Well, let us define “cool”….that is, cool for Catalina in May; that is #2, below normal temperatures.
What led to this thought?
I was gasping when I saw this from last night’s NOAA spaghetti factory, as you will as well, and decided I would have to say something about it.
Valid on the 17th of May, 5 PM AST. Wow! And with a persistent pattern like this (red lines dipping so far toward the Equator (which is that dashed line that goes through Hawaii and Mexico1), which we now seem to be in following our little warm up, now in gradual retreat, big flooding will occur in the central and southern Plains States, the kind that makes the 5 o’clock news (or is it 6 o’clock?). Wow.
Pretty unbelievable.
What does it mean for Catalinans: a personal view?
Oh, big windy episodes from time to time during the month, good chance for above normal rain for Catalina, and probably most interesting, the late spring ovenly weather that we like to brag about how we get through wherein so many of our Catalinans and “Tucsonians” flee to the high country, or to Michigan, is held at bay by recurring puddles of cold air up top.
That’s my prediction for May, which has already been ludicrously posted in a prior post many days ago. We might look back at May some day to see how this incredibly unprofessional forecast for a whole month based on one spaghetti run worked out.
If you want professionalism in medium range weather forecasting, then get the hell off this site now! Maybe you’re the kind of person that would rather see a forecast from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center for Catalina and environs. If so, you don’t belong here.
But lets see what they say, anyway for May, then for the whole of mid-April through July…..to add that bit of uncharacteristic professionalism to this site. See maps below:
Looks like they’re pretty clueless about what the temperature’s going to be like here for May–“EC” means equal chances for below normal OR above normal. So, they could be right no matter WHAT happens! But not me. I think Cal is goona be wrong, too; below normal, not above normal temps. Its great when you can just type things like that!
The Big Boys don’t really know what’s going to happen with the May rain here, either, since we are also in an “EC” area. But boy, look at the May rain foretold for the Plains! Looks like a great place to spend May! OKC, maybe. WCWS begins at the end of May, amateurism at its best.
But, at the same time, for the whole of mid-April through the end of July, the Big Boys at the CPC are expecting the drought in areas of the central southern Plains States to persist or intensify–see dark brown areas below.
It will be interesting, being serious for the moment, to see how these predictions, seemingly in some conflict, work out. Note that in the longer view below, Catalina is in an area where drought “persists or intensifies”, even through JULY! Egad.
Nice clouds yesterday….
6:00 AM. Mamma to the S, pretty big mamma. Indicates unstable conditions aloft, maybe some showers will reach the ground.10:01 AM. Heavy vIrga pummels air above Catalina/Saddlebrooke.4:20 PM. High-based Cumulonimbus clouds approached from the south promising blasts of wind, maybe a few drops. No drops here, though.6:47 PM. Cumulonimbus and rain reaching the ground passed to the W-NW of Catalina. Darn.7:04 PM. The moon AND pink virga in the SAME photo! Yours today for $900. Trying to follow through on an Atlantic Mag article, “Blogging for Dollars.” That would be great, but it hasn’t happened yet.7:09 PM. Your Catalina sunset, May 2nd, 2015, Altocumulus castellanus with Cumulonimbus capillatus, along with a Cal palm silhouette.
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Yeah, I saw that report that America’s kids don’t know much about geography, so we’re just checking here to see how bad it really is by suggesting that the Equator goes over the Hawaian Islands (hahaha). But, maybe, they’re really the Galapagos Islands… Am I being too subtle? Sam Cook once pointed out about himself, “Don’t know much about geography”…in his song, “What a wonderful world it would be“. it was a movement that apparently caught on.
“I think a year ago I sent you the early alert that Eel Ninyo is coming!!! Well, I think I was about 1 year early … the real deal seems to be gearing up for a more major appearance this year … check it out: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml
“My fingers are crossed for a much more typical event for 2015/16, but then again we seem to be in a very similar place as we were last year at this time (caveat part of e-mail) only a bit warmer in the tropics.”
