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?Some 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.”
6:01 PM.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.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.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.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!
I thought you’d like to read this (Peru’s Niño), forwarded to me by Niño expert, Nate M. Pretty incredible to read about what is happening down there in the wake of the Big Niño of 2015-16, which really turned out to be more of a couch potato in terms of weather production in the Great SW.
But, all this winter, along the Equator near the coast of South America, there has been something we used to call an “El Niño”, but is downplayed or ignored these days because of a new definition that seemed to explain more weather when it occurred, “Region 3.4” a large zone along the Equator WAY out in the Pacific rather than something near the South American coast (that zone now called, “Regions 1 and 2”), as nicely illustrated by NOAA here.
But what has been the effect of what we might call the “Classic Niño”, a warm strip of water along the South American coast, one that doesn’t extend too far into the Pacific? “Read all about it”, as they used to say. Its pretty remarkable.
And here’s what the SST field looks like. Its boiling down there off South America! (Speaking figuratively, of course):
Sea surface temperature anomalies as of yesterday from the Navy! Wow. That hot water is fueling giang Cumulonimbus clouds, ones that spew out huge anvils that can affect the weather in the mid-latitudes, disrupt the normal winter patterns of where highs and lows like to go. Could such a warm anomaly, limited to the near coastal region of South America, have created this astounding winter in the West?
Peru’s Niño can be thought of as a “classic Niño”, the ones written about in the decades before about 1990 or so when the definition of what constituted a NIño (or Niña) was expanded and delineated more sharply among several definitions that were floating around. We ended up focusing on a region WAY out in the Pacific Ocean called, “Region 3.4” that SEEMED to explain more over the prior years.
What’s so interesting about this is that the “Classic Niño” has been underway pretty much all this winter, and we’ve had, especially in California, a classic Niño response; that is, abnormally heavy precip farther down the West Coast that no one anticipated.
Hmmmmm.
Well, the correlations with Cal precip and “classic Niño” occurrences will take a huge jump upward after THIS winter!
End of Statement (hand-waving) on Niñoes.
——————————–
Local weather statement: for immediate release
Cooler, fluctuating weather foretold here for that latter part of March, I don’t know how many weeks ago, is on the doorstep after the long, anomalously hot dry spell. Poor wildflowers have been suffering, too, fading, looking a little stunted after a great beginning, one rivaling the great displays of 2010.
All of the local weatherfolk are on top of this now, and so no point recasting that stuff. HECK, you can go to Weather Underground1 and get as “good as can be” forecast for Catalina (Sutherland Heights) out to ten days! And, there’s nothing worse for a weather forecaster with forecasting in his blood, than to be excited about an “incoming” and when you mention it to a neighbor he replies, “Yeah, I heard about that already. Supposed to get a quarter of an inch.” There is no air whatsoever in the “balloon” after that. So, if you have a weather-centric friend who says something about the upcoming weather, pretend that you haven’t heard about it yet, “DON’T say something as hurtful, as “Yeah, I heard about that already.”
So, here, we go the long route because most weatherfolk are afraid to go too far into the future because its often WRONG. Our models tend to lie a lot after about even a week, so only the brave go out even ten days!
However, here, we go out as much as two weeks and more because its not a truly professional site but rather want to get something out there earlier than other people, sometimes called a “scoop” in the news and weather business. That’s why our motto here is, “Right or wrong, you heard it here first!” Furthermore, if a longer range forecast posted here is WRONG, you won’t hear about it anymore!
Cloud maven person will say this about the first incoming of several fronts: comes in early Thursday morning, its strong! Rainfall potential: 10% chance of less than 0.12 inches, 10% chance of more than 0.75 inches. Best of those is the average, or about 0.4350 inches in this one. It has great POTENTIAL to be a soaker, but mods have been all over the place; hence, the large range of potential amounts. At least some measurable rain seems to be in the bag, a paper one please, because plastic is insidious. Note, CMP’s forecast is more generous than that found in WU’s latest forecast for Catalinaland.
The weather WAY ahead, unprofessionally so
Let us look beyond the professional forecasting limits to April:
We know we got several storms/fronts zipping across AZ as March goes out like a lion, but what about April?
Looks like that pattern will continue into April with temperatures below normal for the first part. The end of the unprofessional forecasting portion of this blog, though we do have our NOAA spaghetti to hang our umbrella on…. Check it out for about two weeks ahead.
Some clouds recent clouds, including a couple from yesterday
2:33 PM. Yesterday afternoon saw a few globs of lenticular forming on top of mini_Cumulus clouds, ones that made you think the summer rain season could be at hand, given the 90+ heat of yesterday around these parts.12:52 PM. A high (above 30 kft above the ground) and cold (less than -40°C patch of Cirrocumulus cloud that is going to transition to CIrrus over the next 10-20 minutes.1:12 PM: Later that same patch as those cloudlets spread out and merge into just an ordinary Cirrus after being that delicate-looking patch of Cirrocumulus. Most Cirrocumulus clouds are not this cold, but rather evaporate or fatten into larger elements of “Altocumulus” clouds, rather than transition to Cirrus.Had a nice sunset a couple days ago (15th), some liquid Altocumulus cloud slivers with higher Cirrus.
The End
———————– 1Although “Weather Underground” might sound like an org has a radical origin, maybe something left over from the late 1960s, this particular one was NOT formed by 60s “weatherman” terrorists like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn (the link is for those of you who may have set trash cans on fire, as happened at San Jose State to protest the Vietnam War, to look back at those days in horror or nostalgia; take your pick) , but rather by genuine weather geeks (haha, I count myself among them, those that can’t get enough of weather, there can never be too much, like the guys mentioned in this “Cloud City” article.)
As of the end of February 2017. You can see were right about at the average for the Water Year,, but it took some “heavy lifting” in December and January to get there.
Doesn’t look promising for much rain here in Catalina in March, however. No rain in sight through the next 10 days at least.
