will those bases grow up to be Cumulonimbus clouds? Gettin’ closer; hopes risin’.11:14 AM. SW wind has hit, temperature dropped by about 5 degrees into the low 70s (!). Oregon visitor next door says he feels COLD! But, look at that base! So nice, so firm, so fully packed! Bound to cut loose with a big dump, and those bases like that are propagating in this direction, borne on that SW push of wind. Note scruffy Stratus fractus clouds lining the Catalinas, brought about by that surge of cooler air near the ground that resulted in condensation at the top of that wind layer. The cloud base above it is due to the lower wind layer lifting en masse, the air its undercutting. Not described so well me thinks.11:20 AM. Sure enough, a cloudburst results from the new firm bases! Something around 2 inches in an hour fell in Marana at this time, and, overall, its getting still closer to Catalina!11:32 AM. Frequent cloud to ground strikes are occurring east of Catalina, and the low, scudding clouds of the outflow winds have covered the sky. This was such a dramatic scene. Looking S, the heavy rain, from yet another new cell that formed above the cold outflow wind over and just east of the south part of Catalina. The pounding rain that produced an inch only about a mile and a half south of Sutherland Heights is falling now.
Well, we here in Sutherland Heights know what happened next. As quickly as the sky had deteriorated to a low overcast with plenty of lightning, the low clouds disappeared and the rain area began to recede to the south and west, dissipating slowly as it did. It was a truly horrible sight, not worthy of a photo.
Ironically, something in the way of the little Cumulonimbus clouds CMP flew in developed late in the afternoon, and presented an example of ice formation at temperatures only a little below freezing (tops likely around -10 C). Here is that pretty cloud over the Catalinas.
4:45 PM. A small Cumulonimbus capillatus cloud over Catalinas. At least the storm had cleared out the hazy air of the prior day.
The day concluded with all the Cumulus clouds having disappeared, but leaving enough residual middle and high clouds for a decent sunset photo.
7:30 PM. A dramatic, if ultimately disappointing day for us here in the Heights, finishes with a nice sunset.
The End.
—————————-
1Had to do with long-term studies of the theories and lab results concerning the mystery of ice formation in clouds with top temperatures higher than -10 C. Its common, but is quite complex, and not yet completely understood. So, we avoided bigger, colder-topped clouds as much as we could. BTW, while it may seem incredible that ice formation is not completely understood, but let us remember that the so-called Standard Model of particle physics is also incomplete. How many years have those guys been studying that? Its embarrassing, really.
Began at 1:15 PM, ended at 1:40 PM. Then, a second round at 3:58 PM. Nothing more on tap today through June. Thought, too, since there’s been a lot of talk about the Southwest monsoon lately in the media, we’d check on that and see how its doing:
This as of June 15-17th (green lines, red lines are normal position. Things are not so good, seems to be running a week to two weeks behind schedule.
Hmmm. Not so well so far. Is this being impacted by the developing El Nino? Our summer rain season, more often than not, has been disappointing as well in El Nino summers. An El Nino is in formation as you likely know.
Your cloud day yesterday, in thumbnails:
A better way would be to go to our University of Arizona time lapse movie here.
5:55 AM. Now I didn’t mention yesterday because I didn’t want you to feel bad, but these crepuscular (aka, “crepsucular”) rays were due to a lot of smog in those clouds yesterday morning. Got mixed out as the day progressed. Likely, from tropical Mexico based on trajectories at cloud base level.5:55 AM. More smog and clouds, some virga. Ugh.6:18 AM. Could be called, I think, Altocumulus castellanus or Cumulus due to the large size of the elements. However, they are not Cumulus arising from warm air near the ground, but rather from the gentle lifting of the air over the Catalina Mountains.6:20 AM. One of the remarkably small, sprinkling clouds that passed over yesterday. To get rain to the ground from about 11, 000 feet there would have to have been graupel (small, soft hail) forming in those little guys. Single ice crystals, or fluffy flakes would never had made it all that way since they would have dried up. Think of how great it would have been for you to non-chalantly, in your morning walk with neighbors yesterday, to have dropped the bombshell that, “Must be hail, soft hail, up there in those clouds for rain to fall on us from so high up.” You can see your neighbors’ jaws dropping in disbelief at that point! But you would then be some kind cloud hero to them, never to be seen the same way again. You wouldn’t say anything more about it; you’d made your point, succinctly I might add, and they’d likely get bored hearing anymore about it. Its best to let them just think about it the rest of the day.