“We shall see!”
—-from Nate M., NOAA SW Fisheries Center El Niño expert, personal communication, received just yesterday! Excitement abounds!
But, we will see as well…
Below, a different SST anomaly visual from NOAA:
Global sea surface temperature anomalies from NOAA, as of March 30th. The eastern Pacific and eastern equatorial waters are aflame, figuratively speaking, of course. Both the “Classic Niño” (off Peru) and “The New Niño” regions, the latter in the mid and eastern Pacific, have above normal water temperatures!
There is a LOT of warmer than normal water out there! As we know now, the newly discovered “California Niño” helped tropical storms whisk into Arizona late last summer and fall stronger and wetter than they normally would be by providing warmer waters than normal over which they traveled while heading toward AZ. Think of something like the highly-caffeinated “Jolt Cola” in sea surface temperatures for those storms.
Slackening onshore winds along the West Coast last spring and summer created the Cal Niño, something now known to occur from time to time over the decades. And that warm water wasn’t much perturbed by strong storms during the winter, ones that can mix colder water to the surface. The Cal Niño means that IF any storm strikes the West Coast, they would be a little wetter than usual since the air holds more water in it when its warmer.
In the meantime, the much-heralded El Niño of a year ago1 deflated like a New England Patriots game time football into a pile of nothing, wrecking the expectations of frequent late winter and spring rains in the Great SW. Thankfully we had that ONE great, several inches rainstorm at the end of January2 and a couple of vegetation-sustaining rains thereafter.
What does all this mean for our immediate future? Will the late spring be wet? Will we have a great summer rain season?
I don’t know.
But, next winter could be great!
Today’s clouds and weather
Rain is expected to be around today, sprinkles, maybe some thunder due to a weak low aloft passing to the south of us. Cloud drift is supposed to be from the east off the Catalinas, and with the unusual warmth, the day will LOOK like a day in July or August, nice Cumulus building off the mountains in the later morning, reaching the ice-forming level fairly quickly, and then, as you know, out pops the virga and precip. So, it will be a nice photogenic day for you. Check this nice graphic of the expected temperature profiles today from the U of A.
The weather WAY ahead
Recall that today and tomorrow, at one time, as was mentioned here, we were going to experience one of the greatest storms ever observed for this time of year. Well, today’s situation is what’s left of that forecast, a coupla puny showers around, and, sure a trough is here all right, but what a disappointment!
In the meantime, forgetting about the perpetual disappointments for big rains foretold about two weeks in advance, we are once again excited by another great rain here in the far model horizon of just two weeks from now, in mid-April!
Valid at 5 PM AST, April 14th, only 348 h from now! Could put a real dent in our usual April dryness! Colored regions denote those areas where the WRF-GOOFUS model has calculated through VERY sophisticated means, where precipitation has fallen in the prior 12 h! This from global obs taken at 5 PM AST last evening.
Yesterday’s clouds and more
From two days ago. Another comet passed over. Didn’t read anything about it, though. I guess the astronomers have seen enough comets. Probably a little jaded by now by so many of them.Close up. You can see its trailing ice and dust, burned off by the sun. Its great to live in a place where so many comets go over! I think that’s two or three in the past year!Awful green here in Arizona. I wonder how many people know how green it is here? I think a LOT of people have no idea how green it is here (at this time of year).
5:58 PM. Thought for a fun shot I would show you some castellanus from yesterday.6:45 PM. Post sunset, Altocumulus under patches of Altostratus, or, Cirrus spissatus if you like.
The End
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1Not just here, but by people that know more than I do, like the CPC.
2Water is still coming down from the mountains from that 4-6 incher in the Catalina Mountains, water that can be seen still pouring over great boulders in the higher reaches of our mountains producing the morning “glistening rocks” phenomenon. “Glistening Rocks”…. That would be a great title for a love song, a sad one, because as we all know, sooner or later, we won’t see the water producing glistening rocks anymore from the big January rain. So it would have to be about a love that starts out so strong, but then fades over time, finally disappearing altogether.