Let’s check our 7 inches with what’s happening upwind, say, in CALIFORNIA, and see if there’s been any drought relief there, through February, via the CNRFC:
California water year totals through the end of February 2017. Note one station in the central Califorina coastal range is already over 100 inches! There are 20 stations already over 100 inches as can be seen from the table at right. March looks to have substantial rains north of SFO, which will add appreciably to those highest totals. Amazing! You can go to the CNRFC and expand these interactive maps, btw.
As you are likely to know from many media stories last year, Cal was in a drought siege of five straight years, with but got a little relief last year in the northern part thanks to help from the giant Niño, one of the strongest ever.
Alas, it was one that failed to deliver as the big rain producer for the south half of Cal and the SW in general as was expected.
In case you’ve forgotten how bad things were in Cal, let us look back at what was being said, those horrific appearing drought maps, and also how hopeful were were at the time that the Big Niño would take a bit bite out of drought. This is a really good article:
Then, when the Big Niño faded away like maple syrup on a stack of buckwheat pancakes last spring and summer, we were surely doomed for more dry years. And, for a time, the dreaded cold tongue of water in the eastern equatorial region, the so-called, La Niña, started to develop, which would be no help at all for a good rain season like a Big Niño is, usually.
The Niña faded away, too, to nothing as the winter went on, so we really didn’t have much going on in the tropical Pacific to help us figure out what kind of winter rainfall regime we were going to have om 2016-17. Not having anything going on meant winter rainfall could go either way, a difficult to figure out situation for season forecasters.
In retrospect it is pretty astounding how big a signal must have been out there SOMEWHERE that this winter was going to be one for the history books on the West Coast in general, and in particular, for Californians. Californians saw their drought chewed up and spit out in a single winter, including snow packs so high the height of some mountain peaks have been revised. (I’m kidding.)
No one saw such an astounding winter coming.
This winter sure makes one think of the QBO (Quasi-biennenial Oscillation, one up there in the Stratosphere where there’s almost no air (haha, well, practically none)… Did the QBO have a role in this astounding winter; was there a delay in the effects of the Big Niño even without a bunch of convection in the eastern Pac tropics? Doesn’t seem that could be right…
But, William “Bill” Lau, U of Maryland scientist, reported some statistical evidence of such a lag way back in ’88 due to a QBO connection of some kind and ENSO, no physical cause could be discerned, however, not yet, anyway. Lau, 1988, is reprised below for readers who want to go deep:
Sure has looked like the Big Niño WY we expected last year!
Some recent clouds; after all, this is CLOUD maven, not RAIN maven:
I’ve been kind of holding out on you. I dropped my camera and busted it. Its no fun taking pictures when you don’t have a real camera. Still doesn’t work right, but take these anyway:
March 4th, afternoon. Hope you logged this; the rarely seen CIrrus castellanus (almost “congestus” in size) or, informally, “Cumulo-cirrus.”Poppies are out, btw, in case you haven’t noticed. Nice display on “Poppy Hils” just across and southwest of the Pima County Pistol Club, off Bowman.March 4th, late afternoon. Nothing terrifically special in this tangle of Cirrus spissatus (“Cis spis” to cloud folk) but I thought it was just a really nice scene
Moving to the next day, Sunday, that REALLY windy day:
March 5, Sunday morning 6:13 AM. Altocumulus lenticularis alerts cloudwise folk to the possibility of windy conditions although it was already windy.3:55 PM, March 5th. After a day of solid Altostratus overcast with underlying Cumulus and Stratocumulus, a layer of Altocumulus began to move in to add a little more interest to the sky.3:57 PM. Looking to the north revealed that some of the lower Cumulus/Stratocumulus complexes reached heights where ice could form. That smooth region on the bottom and right side of the cloud is a fall of ice from this cloud with a RW- (text for “light rainshower”) if you like to text stuff) right below that. This is not a lot of ice and so you’d be thinking the cloud barely made that ice-forming temperature. CMP doesn’t think it was caused by an ice fallout from that higher layer, which sometimes can happen. Let’s look at the most timely sounding, just to check. From the real Cowboys at the University of Wyoming, this:The TUS sounding which I only now just saw, showing a vast separation between the lower Stratocumulus and the higher layers of Altocumlus and Altostratus on top. Note, too, that over TUS the tops of the lower cloud is not quite at -10°C the temperature we start to look for ice formation in AZ. However, our clouds were NW of that balloon sounding, and it would have been that tiny bit colder, and tops were also lifted some when they passed over the Tortolitas earlier, meaning that the tops of this complex were colder than -10° C (14° F) at some point.
Wow, too much information….after a hiatus in blogging I feel like that Oroville Dam in California, metaphorically overflowing with too much hand-waving information.
6:03 PM, March 5. Its still real windy. Line of virga brought a few drops when it passed overhead at 6:30 PM.6:04 PM. Nice dramatic shot toward Marana as the backside of the middle cloud layer approached allowing the sun to shine through.6:09 PM. Virga getting closer. May have to park car outside to make sure I don’t miss any drops!6:22 PM. SW-NE oriented virga strip about to pass overhead. Drops fell between 6:30 and 6:40 PM, but you had to be outside to notice, which you would have been as a proper CMJ eccentric. You would have WANTED that trace of rain report, maybe slackers would not have observed.6:30 PM. Climax; the great sunset allowed by that backside clearing.
In case you don’t believe me that over an inch fell, this digital record from Sutherland Heights with writing on it:
Your last 24 h of rain in the Sutherland Heights, Catalina, Arizona, USA. Total resets at midnight.
Probably a little more to come, too. Got some blow damage, I’m sure. Will be looking for roof shingles around the yard today.
12:45 AM. Your radar and IR satellite imagery for our blast last night from IPS MeteoStar . That tiny red region near Catalina represents hail and/or extremely heavy rain.
And, as everyone knows from their favorite TEEVEE weatherperson, “New Storm to Pound SE Arizonans!” Begins Monday night, Tuesday AM. May have snow in it as it ends.
Your know, its no fun telling people what they already know, so lets look ahead beyond the normal forecast period of great accuracy, beyond not seven days, not eight, but beyond TEN days!