Afternoon…..
12:53 PM. Promising Cumulus congestus are forming over the Catalinas, some already spewing a little ice. Here, about 2 km thick, or something around 6,000-7,000 feet thick, tops already about -10 to -15 C.1:15 PM. Taken just after first thunder heard from this modest Cumulonimbus. Not much shafting yesterday at all, suggesting weak updrafts and modest condensed water in them. No cloud to ground strikes were observed, and the time between thunder was a few minutes, all adding up to marginal conditions for thunderstorms near us, anyway.1:15 PM. One of the signature shots for this website, added to the “cloud base” collection. Here, graupel strands are just barely dectable as they begin fall out.
1:37 PM. Just before the last thunder, this icy top to a cell approaching Mt. Lemmon. Since the transition to all or mostly ice has occurred, this Cumulonimbus would be termed a “calvus.” The outward transition to all ice happens very rapidly, just in a few minutes, kind of an exciting thing to see!1:37 PM. Here’s what the bottom of that top looked like. No major shaft yet, but there will be but out of view.4:02 PM. Second round of occasional thunder in progress. Nice to see a little rain on the Ridge (Samaniego).7:31 PM. After all the excitement, we were left with little rows of Altocumulus perlucidus to celebrate a great day of cloud scenery.
I think ordinary weather, if a bit of a surprise, needs more shouting! Sincerely, Cloud Maven Person!1
A trace of rain has built up here in Catalina in the pre-sunrise hours today, adding to the month’s total that has been received so far, also a trace.
Wow! This was not foreseen, these little sprinkles. Latest NWS forecast for Catalina is “sunny”, no mention of clouds or sprinkles. CMP, too. Wasn’t thinking that the little stream of moisture passing over us would amount to anything but Ac clouds. See U of AZ satellite imagery here to see stream; not a “river”, maybe just a “creek.”
5:31 AM: Moving ahead! Looks like we’re at the end of the sprinkle clouds, don’t see much upwind. BTW, could you see the clouds that produced the sprinkle? Not as easy as you think. You see, the wind is stronger, much stronger where those clouds are up there, and the rain that falls out trails behind them. So you have to look downwind a mile or two to see the clouds what done it! (ANOTHER few drops here at 5:37 AM!) Three sprinkles now! Those drops must be like HUGE water balloons to those ants out there on the pavement!
Here’s what those sprinkle clouds look like, the ones you missed while you were snoozing, but, as usual CMP is there for you:
5:37 AM. Its raining on the camera. See ice coming out, upper center, slightly to the left? That’s what done the last few drops. But now the cloud that done it is a couple of miles downwind. The earlier sprinkle-causer, is the cloud now beyond Charouleau Gap to the NE.
This morning’s Tucson balloon sounding. Shows bases at 600 mb (14,00 feet above sea level), tops at 20,000 feet, and about -15 C, cold enough for plenty of ice.
Below, the same sounding without arrows:
End of rain chances now, darn, looking at withering clouds. (Last sprinkle, hardly noticeably unless you were outside, 7:20 AM, from an remarkably small cloud, ice not really apparent).
(Interrupted by having to get a flat fixed; Philips head screw in it.)
Yesterday’s clouds
Yesterday was a great day to once again test your ice acumen. Here are examples of only those clouds exhibiting ice except that fat Cu over Pusch Ridge, a pic I took during BP2 at James Kreigh Park with ballplaying friend, Patrick.
6:54 AM. Altocumulus. How’s your ice acumen? Never forget how important ice acumen is! Estimate concentrations and cloud top temperature.
1:10 PM. New kind of cloud. Test your ice acumen: Any sign that ice is ice being produced in these clouds? Never forget how important your ice acumen is, repeated in case you skipped over the last caption!
1:56 PM. If you can find the ice here, you will be awarded an honorary doctorate in cloud maven-ness.