Kind of a dull day yesterday. Not much to look at. Some Altocumulus with an interesting, slotted wave pattern to start was about the only interesting thing in the morning.
Then some small Cumulus that continued to agglomerate into masses of dark Stratocumulus, with a little rain to the north of us. You probably didn’t see it. The darkness of the clouds was likely due to higher than normal droplet concentrations, which in clouds, causes the bottoms to be darker because the smaller droplets associated with high droplet concentrations causes more sunlight to be reflected off the top of clouds. But you knew that.
You probably also know that the brief, and weak shafts of rain to the north of us in the afternoon meant that cloud tops were barely reaching the ice-forming level, certainly were mounding ones, analogous to the rolling hills of Ireland rather than ones protruding upward very much like Kilimanjaro or something like that.
Sunset was OK, not great.
A stupendous storm showed up in the fantasy part of the model run, out two weeks, or on April 1st. That’s a little late for a stupendous storm, but it was fun seeing the computer maps of one.
Today, and not just because I am lazy and have to go right now to feed some horses, I thought I would just insert all these images in whatever way WordPress decided they should go and let you puzzle them out, e.g., name clouds, figure out what time was the photo taken, or, just look at them as a review of your cloud day.
Btw, whilst out on dog walk yesterday, saw that in the Cottonwoods area by the Baby Jesus Trailhead, several 6-9 inch diameter cottonwood tree branches were blown down during Sunday’s windstorm, one younger tree had been topped. Looked like a very small, supergust burst had done it, maybe less than 50 yards in diameter.
I figure today’s weather is pretty well presented by the NWS, and your favorite weathercaster, so why duplicate good efforts?
10:47 AM. Altocumulus perlucidus undulatus translucidus (has waves in it; is thin).
The End, of one of the easiest blogs yet! Maybe will practice more WordPress chaos in the future!
This link will bring up the window below. There’s a little tutorial below on what to do once when you get to this window:When you get to this page, the latest model run data will come up in red. Here, to see precipitation in colors on a map, click on the name, “1000_500_thick” for the best view of the many Arizona precipitation days ahead. You will see the precipitation totals for three (or six hours late in the model run) for the next 15 days as calculated by the WRF-GFS model, considered OUR best, but not as good as the Euro model some say1.
This is the same stuff that is rendered so nicely by IPS MeteoStar. I thought I would take you to the source, since its available an hour or two before the IPS renderings are completed.
In sum, its pretty amazing to see this many days with rain predicted so late in March and I thought you should see it, maybe brighten your day up.
Below , your March rain parade, a list of the NINE days with rain in the “general2” Catalina area from this latest model run based on global obs at 11 PM AST last night:
12 RW- VCTY3 (today)
13 RW- VCTY (recall, too, that spaghetti suggested an enhanced chance of rain between March 11-15th some coupla weeks ago)
14, 15, 16, 17 No rain indicated on these days
18 RW- VCTY
19 RW- VCTY
20 RW- VCTY
21 R4
22 RW- VCTY
23, 24, 25 No rain indicated on these days
26 RW- VCTY
27 R
Below, a peak at the latest 15 day spaghetti plot based on last evening’s 5 PM AST global data. I think you can see that there will be a lot going on in 15 days …
Valid at 5 PM AST, March 26th.
Your cloud day today
Heavy dense deep middle clouds with sprinkles in the area are passing overhead now. Will give way to an at least partial clearing in the late afternoon, meaning a great sunset is likely.
Rain not likely to be measurable today.
Yesterday’s cloud shot
5:29 PM. Nice display of Altocumulus castellanus virgae with some Cirrus and Cirrocumulus above them. Note the tufted, or protruding top4 of Altocumulus cloud in the center.
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1Remember how Superstorm Sandy, the one that battered the East Coast a couple of years ago, was better predicted by Euro mod rather than our own model, causing quite a weather flap?