First, we set the stage with a ten day look ahead (from last evening) in a NOAA spaghetti factory plot:
Valid for 5 PM, Monday, January 30th. If you’ve not seen this, you’ll be screaming “warm in the West, and damn Cold in the East.” Its a common pattern often associated with some of the driest years in the West when it recurs over and over again during a winter.
This plot indicates that the pattern of a towering, storm-blocking ridge is certain along the West Coast by ten days–will be developing for a day or three before this, That ridge represents an extrusion of warm air aloft over the entire West Coast extending all the way into Alaska. The couple of red lines in and south of AZ are due to the change of a minor, likely dry, cutoff low in our area about this time (plus or minus a day).
In other words, this plot suggests a warmer, dry period develops over AZ, and storms are shunted from the Pacific Ocean, located west of the West Coast, all the way to Anchorage and vicinity, They will be welcoming a warm up in weather up thataway at some point in this pattern.
Is that it, then, for the AZ winter precip? It could happen. Just one more storm after the current one fades away today?
Hint: Sometimes anticyclone ridges like the one in the plot above get too big for their britches, and fall away, or, break off like a balloon from a tether, and a warm blob of air aloft sits at higher latitudes, often floating off to the northwest.
The exciting ramification of this latter scenario is that in the “soft underbelly” of the “blocking anticyclone” (as in American football), the jet stream throws something of a screen pass, goes underneath the belly of the blocking high, and races in toward the West Coast at lower latitudes. Having done so, such a break through pattern (“Break on through to the Other Side”) results in heavy rains in Cal and the Southwest.
Izzat what’s going to happen?
Let us look farther ahead, unprofessionally, really, and see if there is evidence in spaghetti for such a development and you already know that there must be because it would explain why I am writing so much here. Below, the EXCITING spaghetti plot strongly indicating break through flow breaking on through to the other side, i.e., the West Coast, from the lower latitudes of the Pacific:
Valid on Thursday, February 2, at 5 PM AST. Flow from the lower latitudes of the Pac will, in fact, break on through to the other side, as told in song by the Doors1. Who knows what they were talking about but here we’re talking about a jet stream….
Well, we’ll see in a coupla weeks if CMP knows what he is talking about.. I think this is going to happen, resembles what’s happening now, and weather patterns like to repeat, more so within the same winter. However, how much precip comes with this pattern will be determined by how much flow breaks on through to the other side….
Yesterday’s clouds
Let us begin our look at yesterday’s clouds by looking back three days ago before the Big Storm. We had a nice sunrise. Here it is in case you missed it:
7:21 AM. Altostratus sunrise. Virga is highlighted showing the precipitating nature of Altostratus. Amount of virga can vary.7:31 AM. Same kind of view, different colors.7:40 AM. Highlight on the Tortolitas. This is why you carry your camera at all times.9:04 AM. Pretty much solid gray after that nice sunrise for the rest of the day with cloud bases lowering and raising. Early on, cloud bases were well above 10,000 feet; i. e;, above Mt. Lemmo, and would be called, “Altostratus opacus.” The virga is very muted, and there are embedded droplet clouds as well as a droplet cloud layer (Altocumulus) encroaching on the right. Estimated ceiling here: 12,000 overcast.” (Pronounced, “one-two thousand overcast” if you want to make your friends think that maybe you were a pilot at some time in your life.)12:58 PM. Clouds began to appear on Samaniego Ridge as the moist air above us lowered steadily. However, due to lowering cloud tops, the ice in the higher overcast layer was gone. Here there are two layers above the scruff of Stratus fractus (I would call it) on the ridge. The lower one looks like its a Stratocumulus, and the higher one a solid layer of “Altocumulus opacus.” Its already rained some, and we were in between storm bands.2:48 PM. Looked like the Altocumulus opacus (stratiformis, if you want to be exactly correct) was breaking up just enough for a sun break. But no; it kept filling in as it headed this way from the southwest. No ice, or virga evident, so tops are pretty warm, probably warmer than -10° C (23° F) would be a good guess. Hah! Just now looked at the TUS sounding and tops were indicated to be at -11° C, still very marginal for ice (absent drizzle drops in clouds, which causes ice to form at much higher temperatures, but you already knew that.)4:24 PM. Small openings allowed a few highlights to show up on the Catalinas underneath that Altocumulus opacus layer. And clouds were still topping Ms. Mt. Lemmon, indicating a good flow of low level moisture was still in progress.
Moving forward to only two days ago, the day preceding the nighttime blast: a cold, windy day with low overcast skies all day, shallow, drizzle-producing clouds, something we don’t see a lot of here in Arizona.
8:08 AM, January 20th, 2017, btw. “Gray skies, nothin’ but gray skies, from now on”, by Irving B. Stratus fractus underlies an overcast of Stratocumulus. Some light rain is falling toward Romero Pass on the right.8:10 AM. A really special shot. Stratus with drizzle, shown here, is a very difficult photographic capture. I can feel how enthralled you are with this scene toward Oro Valley. You know, I do this for YOU. Look how uniform the gray is! It just takes your breath away!9:44 AM. Before long, drier air down low moved in, eradicating our beautiful Stratus layer, leaving only holdouts (Stratus fractus) along the Catalina foothills below the heavy layer of Stratocumulus.10:20 AM. The wind had now shown up, and these ragged, shredded shallow Stratocumulus shedding drizzle or very light rain showers stormed across the Catalina Mountains. This was quite remarkable sight, since such shallow clouds as these are more often seen in clean maritime locations like Hawaii. Scenes like this suggest that the cloud droplet concentrations were very low, and that there were larger than normal cloud condensation nuclei on which the drops could form, getting a head start in the sizes needed to produce collisions with coalescene (larger than 30 microns in diameter (about one third to one half a human hair in diameter, for perspective.)
3:12 PM. Lower, drier air moved in, eradicating the Stratocumulus and revealing the rarely seen Nimbostratus precip-producing layer. This layer, considered a mid-level cloud, is usually obscured by, you guessed it, Stratocumulus clouds.