2:36 PM, 101 F, at James Kriegh Park, next to CDO HS, this fat little Cu mediocris over Pusch Ridge, as batting practice gets underway. Batting for CMP was “mediocris.” Lefty Patrick hits the ball over those trees from time to time. (This is baseball, not softy ball, we’re talkin’ ’bout.)
Seems U of AZ mod sees this little moist street over us as able to generate Cumulus and isolated small Cumulonimbus clouds this afternoon. Very nice.
The End.
———————-
1Where would Yahoo be today without that “!”?
2It was 101 F during our 2 h session that began at 2:30 PM. Note to baseball people: the ball goes farther when you hit it when the air is less dense. The air is LESS dense when it is HOT, AND when their is moisture in the air (unless the baseball you’re using is hygroscopic, in which case it might absorb water vapor and get that bit heavier and not go as far. So, its great to practice when its above 100 F!
As the day rolled forward in time as they do pretty consistently, I was really happy for you having so many things to log in your cloud diary and maybe report to neighbors who might not have been so observant as you yesterday; the various types of clouds you saw, fun dust devils here and there spinning their way across Catalina, Cumulus clouds, a couple of which grew into Cumulonimbus clouds, and even produced a thunderstorm way over there in Safford. You could see that one from here, too. And there was a spectacular chances for you to test your ice-in-clouds acuity score.
Let’s go over yesterday’s clouds and make sure you got them right; but remember, don’t feel bad if you missed something. Cloud maven person will always understand and forgive those who might call a cloud by its wrong name. Believe or not, even CMP has done so1.
10:56 AM. Altocumulus lenticularis patches underlain by a tufts of Altocumulus castellanus.11:51 AM. Mostly Altocumulus castellanus and floccus (no firm base, just a tuft). CMP’s cloud chart points out that rain might follow in 6 to 196 h when this form of cloud is observed. It indicates strong instability at this cloud level.11:53 AM. Fun dust devil goes across Catalina. No jumping castles were harmed. CMP used to jump in dust devils when he was kid when they came across the school yard at playtime. Maybe you did, too.1:17 PM. Small Cumulus (humilis) begin erupting over the Catalinas. Portent: moderate.1:54 PM. Cumulus fractus over Saddlebrooke and points NW. Not much going on in the high mountains, either, (as would be seen by tops of Cumulonimbus clouds) suggesting a dividing line in the moist plume over us; drier to the north, more moist to the south.2:24 PM. “Wow!”, you thought, if I may interject one for you that you should have had yesterday viewing this cloud. The real look of our summer rain season (aka, “monsoon”), a tall, thin Cumulus congestus cloud.2:24 PM. And at the same time, a Cumulonimbus capillatus incus (icy anvil) has formed over there toward Safford! Now summer’s on! Safford reported a thunderstorm about this time.2:54 PM. We really haven’t had an Cloud Maven Junior (CMJ) ice IQ test in quite awhile, and so I thought would give you a little surprise quiz today in the following photographic sequence. Here we see, while not driving I might add, that would be crazy, to add that bit more, we see a protrusion from a Cumulus congestus cloud. Will it turn to ice? And if it did, when exactly did you know that?2:57 PM. Ice in the top tuft yet? You have 10 seconds to come up with an answer.2:59 PM. “You are so ice!” Cloud Maven Person got quite excited and has made a call for you, prematurely. See how the finer detail has started to disappear as the droplets evaporate and the slower evaporating ice (in much lower concentrations) begins to dominate the appearance of the little tuft. Compare the newer tuft on the right and its ruffled appearance to the little, detached tuft on the left. In the one of the right, the much higher concentrations of droplets still dominate providing all kinds of visual detail, though ice would undoubtedly be present inside it and about to take over.
3:04 PM. Secret’s out! The little tuft shows its ice. Poor guy has no droplets any more, is just a defunct ice cloud on its way to evapo-oblivion. Note icy fallout from the trunk of the original cloud now. And, you now know that those sharply outlined turrets in the center of the photo have a ton of ice in them, though droplets are also present (soon to be gone as in our icy little remnant to the left).
The End
No further weather ahead of any interest to a CMJ, anyway. Darn.
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1As a kid, I think I once called an Altostratus translucidus an “opacus.” It was pretty embarrassing.