2“General” is taken here as any rain that falls within a 10 mi radius of Catalina.
3“RW- VCTY” is text for “Light rain showers in the vicinity” (of Catalina, not necessarily ON Catalina, but we hope so.
4“R”, indicates steady rain of moderate intensity, namely that the models are predicting more substantial rain here where an “R” appears.
5As soon as I formulated this description about a protruding or tufted top, I realized it could be taken as untoward, perhaps even a salacious reference. Are we men so cursed that it’s always about the woman, the things we think6?
6As a further example, on a Cumulus cloud study in the Marshall Islands, I was acting as the person responsible for which clouds to sample with our research aircraft7, I noted a newly risen Cumulus turret a minute or two ahead, on the right. Speaking to the Director of the Cloud and Aerosol Group, Peter Hobbs, I reported over the intercom that there was a “young, firm, protuberant Cumulus cloud at 2 O’clock”, “Shall we penetrate it?”, I asked.
“Yes, they’re the best ones”, Peter replied.
The all male crew burst out laughing.
Q. E. D.
7A Convair 580 Turboprop. See below:
The Cloud and Aerosol Research Group’s Convair 580 readying for takeoff at Paine Field, Everett, WA.
Happened around noon yesterday. I could see it from here that the shaft consisted of graupel mixed with some rain. Nice video of this exceptionalism-of-the-day event here from the U of AZ.
Its interesting to me, and to you, too, most likely, was that yesterday it was asserted here that there would be no ice in the “small” Cumulus clouds that were expected to form during the day. And yet we had a momentary Cumulonimbus cloud with a ton of ice and a graupel/rain/snow shaft! Huh.
In related1 distractive headlines:
Fields of gold erupt in Catalina!
Hours: 10 AM to 3 PM, M-S, otherwise closed. Why do they do that? You won’t find the answer here, so move along now…
4:00 PM yesterday, on hills west of Spirit Dog Ranch. Numerous poppy flourishes in this area. On horseback,, Nora Bowers, co-author of the popular guide, Wildflowers of Arizona. Those poppy blossoms were pretty much closed here. You really should get out and see them if you can. Well, worth it.
Rasslin’ Dogs!
“Emma” border collie, bottom, “Banjo”, border terrier mix of some kind, top. 2-day old distractive photo. More distraction. Few readers will likely go farther than this….
Yesterday’s clouds and explanations
8:22 AM. Altocumulus, bases about 14, 000 feet above sea level, or about 11,000 feet above the ground here in Catalina. The temperature at cloud top, via the TUS balloon sounding, was about -15 C (5 F), pretty cold for not having some virga or ice showing. It happens. There could be several reasons: Lack of ice nuclei in that layer? Tiny droplets, ones that resist freezing more than larger cloud drops? Lack of mixing with very dry air above cloud top (it was moist all the way up to Cirrus levels))? Mixing in very dry air at cloud top can lower the temperature of a drop a few degrees before it disappears completely, thus increasing the chance that it will freeze. That last effect is mostly operating in Cumulus clouds whose tops can penetrate relatively far into very dry layers. So, once again, we have no real answers, or maybe, all of them. It is worth noting that going to -15 C here and no ice in a Cumulus cloud is a virtually unknown occurrence, one that speaks to ice nuclei, those specks of mineral dirt that are known to cause ice to form in clouds, like kaolinite, etc. originating in the boundary layer/dirt interface being a primary culprit.
10:49 AM. In fact (!), “small” Cumulus clouds DID form yesterday, hold the ice. Quite a forecasting triumph.10:51 AM. While small Cumulus clouds pervaded the sky, there was an exception; the usual cloud street that forms off the Tortolita Mountains was trailing over Catalina and those clouds in it were at least of mediocris size (likely a km deep or so), and due to the low freezing level yesterday, getting close to the ice-forming level for Cumulus clouds here of around -10 C (14 F). Was actually outside, as you probably were, too, as it passed over, shifting gradually to the south, hoping for a drop so’s I could report a trace of rain today. “Great weather folk don’t miss traces!” (Dry-fit tee shirt in preparation….)11:00 AM. I want to keep reminding you of the prevalence of small, “docile” Cumulus clouds (ignore large dark cloud shadow at left). Just trying to balance out the cloud day picture the way media balances things out, regardless of whether they are Democrats or Republicans.