By the end of the day, the clouds had lowered again, and we were about to have a very interesting night!
5:01 PM.
The End
———————- 1Remember how great we hippie relics thought that first Doors album was? Later, the Doors, and that era were to be made fun of by 80s punk and humor group, The Dead Milkman in “Bitchin’ Comaro.” (Its worth a listen.)
4:17 PM. Line of spreading out Altostratus translucidus. Many of you might have added, “radiatus” to that cloud name. “Clearly” it is widening as it passes over.
4:00 PM AST. That line of ice cloud looks pretty straight doesn’t it? Imagine how wide a cloud would have to spread, after seeing that Altostratus photo, to REALLY be radiating, spreading out!
As Einstein wrote, “Things are not always as they seem.”
Q. E. D.
Now, for the snow report
…from the Lake Tahoe area (after all, we made a BIG DEAL out of the incredible NWS, Reno, forecast in the prior blogulation):
0822 AM HEAVY SNOW NORTHSTAR 39.28N 120.12W
01/11/2017 M42.0 INCH PLACER CA PUBLIC
NORTHSTAR AT TAHOE REPORTED 42 INCHES OF NEW SNOWFALL IN THE LAST 24 HOURS. 48 HOUR TOTAL OF 78 INCHES AND A 7 DAY TOTAL OF 122 INCHES1.
1This note passed along to the Arthur by Mark Albright.
Looks like a bite has been taken out of the Cal drought this water year, a drought it was said would take years to end! Folsom Lake, near “Sacramenta”, Cal, has risen 30 feet in the past 30 days! Oh, my.
Now for some more of them cloud pictures…
Been holding out as other chores fill up the day:
7:19 AM, Jan 10. Pretty Altocumulus, some Cirrus above.Also 7:19 AM, Jan 10th. Time seems to be standing still, as we look a a cloudlet spewing heavy virga.7:22 AM, Jan 10th, time moving ahead again. Close up of that Altocumulus cloud with virga. Top must have been turreted, colder maybe a half hour or hour before this photo to have so much ice compared to its brethren. That’s the learning part of this sequence. Doesn’t look like an artifact from an aircraft because there is droplet cloud at the top, and not just a clear spot, which usually happens when an aircraft makes ice in a “supercooled” droplet cloud.5:14 PM, Jan 10th. THought this was a neat scene, Cirrus uncinus, the long trail of ice crystals falling behind, the overhead view.12:57 PM, Jan 8th. Makes you want to cry… This Cirrus spissatus is trying so HARD to be a precipitator all the way to the ground, and doesn’t know that those bottom ice crystals are evaporating 25,000 feet above it.
The weather just ahead
U of AZ latest mod output (from 11 PM AST last night) has a substantial rain on the doorstep. Starts here in Catalina Saturday afternoon with projected totals over half an inch nu mid-day Sunday. Check it out:
Totals valid at 11 AM AST, Sunday, Jan. 15th.
HECK, this storm wasn’t even predicted 10=12 days ago! The major weather change was indicated about the 20th, plus or minus a day. Those storms, indicated in the NOAA “spaghetti” plots more than 12 days ago, are still in the pipeline after we have a brief “recovery” from the “surprise” storm about to arrive on Saturday! Yay.
This sequence of storms is so great for the AZ water situation, too, as well as giving it to Cal good again around the 20th as well. No doubt, as the humans we are, the peoples of Cal will be complaining about TOO MUCH WATER!
This will lead to apathy about water issues, you can bet on it! See the well-known “cloud seeding cartoon” about drought and apathy posted so many decades ago in a journal article on cloud seeding by editorial nemesis1, Bernard A. Silverman, J. Appl. Meteor., termed the “Hydro-illogic Cycle”:
Published in 1978, but was around in the cloud seeding culture for many years before that. Used without permission. hahaha I believe it was drawn by the founder of Atmospherics, Inc., Tom Henderson’s daughter. Atmospherics, Incorporated performed numerous cloud seeding operations in the US and around the world beginning in the early 1950s. Yours truly worked for them on several occasions in the early 1970s as a “radar meteorologist” directing seeding aircraft. Later, I became a published critic, mostly with Prof. Peter V. Hobbs, of a number of cloud seeding projects.
The End
——————————- 1Nothing yours truly submitted during the era of BAS as Editor of the J. Appl. Meteor. “got in”, including the benchmark paper reporting that our own aircraft was creating ice in clouds at temperatures as high as -8° C. Three sole-authored papers critical of cloud seeding that I submitted were rejected in 1983 alone! All or parts of them were published years later.
The paper on our aircraft, submitted originally in 1981, was rejected twice before being accepted and published in 1983. The effect was confirmed in experiments conducted in the Mono Lakes area in 1991, by the president of Atmospherics, Inc. mentioned above! Aircraft produced ice particles at unexpectedly high temperatures is a now well-known phenomenon that researchers have to be aware of when re-sampling the same cloud with an aircraft at below freezing temperatures.
Soap box: It really is the editor of journals that determines whether you’re going to get in or not. They know, or should know, those who are going to keep you out or not, those with axes to grind, and those who are more objective. However, let me say this, I like Bernie. Has a great sense of humor. Below, Bernard A. Silverman. You can see the twinkle in his eye:
Bernard A. Silverman, publisher of the journal article containing the “Hydro-illogic Cycle” cartoon at the Cape Town, SA, 2006 WMO award ceremony for achievements in weather modification. He acknowledged in that 1978 article that he was a cloud seeding advocate.
We’re often confused with the California island, Catalina, and even places in Spain. Google “Catalina” and see if I am lying again. Oh, maybe that was Catalonia, SP…
Nevertheless, isn’t it time to think about a new name for our “Census Designated Place”, Catalina? In fact, at one time, each Catalina island and our Catalina, each had a marina to further confuse things by adding superficial similarities….
Think about it.