Blobs of sprinkle clouds pummeled Catalina yesterday beginning soon after 12 Noon and ending only after 7 PM when an extraordinarily rare “Geo-Astro Meteo Conjunction” (GAMC) was observed due the conjunction of a rainbow, a moonrise exactly over Mt Lemmon, and the top of Mt. Lemmon itself visible through rain. The GAMC “trifecta” scene, is thought to occur only once every several hundred years. The duration of yesterday’s scene was about 3 minutes, the cloud with the rainbow having produced a sprinkle here just prior to the rare scene. Only more rare than the GAMC is a sunrise exactly over the crest of Mt. Lemmon with a rainbow in the direction of the sun.
Three sprinkle periods were recorded yesterday, the longest between 5:43 and 5:45 PM. The others occurred at 12:28-12:29 PM, and 7:26 to 7:27 PM. The rain brought June’s monthly total to a trace, ending the prospect of a completely rainless month.
No accidents were reported due to excited motorists reveling in the “rain” on their windshields, having attention diverted from driving. Local meteorologists explained that higher dewpoints than expected allowed a few drops to reach the ground instead of evaporating completely from the high-level virga that had been forecast earlier. The higher dewpoints allowed cloud bases from which the virga fell, to be 100 millibars, or about 4,000 feet, lower than computer models had predicted. The meteorologists blamed a lack of data far upwind of Catalina for the forecast gaffe.
Below, a rare GAMC, one that you will like not see in your lifetime if you did not see it yesterday:
7:28:26: A truly rare GMAC scene develops toward Mt. Lemmon (the subtle, rounded hump below the moon). This scene can only occur with the rain and sun in proper positions to produce an arc of a rainbow framing Mt. Lemmon, but the rain must be light enough so that neither the moon nor Mt. Lemmon are obscured in any way. Yours, today only, for $1,000,000.
Moving on…..yesterday’s clouds
6:33 AM. Pretty Altocumulus, fatter version of “perlucidus.” Didn’t look to be as interesting a day as it turned out to be. This layer was about 12,000 feet above the ground.12:38 PM. Some Cumulus begin forming underneath the sprinkle clouds (ice/virga visible on the bottoms of the Altocumulus clouds on the left–that made the bottom smooth.)1:17 PM. Gorgeous example of Altocumulus castellanus and floccu (no ice/virga).
5:30 PM. Cloud complex of the day, loaded with sprinkles, CMJs were predicting that sprinkles, and ONLY sprinkles, were about 5-10 min away.5:46 PM. Following the sprinkle, eyes should almost automatically turn to the east for a some rainbow eye candy.7:37 PM. The pretty cloud day closed out with a satisfying sunset.
The weather ahead
Today looks like it will be pretty much like yesterday, lots of mid-level clouds cold enough for virga, as you can see out there right now (just after sunrise), supplemented by afternoon Cumulus. Altogether another pretty day with reasonable temperatures held down by clouds and virga around. We’re on the edge of this mid-level moist plume coming up out of the Tropics, BTW. Rain is foretold by the quite wonderful U of AZ Beowulf Cluster calculator to only fall in the SE corner of the State today. This from last evening’s 11 PM AST data.
The later model runs have had potent Hurricane Crissy’s moist plume missing us to the east now, so don’t really want to talk about it. Winds in Cristina now 145 mph sustained as it rapidly intensified from yesterday’s 75 mph. Should mean good surf along the west coast of Mexico and a certain south-facing southern California beach haunt of CMP, called, “Zuma Beach”, where the acclaimed dramatic series, “Baywatch” was first filmed.
Meteorologists have called stagnant pressure conditions with inflated temperatures “stagflation” for as long as I can remember, which is not that long. Anyway, that’s what we have before us, pretty much the same old thing, day after day, except for some really nice Cirrus patterns in the sky to go with those 100-110 F temperatures we get this time of year. You can see the upper level moisture stream coming over us here, from the Huskies, if you’re interested.
Mind-starting to drift off center now….
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Weather extreme note
If you noted the record-tying “trace” of rain at Vegas back on the 25th and were pretty happy about it, well, you’re going to be put out by this NWS message, passed along by climate guru and mischief maker, Mark Albright, just yesterday. Apparently, the NWS has been concerned over this record tying event for some time:
“RECORD EVENT REPORT…CORRECTED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAS VEGAS, NV
1059 PM PDT THU MAY 29 2014
…NO RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM PRECIPITATION WAS TIED AT LAS VEGAS SUNDAY...