11:52 AM. Graupel begins to fall from a Cumulus congestus just beyond Pusch Ridge. It would be hard to describe the magnitude of the embarrassment I began to feel having stated that there would be no ice. I realized I had been careless as a forecaster, not really looked hard enough at the conditions, the lapse rates. It was truly humiliating to see this happen. Oh, in case you can’t see anything, the next photo is a blow of this humiliation as it began to take place.11:58 AM. Picture of graupel particles emitting from a cloud from 10 miles away. Note fine strands, a sure sign of graupel especially on day with a low freezing level and cloud bases at below freezing temperatures. Note too, ice is not visible at cloud top, something that indicated an abundance of droplets over ice crystals in the cloud, the conditions that lead to the rapid formation of graupel (soft hail).
12:10 PM. More humiliation and graupel; a forecasting disaster is in progress for all to see!
12:17 PM. Turret at left side, under fragment, appeared to be softening to the look of an icy composition that all would recognize immediately, but external ice composition not apparent yet. Note the “harder”, more cauliflower look of the turret on the right half of the photo, indicating an all liquid external composition. Graupel was forming inside that right half, though.
12:29 PM. Total icy humiliation. The “cotton candy” transition of the prior turret to “Mr. Frosty” (left of center) was complete for all to see. Looking toward Catalina, I could almost hear the laughter, “Calls himself a ‘cloud-maven’, said there wouldn’t be any ice today, and look at all that ice! What joke!” Now that the turret has become a modest Cumulonimbus, likely completely glaciated, the precipitation falling would be snowflakes (not graupel since the liquid water droplets are gone inside it) melting into rain farther down.
4:21 PM. The clouds returned to their former “small”, ice-less, sizes for the rest of the day after the humiliating exception.
6:18 PM. Revealed in yesterday’s near cloudless sunset, undulations in the ever present high altitude haze layers that circumscribe our planet. Layers like this, that are featureless except for the revealing waves causing the undulations, are extremely old, days, and are often reffered to as long range transport events because they likely traveled thousands of miles before arriving over Arizona. They are likely to be composed of old, old contrail emissions, emissions that have worked their way up in the atmosphere from over heated land surfaces, distant forest fires, and so on.
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1Its not really related but sounds like something that should be said.
Above, a typical Los Angeles Times headline for a southern California storm when the writer was growing up, one framed for Catalina. Few storms don’t do this, so it was always kind of funny.
To coninue on a nostalgic stream for some reason, the LA Times also had a very weather-centric publisher-owner1 in those days, and after a storm, there was also a HUGE rain table in the paper. I loved ’em, scoured those tables to see who got what amounts, and I think a lot of people do like them, so’s that’s why I put a rain table in here from time to time.
Below, the Pima County ALERT gauges 24 h precipitation totals ending at 3:24 AM today, covering the first batch of rain. Scattered light showers, possibly today, but more likely tomorrow, may add some to these totals, but not very much.
The Sutherland Heights portion of Catalina received 0.57 inches.