Some sunrise scenes among too many available to the writer from his camera card:
Let’s look at the Tortolita Mountains.Cirrocumulus on the fade.Highlighted Cirrocumulus.About as complex as a patch of Cirrocumulus could be. It did seem there were TWO levels of Cirrocu here, which might help explain criss-crossing patterns.Nice Altocumulus lenticularis in the usual spot downwind of Lemmon when the flow is from the W-SW up there.Wide angle view of our spectacular sunrise. How you experienced it live.
Now, for sunset color:
5:47 PM. Will think of something later.
As you may know, there is some violent weather hitting the West Coast, California in particular. Let’s see what the Reno office of the NWS has to say about the incoming storm:
“…BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 AM PST WEDNESDAY…
...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM WEDNESDAY TO 4 AM
PST THURSDAY...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN RENO HAS ISSUED A BLIZZARD
WARNING, WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 AM PST WEDNESDAY. THE WINTER
STORM WARNING IS NOW IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM WEDNESDAY TO 4 AM PST
THURSDAY.
* TIMING: DANGEROUS BLIZZARD CONDITIONS DUE TO HEAVY SNOW AND
STRONG WINDS WILL CONTINUE TODAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING.
PERIODS OF MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW WILL CONTINUE THROUGH
WEDNESDAY NIGHT.
SNOW ACCUMULATIONS THROUGH THURSDAY MORNING: 5 TO 10 FEET ABOVE 7000 FEET WITH 3 TO 7 FEET AT LAKE TAHOE LEVEL.(Note: The large font size, the capitalization, suggest, as we know, that the writer is screaming, which I am.)
* WINDS: SOUTHWEST 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 60 MPH THROUGH
WEDNESDAY MORNING. SIERRA RIDGE GUSTS OVER 100 MPH.
* SNOW LEVELS: BELOW LAKE LEVEL...MAY BRIEFLY RISE TO 6500 FEET
THIS AFTERNOON BEFORE FALLING AGAIN.
* IMPACTS: DANGEROUS LIFE THREATENING BLIZZARD CONDITIONS WITH
NEAR ZERO VISIBILITY WILL EXIST FOR TRAVEL AND OUTDOOR
ACTIVITIES WITH HEAVY SNOW ACCUMULATION ON ALL SIERRA ROADS.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
THIS IS A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRAVEL!
ROAD CREWS AND FIRST RESPONDERS MAY NOT BE ABLE TO RESCUE YOU.
STAY INDOORS UNTIL THE SNOW AND WIND SUBSIDE. EVEN A SHORT WALK
COULD BE DEADLY IF YOU BECOME DISORIENTED1."
As we know, extremely heavy snows in the Sierras can trigger cannabalism, It is our sincere wish that those affected by this severe storm curb his or her appetite for humans, i.e, that cannibalism does not break out in the Reno-Tahoe area, or ANYWHERE (capitalization for emphasis) in the Sierras during this terrible storm or its aftermath.
The End
————————– 1Thanks to Prof. (emeritus) Roger Pielke, Sr., Colo State, for passing this warning along. His son, a great scientist as well, btw, has the exact same name, and that’s why THIS Roger goes by “senior.” Thought you’d like to know that.
Once again we had a brief period of optical fireworks, as a rare “circumzenithal arc” developed overhead of Catalina in some Cirrus strands. Hope you saw it and bragged about it to your less observant friends. After saying that, follow it up in a moment of feigned reflection, speaking to no one in particular, with a comment about “how sad it is when people don’t notice the beauty in the world around them.” Your friend will appreciate what a sensitive person you are. That would be great!
Here are the scenes so many missed because you only have SECONDS to see them light up, peak out and disappear (but I saw it!):
9:28:31 AM. First highlight begins, center, leading edge.9:28:44 AM. Here we go!9:29:43 AM. Starting to really light up!9:29:45 AM. Zooming in…. Of course, like a rainbow, you would have to be exactly where I was to see this exact same sight, but I was alone and therefore, the only person in the world to see this.9:30:29 AM. Last little wisp of color goes over.
Whew, that was pretty much the climax of this event. Began to relax. calm down, as the possibility of seeing more “arcs”, began to fade. No more Cirrus was upwind.
Most of these I have seen have been due to aircraft-produced ice particles (“APIPs”, as named by Rangno and Hobbs way back in 1983, J. Appl. Meteor.), i. e., contrail like events produced by aircraft that occur at much higher than expected temperatures in “supercooled” clouds.
No Altocumulus clouds were around this line of Cirrus uncinus clouds at the time this passed over, though there were plenty around, however. Likely this was produced upwind by an aircraft in Ac clouds, and the Altocumulus droplet clouds just evaporated.
These aircraft produced ice clouds start out having prodigious, unnaturally high concentrations of ice, thousands per liter, and that in itself would lead, due to the competition of vapor among them, to tiny, pristine ice crystals like solid columns that would refract the sun’s light. So, that’s my thought on the origin of this line of Cirrus uncinus, the line itself raising suspicions about its origin. It extended much farther than shown in these photos, and was intermittent, likely reflecting where the Altocu was, and where there were holes in the coverage.
11:03 AM. Iridescence, about as good as it gets.11:07 AM. More iridescence. Hope you saw this, too.
Next, holey stuff.
Never seen anything quite like what happened in those quasi-laminar clouds that developed later in the morning over and near the Catalinas, so must show :
11:08 AM. Intrusions of dry air started punching holes in clouds all over.11:09 AM. Holes started to appear in adjacent clouds.11:09 AM. Zooming in at this strange phenomenon.11:11 AM. Geeminy Christmas, the sky is falling!11:12 AM. Closer to life size here. Pretty remarkable. Outside border of hole seemed to have collapsing cloud filaments supporting a localized downdraft punch.11:12: More holes began to appear next to the main one.11:14 AM. More hole craziness!11:15 AM. Wow. Look at the complexity in that hole.11:17 AM. This lenticular had an exceptionally smooth top, but a hole started to develop underneath and a little downwind.11:17 AM. Another dry air hole punch appeared. What an interesting day this has been so far, and its not even noon!