DUE TO AN EQUIPMENT ISSUE WITH THE PRESENT WEATHER SENSOR AT THE
MCCARRAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ASOS, A FALSE REPORT OF A TRACE OF
PRECIPITATION WAS REPORTED ON SUNDAY, MAY 25TH. AFTER FURTHER
INVESTIGATION, THIS WAS DETERMINED TO BE INCORRECT. THEREFORE THE FINAL PRECIPITATION TOTAL FOR SUNDAY, MAY 25TH, IS 0.00 INCH AND THE DAILY PRECIPITATION RECORD WAS NOT TIED.
THE ABOVE INFORMATION IS PRELIMINARY AND IS SUBJECT TO A FINAL
REVIEW BEFORE BEING CERTIFIED BY THE NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER.
$$”
Hope I didn’t spoil your morning.
On the other hand, you wonder what the NWS meant, “after further investigation…”? What might they have done to remove an extreme weather event, one that tied a record?
Let’s “jump in” and see what we can find out about this record-tying mystery. First, let’s pull up radar-derived precip maps for May 25th and May 26th and see if there is any chance it rained on the 25th. We have to do two maps since the end time of each radar precip map is for the 24 h period ending at 5 AM, whilst the record is for midnight to midnight of the 25th. Below, from WSI Intellicast are those two 5 AM AST maps in chronological order:
:
We can see that it DID rain in the 24 h ending at 5 AM AST on the 25th at McCarran Field, LAS, but not AFTER 5 AM ending on the 26th (map on the right.
But when did the weather observing machine think it rained?
By pulling up the hourly observations in text form below, we can see that the machine thought that rain began at 1519 Central Universal Time (8:19 AM AST) and rained for 11 minutes, ending at 1530 CUT. “RAB” means “rain began, truncated to minutes after the hour).
Looking further, we can also see the text words “SCT” and “CLR” for the time periods in which rain was reported. Furthermore, the the “numbol”, “>120” , means no clouds below 12, 000 feet above ground level.
Can it rain to the ground from clouds higher than 12,000 feet above the ground? Its fairly rare, but it happens, as we Arizona sunbirds know from just the past couple of days when sprinkles fell from such clouds.
However, investigating even farther, we find that the machine is also indicating “CLR” or “SCT” conditions, meaning CLEAR or SCATTERED clouds above 12,000 feet.
Can it rain from CLEAR skies, too few clouds for the sensor to detect overhead? Or SCT skies? It has happened that the machine reports SCT conditions on a RARE occasion when a little Cumulonimbus is passing overhead. I think it was reported from Douglas last summer; thunder, too. Very odd, but not impossible.
But what we don’t see is any “VCRA” report, that is, the coding for “rain in the vicinity” that would be inserted next to the column of “10s” above if there had been any as detected by radar.
So, after a few hours of investigation, we have absolved the NWS of having improperly removed an extreme weather event: the trace of rain was, in FACT, erroneously reported from the McCarran Field weather observing machine.
(Actually the point of this rather tortured writeup is to expose you to a little of our weather reporting language called, METAR. You can read about it here pretty good. You can get those METAR reports from many places, here’s one.
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A hodge-podge of cloud scenes from the recent trace of rain rainy day
(Counted over 100 drops on a wide area of pavement during the many, many sprinkle episodes two days ago; each one, I noticed, dried up in about two seconds, too.)
BTT you read this, rain oughta be falling or near by as the remnants of ‘Manda hurricane dribble into Arizona today. Looks like there’s just enough rain upstream right now (4 AM) to produce, hold your breath, a MEASURABLE amount here in Catalina! Likely will be just a few hundredths, though, as much as two tenths is about the top potential from this. At this point, anything measurable is a fabulous rain!
Mods have been oscillating on whether it would rain here for many days, but last night’s run ended pleasantly with a “correct” forecast of measurable rain. See green pixelation over Catalina below:
Valid for 11 AM AST today. Heart of rainband over us then, mod says. From IPS MeteoStar.