Gauge ID Name, Location
Catalina Area
1010 0.67 Golder Ranch, Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke
1020 1.02 Oracle RS, approximately 0.5 mi SW of Oracle
1040 0.63 Dodge Tank, Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago DO Parkway
1050 0.71 Cherry Spring, approximately 1.5 mi W of Char. Gap
1060 1.10 Pig Spring, approximately 1.1 mi NE of Char. Gap
1070 MSG Cargodera Canyon, NE corner of Cat. State Park
1080 0.98 CDO @ Rancho Solano, CDO NE of Saddlebrooke
1100 0.55 CDO @ Golder Rd, CDO at the Golder RD bridge
0.81 inches average
Santa Catalina Mountains
1030 0.87 Oracle Ridge, about 1.5 mi N of Rice Peak
1090 0.51 Mt. Lemmon, snow melt will add to this
1110 1.10 CDO @ Coronado Camp, CDO 0.3 mi S of Coronado
1130 1.30 Samaniego Peak, Samaniego Ridge
1140 1.30 Dan Saddle, Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge
2150 0.43 White Tail, Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade RS
2280 0.51 Green Mountain, Green Mountain
2290 0.28 Marshall Gulch, Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Gulch
Your storm day, beginning with a morning light show amid the overcast Stratocumulus:
7:26 AM. Spotlight on the Tortolitas.7:25 AM. Light on Saddlebrooke and environs.7:27 AM. Closeup of the sunny highlight on Saddlebrooke.7:49 AM, toward the C-Gap. Breaks in the overcast (BINOVC, as we would text that) reveal a higher layer of Altocumulus clouds. Nice lighting here, too.8:00 AM. Streams of dark Stratocumulus clouds rolled across the sky for hours yesterday with no rain falling from them. I bet you know why they didn’t rain.9:36 AM. The Stratocu had deepened up enough by this time to begin preciping, and I am sure you made a note of this. The misty nature of this made you also think it might be a “warm rain” process, one not involving ice crystals. However, it did not continue.11:33 AM. Light showers finally began to develop SW of Catalina after a two hour hiatus. Remember how we were thinking that showers might be numerous by now. Well, it didn’t happen. But even these pretty much fizzled out on their way here.12:31 PM. The wind shift line marking the cold front, marked by an arcus cloud (a sharp lowering of cloud bases in the lifting, cooler air), appeared NW-NE of Catalina. Real rain was just ahead.1:55 PM. Eventually the arcus cloud (horizon) and wind shift line made its way across Oro Valley. You can see how that clash of winds has deepened and darkened the clouds over it. Was thinking, “Here we go!”, deep Cumulonimbus clouds would now develop, likely as you did, too. But only weak, puny ones did likely with crappy, mounding tops.2:09 PM. Sure, there was a nice shaft, and was hopeful this would lead to some thunder, but it pooped out even before getting here! Wind shift line seemed to come in two surges, the first one dying out.6:18 PM. Sun tries to perform a colorful sunset, but fails.6:18 PM. Reflected light off orange cloud tops, or a higher layer being underlit by the fading sun, created a mysterious orange glow on the Catalinas and Pusch Ridge.4:50 PM. Some potential for flooding was forecast, and here we see that it indeed verified yesterday.
The weather way ahead
A pretty good rain threat still appears in the March 11-15th window.
The End, except for a gigantic historical footnote below.
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1In 1981, at the prodding of Otis Chandler, the weather-centric owner of the Times, there was EXPANSION of the weather page while the paper devoted an astounding amount of pages to a review weather reporting in the media entitled, “Weather: Everyone’s Number One Story.” One side bar, embedded in this HUGE article took note of the Los Angeles weather situation with the humorous side bar, “Little rain, but lots of coverage.” You can see that article below, scanned from the original clipping from 1981. Its a little disjointed due to the odd sizes of article pages. This article noted that a five month study in 1977 showed that the Los Angeles Times had MORE FRONT PAGE weather stories than any other newspaper in the country!
The clouds were somewhat of a disappointment yesterday, not the stupendous photogenic day CM was expecting.
Maybe CM is total fraud, gets Big Oil funding and should be investigated by Rep. Grijalva as other weather folk are, like the great Prof. and National Academy of Sciences Fellow, Dr. Judy Curry, a friend, and about whom I say on a link to her blog here, and from this blog’s very beginning, “The only link you will need.” I said that because Judy2 is a top scientist, and is eminently fair in this polarized issue.