Well, as you could imagine, I could go on and on about this, with many more photos, but need to quit here. And besides, it pretty much cleared off in the afternoon, and the hole phenomenon ended.
Then this, looking straight up when CMP first noticed it because he wasn’t paying attention:
11:24 AM.
A few minutes later, as it moved away:
11:27 AM.
What happened? How cold were these Altocumulus clouds?
(Answers printed upside down below).
There were more, off in the distance, too.
Here are a few more shots of this phenomenon:
11:29 AM. As it went over the horizon to the east. You can really see how strange it made the sky look. Note, too, the contrail from a much higher flying aircraft (at Cirrus levels).4:02 PM. Those fine trails of virga (center of photo, trailing in strands to the right), were “probably” created by an aircraft. They don’t look natural to me, though when this happens without producing a ice canal or a clearing, its much more difficult to be certain. Those trails look too flat, a result of likely very high concentrations of ice crystals, all of which remain small due to the competition for the vapor in that cloud, and would be too small to collide with cloud droplets. There would be no hole or canal because the rise rate of the layer is producing droplet cloud faster than the ice crystals could take it away. In the prior photos with the ice canal, which did not fill in, you can guess the rise rate of the layer that produced the Ac per was nil. Those clouds did not fill in as the ice settled downward and out of the layer. Whew, lotta typing just then.5:23 PM. Numerous holes were being punched in that cold Altocumulus layer out to the southwest of us. If you are pretty observant, you know that there is an airway out there, often filled with contrails. These, though are likely produced by those aircraft below the normal Cirrus levels, but rather would be ones departing or landing, in descent or climb modes, maybe from TUS?5:41 PM. Zooming; pretty virga, but not natural.
Now, we’re really quitting because I have other things to do, ones that have to be done, like discovering why our attic has so many rodents in it? Well, one, every so often, dammitall. Why is life one problem after another?
The pre-dawn TUS sounding, PRESUMMED representative of that Ac per layer. It would have been where the two lines pinch together, and if somehow you can read the temperature, its between -25° and -30° C.For the evening aircraft effects, there are two choices of layers. Probably was the lower, warmer one IMO.
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Answers not printed upside down instead:
It was an ice canal created in a highly supercooled layer of Altocumulus perlucidus. How cold? Whenever you see one of these in a middle cloud like Altocumulus, you can guess that its colder than -20° C. They’re rarely seen in warmer clouds. The TUS soundings suggested this layer was between -25° and -30° C. It mostly was ice free, bur regions of some slight (natural virga) were seen,
It was probably created by a jet, though the rarer prop aircraft can’t be ruled out. Seems to be associated with cooling around prop tips or some say over the wing cooling momentarily below around -40° C, though visually I would offer that its from the water-loaded exhaust, at least in jets, rather than air cooled as it goes over the wing.
What a day for cloud maven juniors and me, too, watching the Altostratus opacus (but sometimes “translucidus” cuz you could see where the sun was) become Altocumulus! It happens pretty often and is the result of lowering, and warming of the cloud tops, but I need to generate some excitement on an otherwise somewhat dull day.
What else is happened as tops warmed? Good-bye virgae (“virga”, in plain speak), except in a couple of locations that raised the question, “Was it hers (Mother Nature’s) or ours (aircraft effects)?”
The TUS balloon sounding through all that Altostratus opacus virgae. Launched at about 3:30 AM. The top temperature is so cold (-60° C, -76° F) we don’t even want to know here in Arizona that such temperatures are possible. So, you can imagine all the ice that might form in a moist layer of air. The bottom is even cold at nearly -15° C, there were the temperature jumps out to the right. This is a situation we call “overrunning”, where warmer air is going over a colder air mass. This cloud was about 22,000 feet thick, 7 km at this point.
The slight spread between the two lines illustrates the classic representation of what we measure when the balloon passes through an all ice crystal/snowflake cloud like this version of Altostratus was yesterday morning. The humidity element on the balloon measures the humidity relative to liquid water, not ice, so there will be some spread between the dew point temperature (line on the left) and the temperature (line on the right) when the balloon ascends through an ice cloud. Saturation with respect to ice is indicated here in that deep “overrunning” layer, something also likely to happen tomorrow to the writer’s “company” fubball team tomorrow.
And here’s the TUS sounding launched yesterday afternoon when we only had Altocumulus opacus clouds, just as dark as Altostratus opacus, but much thinner. Tops around -10° for the most part, but there may have been some turrets to around -20° C. The balloon almost certainly passed between clouds, did not go exactly through a Altocumulus cloudlet. Don’t worry if you can’t make out the actual temperatures on the lines sloping up to the right, just take my word for everything I say. You can easily see how much it dried out in the middle and upper cloud regions between the morning sounding and this one.
Yesterday’s clouds and the transition
8:29 AM. Altostratus opacus virgae (has some downward pendants of ice and snowflakes coming out of it). The TUS radar had some sprinkles showing up here and there.8:29 AM. Altostratus opacus virgae (has some downward pendants of ice and snowflakes coming out of it). The TUS radar had some sprinkles showing up here and there. If this seems familiar, the caption is identical with the prior one. Redundancy is one of the niches we practice here, mostly in cloud photos of the same thing.