Your Catalina cloud day
(Also, another great cloud movie from the U of AZ here....)
5:15 AM. Cirrus, leaning toward “spissatus”, heavy dense patchy Cirrus.7:42 AM. Cirrus fibratus/uncinus. “Cirrus” will do it.
4:35 PM. What would a day be like without Altostratus? Here, “translucidus” because the sun’s position is visible. When the sun can’t be seen, its “opacus”, like a lot of science can be.
5:27 PM. Walkin’ doggie and this seemed like a nice shot of the rustic neighborhood streets, the Catalinas, and up top, some glaciating Altocumulus, castellanus on the right side; hasn’t gone through the ice forming stage yet, or the ice hasn’t fallen out that’s in it.
7:18 PM, Crepuscular rays show up as the sun sets due to smoke and haze under the clouds. The clouds? A mix of flakes of Altocumulus and Altostratus (the solid blob), some Cirrus on top of it all.
The weather way ahead…
Valid for June 12, 5 PM AST. Not a lot showing up here for mid-June weather, so won’t say anything about that. I suspect it will be warm, though.
The tropical fetch coming to Catalina (shown here yesterday) is from the remains of now strong hurricane Amanda, unusually strong for May for that matter, a month in which tropical storms in the Mexican Pacific are pretty rare, let alone have a Category 4 hurricane down there. Has sustained winds of 140 mph now, BTW.
When pointing out the tropical finches yesterday, was not aware that the low down there was, in fact, a hurricane. (Maybe I shouldn’t point things like that out, causing the one reader to lose confidence…. Too late now.) Check out this loop from the U of WA for the “pinhole” signature of strong hurricanes. Really happy to report that rain is on the way as May closes out (29th-31st are best chances for rain here).
Reprising yesterday’s cloud day…
1) Your day began with sprinkles from a cloud deck based at around 12, 000 feet above ground level (remember, too, that you can skip the “added value”, incremental approach below by just going to your great U of AZ time lapse movie. I thought it was really very pretty for yesterday):
5:32 AM. RW– (very light rainshowers) were falling from what could be called a Altocumulus opacus deck with scattered taller turrets embedded in it, ones that produced the sprinkles.
2) clearing from the north:
6:24 AM. The shallow nature of most of the Ac deck is apparent as the backedge moves toward Catalina.
3) once the clearing arrived, small Cumulus began developing on the Cat Mountains and “?”:
9:36 AM. I have no idea. Move along now to the next photo.
4) nice small Cumulus all around, sometimes filling in to make it seem like a Seattle day in spring, with patches of Cirrus on top:
10:16 AM. Cumulus humilis and fractus (those shreds) and that beautiful Cirrus seemingly spreading its icy arms out (spreading likely due to perspective).
5) Was there artwork in the sky? You bet. A niche developed here I immodestly remind you, is that of cloud bottom photography, something I enjoy, and I think you do, too. Below is one of the best ones of the day from the Cloud Bottoms Collection:
10:16 AM. Bottom of Cumulus humilis, maybe mediocris even, that was over ME. You look up, wondering, how deep is it? Will it form ice and rain on ME? Maybe graupel will fall out….since those are the first particles out the bottom of a growing Cumulus that is transitioning to a Cumulonimbus… So much to think about when a bottom is over you. Yours for $1,800, if you call now.
6) Late morning fill in:
11:23 AM. Cumulus and Stratocumulus dominated the sky for a time; looked threatening, but no frizzy ice seen around the edges. No ice; no precip or virga. Pretty, though, with those shadows and sun breaks on the Cat Mountains
7) Smoky sunset (not a western singer, though it would be a good name for one):
7:06 PM. Drifted down from the north. Likely hours old, judging by the striations in it (not well mixed out and homogeneous as would be smoke that’s days old). Could not find source in satellite imagery right off. I see that some of that layer is still visible to the SW this morning.
The End.
5)
6) Wildfire smoke drifts down in a thin layer from the N to spoil our sunset. Note the reddish orange sun, a good sign of smoke and smog particles, tiny ones (typically, if you really want to know, that are 0.01 to 0.1 microns in size) that eviscerate the shorter wavelengths of sunlight so that only the reddish ones get through.