I am in real trouble! Will remove that link immediately1 before our very own “climate thought enforcer”, Demo Rep. Grijalva, AZ, finds it using a spy bot! No telling how far down the influence chain it will go, maybe all the way down to here, where there is virtually no influence!
Back to clouds…….
Only late in the day did the delicate patterns expected to happen ALL DAY appear, again, with iridescence, always nice to see.
The media, Bob, and our good NWS, of course, are all over the incoming rain in great detail. In fact, it will take you half a day to read all the warnings on this storm issued by our Tucson NWS.
So why duplicate existing information that might be only slightly different than the prevailing general consensus on the storm amounts, and then maybe be investigated for going against a consensus? No, not worth it. Best to be safe, not say things against The Machine. (OK, maybe overdoing it here.)
In the meantime, the upper low off southern Cal and Baja has fomented an extremely strong band of rain, now lying across SE Cal and the Colorado River Valley where dry locations like Blythe are getting more than an inch over the past 24 h. Same for northern Baja where some places are approaching 2-3 inches, great for them. You can see how the rain is piling up in those locations here. In sum, this is a fabulous storm for northern Mexico and the SW US, whether WE get our 0.915 inches, as foretold here, or not! Rejoice in the joy of others. Looking for an arcus cloud fronting the main rainband, too, that low hanging cloud in a line that tells you a windshift is coming. Still expecting, hoping, for thunder today to add to the wind and rain drama.
Also, the present cloud cover, as the trough ejects toward us, will deepen up and rain will form upwind and around here as that happens, so it won’t JUST be the eastward movement of the existing band. This means you might be surprised by rain if you’re outside hiking and think the band itself is hours away. Expecting rain to be in the area by mid-morning, certainly not later than noon, with the main blast (fronted by something akin to an arcus cloud) later in the day. OK, just checked the U of AZ mod run from 11 PM AST, and that is what it is saying as well! Wow.
Finally, if you care, yesterday’s clouds:
6:45 AM. Your sunrise color, thanks to a line of broken Cirrus spissatus. Jet stream Cirrus streak, as a matter of fact, moving along at about 110 mph.9:47 AM. Ruffle of Sc topped Mt. Lemmon, while strange clouds formed just upwind of them. These kinds of shapes suggest an inversion where the air resists further upward movement and a smoothing occurs at the top similar to a lenticular cloud. Photo taken at the Golder Ranch Dr. cattleguard. which really doesn’t work that well, as the neighbors below here will tell you.The 5 AM, March 1st, balloon sounding for TUS.9:53 AM. Looks like a crab with four pinchers. How funny.12:23 PM. Shredding tops of small Cumulus like this indicate that the air is very dry just above their tops, and the shreds racing off to the right, indicate how fast the wind increased as you went upward.2:58 PM. Something is changing here. Notice how the tops are bulging and not immediately being torn into shreds. The air was likely moistening above cloud tops, and the inversion holding the tops back, weakening as our storm gets a little closer.4:19 PM. A line of still larger Cumulus had formed to the west, indicating more moistening and “de-stabilization” of the air. However, the upper low was not advancing toward us any longer and no further development occurred as stagnated, ratcheting up its rainband over eastern Cal and western AZ. The TUS balloon sounding suggested tops were getting close to the normal ice-forming level here, -10 C, the slight inversion on the morning sounding at 13,000 feet above sea level, and the one likely to have caused those smooth morning clouds, was gone.6:07 PM. Just before sunset from near Oracle where we took mom for her BD. The heavier Cumulus clouds faded with the sun. They will arise today!
Below, just some pretty patterns observed later in the day. Click to see larger versions.