Now let’s look over here:
8:29 AM. The same.9:19 AM. “Thin spots in overcast”: we used to say that a lot in our human weather reports of ages gone by. Here the thin spot makes this Altostratus translucidus.. While there is an irregular look to this Altostratus due to virga hanging down, there is no indication of liquid water elements, ones that would show up as sharply-outlined darker elements. While this is hours later than that morning TUS sounding, it is likely that in spite of this thin spot, the Altostratus layer was still many kilometers (thousands of feet thick). Ice crystals and snowflakes are far less numerous than droplets in liquid clouds, and, therefore clouds composed of ice are more transparent given equal depths. Compare the visibility in a dense fog with being in a light snowfall.9:38 AM. Example of a some sharply-outlined liquid clouds embedded in the Altostratus layer have formed. The growth of ice crystals and snowflakes is enhanced in liquid clouds because they represent regions where it is saturated with respect to WATER, and highly supersaturated with respect to ice (the relative humidity with respect to ice is well over 100%). Also, if the droplets in these clouds are large enough (larger than about 15 microns in diameter) they can be collected by the falling ice and snow, adding to their mass of those, causing them to fall faster.10:29 AM. Had numerous, dramatic outbreaks of mammatus around this time, probably representing the fall back of turrets on top of the Altostratus as this time. We will say no more about mammatus since the author has tended toward the prurient to break up the tedium in past notations about” mammatus.” This might be viewed as an upside down look at the cloud tops at this point, BEFORE they collapsed and dropped below the main bottom of this layer. At the top (rumpled area), regions of a liquid cloud layer are beginning to appear, a sure sign that tops are receding.11:55 AM. Moving along,looking upwind across the Oro Valley. Still looks composed mostly of ice (Altostratus opacus virgae here), but liquid clouds are on the far horizon.1:21 PM. Altocumulus opacus rules. The deep icy cloud is all gone by now. No virga. Notice, too, in spite of being less than a kilometer thick, this cloud looks as gray as the Altostratus that was many kilometers thick. The droplet concentrations in a liquid cloud such as this might be 200, 000 per liter, while the ice concentrations in that Altostratus cloud were likely in the 10s per liter. The smaller particles in Altocumulus clouds, average perhaps only 15-20 microns in diameter also are able to reflect far more sunlight back into space, and less sunlight reaches the bottom making it darker. In contrast, the (ice) particles in the Altostratus would be hundreds of microns to millimeters in diameter (i.e., precip-sized).2:22 PM. Looking around at these cold Altocumulus clouds, generally not showing virga, you begin to wonder if those areas you do see have been the result of an aircraft passage, as here in that little spot of virga.2:28 PM. Some breaks in the overcast allowed some nice scenes to fall upon our mountains. Here, the Charouleau Gap is highlighted.
From the global ingest of data at 11 PM AST last evening. Indicates that green Catalina will be in the half inch to three quarters of an inch between now and New Year’s Day afternoon. Comes in two segments, the first overnight tonight, and then another starts New Year’s Eve. Seems reasonable. Probably not quite reasonable is the red on the Cat Mountains, indicating 3-4 inches accumulation during this time, probably a bit overdone. Both storms are rather small in size, so the amount of rain depicted in these model runs has varied a lot. But, they seem to be settling on something decent. Seems the least we’ll end up with has to be more than a third of an inch, worst case scenario. See Bob and the NWS for a good look at these incoming events. We’re mostly about clouds here.
Undercutting flow from the tropical Pacific is on schedule. So, a good chance for major rains along the southern portions of the West Coast in a few days, with a pretty good chance they’ll leak into Arizony.
Here are the latest 24 h totals, ending this morning the 23rd at 3 AM AST from your Pima County ALERT gauge network. Our own amount over this period is embedded for comparison purposes:
Gauge 24 Name Location ID# hours —- —- —- —- —- —- —————– ——————— Catalina Area 1010 0.71 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.83 Oracle Ranger Station approximately 0.5 mi SW of Oracle 1040 0.87 Dodge Tank Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.59 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 mi W of Charouleau Gap 1060 1.10 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 mi NE of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.79 Cargodera Canyon NE corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.79 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash NE of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.67 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Rd
xxxx 0.58 Sutherland Heights, Catalina
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 1.14 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 mi N of Rice Peak 1090 1.34 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 1.22 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 mi S of Coronado Camp 1130 0.87 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.79 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.71 White Tail Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.71 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.35 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Marshall Gulch
Yesterday, with it many twists and turns, with that significant rain overnight providing a happy, moist beginning. Then, there was a sad middle of the day when two windshifts passed, the second a major, long-lived one one bringing a substantial drop in temperature and fronted by a dramatic arcus cloud, but there was no rain to speak of with either……at first.
Then the surprise, the unlikely resolution of the sad middle of the day just as a dismal clearing advanced from the west: a highly unusual thunderama and cloud burst beginning at 1 PM, one gushing a half an inch of rain in 18 min! This, just when it looked like a total dud was certain from the passage of that front. That “TRW++” (weather text for an extra heavy thunderstorm), provided the happy ending, thus making it a day truly out of Hallmark. The total rain was 0.58 inches, with the three day total at 1.03 inches! Yay, flower help! Rain table at bottom.
Though it was late December and at the winter solstice, the breezy 63° F damp air yesterday morning made it feel like you had awakened from your long vacation flight and found yourself in Hawaii or Miami. It was a truly remarkable, even a joyful feeling.
With that strong upper low WAY off to the southwest of us yesterday morning, and moving right this way, you KNEW that the rain wasn’t over, that thought adding to the joy of yesterday’s early morning. 0.34 inches had fallen mostly during the night before, adding to the humid feel.
Too, yesterday morning’s joy had a withering effect on all those dry weeks that had preceded these past few days with measurable rain, maybe even withering the hard feelings that remain in many of us about those disappointing Big Niño forecasts of a wet Southwest last year. You were finally beginning to feel that you could let go of those hard, grinding, grudge-holding feelings you had against weather forecasters, the ones that misled us so much last year about the Big Winter in the Southwest due to the Big Niño, a record Niño, they told us, indeed, a “Godzilla Niño.” Then, what followed was, “The Big Winter that Didn’t Happen.” And it will be years before we get another Big Niño!
But, let us move on from that tirade to current events; you can see that I am personally completely over the hard feelings of last year’s disappointing forecasts and have moved ahead, as we need to do in life…
Now, finally (!), for yesterday’s clouds, so fantastic in all their presentations and drama, that one really could finally forget the busted Big Niño forecasts of last year2:
Oh, yeah, the cloud diary for yesterday, probably more than you need to know, but, what the heck:
7:56 AM. A shower complex heads north toward Catalina, only to graze the city.7:57 AM. Stratocumulus clouds topped Sam (Samaniego) Ridge as that shower approached, the lower bases telling you how humid the air was. Dewpoints were in the low 50s!8:04 AM. Gettin’ closer, gettin’ pumped for a nice rain blast in tropical air!8:22 AM. That complex of rain mostly slud off to the east of us, as so many have this year. However, note the lack of good shafting, just rainy areas that are a little thicker and thinner. This tells you that they’re really not Cumulonimbus clouds, but rather shallow ones not having strong updrafts. Earlier, it appeared to be a complex with a Cumulonimbus in it, and in that case, you would see strong shafting. Wonderfully dismal scene, I suppose to those of you with normal sky values; sunny and blue are just fine. Those of you with sky values like that might just as well get the HELL off this page right now! There’s a lot more dismality ahead, except maybe for the next couple of photos…10:24 AM. Sky breaking out more and more, probably some non-cloud maven people exulting over the clearing. But, it was still moist and humid, and no real windshift had occurred, something that woud presage descending air behind it, and a true clearing. Indeed, true cloud maven folk were exulting over the clearing since with the low aloft approaching, some warming of the ground might lead to real Cumulonimbus clouds while the air aloft was cooling! In this photo are Cumulus humilis and fractus (down low, darkish cloudlets) a riff of Altocumulus castellanus (indicating mid-level instability) and above those, a separate layer of Altocumulus with ripples (“undulatus”), and maybe Cirrocumulus adjacent to the higher Ac clouds. A Cu fattening on calories of sunlight can be seen on the horizon, center. I hope I can be done with this cloud story before dark today….10:22 AM. Here we go! A line of Cumulus congestus and “soft-serve” Cumulonimbus clouds HAS to be associated with a windshift line. Its got to come through Catalina. This view is looking to the NW. Such a band is likely to extend to the SW from here, and beyond the SW horizon, so you won’t see it yet over there. Altocumulus perlucidus clouds overlay Catalina at this time along with a few puffs of Cumulus fractus. Its still humid.11:44 AM. Pretty scene of course, but look carefully on the horizon below the bases of the clouds and you will see arc-shaped clouds curving back toward the NW. This view is to the SW. Those arc-shaped clouds are that windshift line where air converges to form a line of clouds as was seen in the prior photo. Too many intervening clouds prevent seeing a line here, but as a cloud maven junior or expert, you know there will be a LINE! We hope to have a lot of good testimonials at the next club concerning who saw these arched clouds first. Right here, you KNEW something dramatic was about to happen to the sky, and almost certainly something to your rain gauge as well.12:25 PM. Here it comes across the OV! No telling how many inches we might get! (However, the shafting looks weak.. Not congruent with big “Cumulonims” with good updrafts in them….so some doubt beginning to creep in.)12:31 PM. I feel like I am in Louisiana or Alabama awaiting a cold front. This was SUCH a dramatic scene, I know, like me, you were having a hard time constraining yourselves; not running to tell neighbors about it.12:32 PM. Zooming in on a fantastic scene for Arizona! Camera can’t fire fast enough! I was getting light-headed here.12:39 PM. The windshift to the NW has passed the house, the temperature is dropping like mad, but those arched clouds above the windshift are getting pretty ragged. And where’s the rain? Pretty scene, though.12:45 PM. Within a few minutes, a few hundredths of an inch fell, propelled on gusty NW winds, but then it quit, the low clouds banked up harmlessly against the Catalinas, which still had sun on them! This was looking really bad. No rain was in sight, either. Pretty scene, though. We don’t want to lose sight of beauty when its in front us, even when we’re getting sad about the turn of developments, which in a Hallmark movie would be that point when the owner of the building that a bakery or flower shop is in, says he has to lick them out because he has sold the building. Yep, that’s how bad it looked right at this point.12:50 PM. The arcus clouds and wind shift had moved in from the west, and so this clearing out there HAD to be approaching, the day’s rain likely over. I can only imagine how glum you all were out there in seeing this abyssal scene, “sunny skies just ahead”, spoken sarcastically.12:53 PM. The Stratus clouds now hung even lower, as though wanting you to touch their empty innards, a truly humiliating scene. I have never seen such vacant clouds, so filled with portent only minutes before. This was, indeed the low point of the day. The sun would soon burn them off.1:02 PM. Just after the most amazing thing; a blast of THUNDER overhead E or SE, And, it was starting to rain! But here you can see lower clouds (Stratus or Cumulus fractus) that are separate from a higher layer (top). So, where the HECK was the Cumulonimbus?1:09 PM. Heart of the blast; visibility is less than a quarter mile, thunder, close to overhead it seemed, had become more frequent, once every minute to two, unheard in winter storms. This winter storm, on the solstice, was almost exactly the intensity of our summer ones. Completely out of control here snapping photos of nothing but rain, hoping camera battery doesn’t give out. But, then I know I would have had company with all of the CMJ’s out there losing your minds over this as well. What a day, Mr. and Mrs. Catalina! Is this what “global warming” has ahead for us, as one Arizona scientist mused? Summer-like storms in the heart of winter? Maybe it would be so bad…. Hardest rain I’d seen here in nine winters.1:18 PM. A few hundred photos, 18 min, and a half an inch of rain later, I ventured out to see what was the result. Here, ponding had occurred in a swale following the gush. Considering the warmish nature of the rain, would toads now re-emerge along with flying ants?4:42 PM. One of the rewards of clearing skies, are the quilted-with-sunlight mountains sides of the Catalinas.4:43 PM. While plump Cumulus clouds and dark skies abounded, these clouds no longer reached the level where ice could form, and were “dry” clouds as far as precip goes.4:51 PM. Highlight toward the Gap.5:16 PM. More evening color; note rain gauge. Such a pretty scene!
The End
New storm marches toward Catalina! Due in tomorrow afternoon.
1Meteorologists, outside of Buffalo and Seattle, have inverted values regarding clear and cloudy.
2I hope we get 30 inches THIS water year, dammitall, busting this year’s seasonal forecasts of a dry Southwest.
Some 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.