3:28 PM. Cirrocumulus began to appear.3:36 PM. Twisted, tortured Cirrus (fibratus?).3:50 PM. Another view of Cirrocumulus. Though these clouds are still composed of liquid droplets, the 5 PM TUS sounding suggests they were at about -30 C in temperature. It happens.4:00 PM. An incredibly complex array of Cirrocumulus overhead. Due to perspective, its about the only view that you can really see how complex the patterns are.4:20 PM. Some iridescence for you.6:00 PM. At Oracle, AZ.6:22 PM. Finally, from the “Not-taken-while-driving-since-that-would-be-crazy-though-it-looks-like-it-was” collection, this oddity. Looks like an high temperature aircraft contrail (aka, “APIP”) in the lower center. And the trail seems to shoot up into the cloud Altocumulus cloud layer (or down out of it). Have never seen that kind of aircraft track before since it looks so steep! “High temperature” here means that it formed at temperatures above about -35 C.
Whew, the end.
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1Not!!!!!! I thought this was a good read about this deplorable new stage of “climate thought enforcement” now in progress. It was brought to my attention by climate folk hero, friend, and big troublemaker, Mark Albright. Wow, maybe Mark will be investigated, too! Maybe I should excise his name….
2I remember, too, how cute she was when she worked my lab/office at the University of Washington in the mid-1980s, and thought about asking her out, to detract from a serious commentary here. She was a Penn State grad student, not a U of WA employee; still, to ask her out would have been untoward. A human commentary like this, one about feelings and things, help boost blog attendance.
1) Let yesterday morning’s color show speak for itself, just incredible, speaking for it anyway.
2) Please review the U of AZ time lapse film here to understand why it takes the biggest computer Fujitsu can build to calculate what the atmosphere is doing. Also reviewing this let’s you escape from the tedium about to be presented below.
3) Expect a similarly photogenic day today.
6:42 AM. First light, this incredible scene. Altoculumulus lenticularis downstream from Catalinas. Thought I would misspell Altocumulus to see if anyone is reading this. Sun seems to be coming up earlier and earlier….6:42 AM. Looking to the left or north of the lenticular….6:44 AM. That lenticular again, the bottom structure now highlighted.6:49 AM. What can you say? So pretty all around. Another lenticular was in progress to the main one.6:53 AM. If the scene wasn’t spectacular enough, a display of iridescence (rainbow colored area) then enhanced the original Ac len even more. It doesn’t get better than this and I hope you saw it “live.” I was just beside myself, taking too many photos, losing control, rationality.8:28 AM. Both lenticulars still in place, but now augmented by a layer of Altocumulus perlucidus (honey-combed look) and a scruff of low clouds that topped the Catalinas marking the invasion of a low level moist air. The feel of rain was in the air then, too.8:28 AM, the same time as the prior photo, but looking upwind over Oro Valley, toward Marana and beyond at a line of Stratocumulus, with Altocumulus perlucidus and patchy thin Cirrus above those. Even here, the scene seemed exceptional.9:41 AM. That Altocumulus deck began arriving overhead and you could see the little “heads” trailing ice crystals like comets with long tails. When the heads are gone, you’d call it Cirrus and never know how it got those fine strands. In the meantime, the Stratocumulus and Cumulus clouds were slowly getting deeper.1:19 PM. Looking over Catalinaville1: Stratocumulus was becoming the dominant cloud form. No ice, no precip, too warm at top; also, largest droplets in them below the Hocking-Jonas Threshold (30-40 microns in diameter) for collisions with coalescence to occur, if you care to learn things.3:42 PM. One of the many pretty scenes yesterday, these Altocu perlucidus, no ice. So, much warmer and lower than those trailing ice in the earlier photo.4:19 PM. Then, as the Stratocumulus filled in again, we got our late afternoon “light show”, those drifting spots of sun illuminating our mountains, though here our own Sutherland Heights subdivision, if that is what it is. So pretty.5:19 PM. Can’t be inside when these scenes are happening…. Have problem.6:13 PM. That sunset glow we see on our mountains every day, except a little more dramatic when dark clouds are overhead.6:19 PM. The day finished as gorgeous as it began as a clearing to the far west allowed the sun to light the bases of the overhead Stratocumulus layer.
The rain just ahead
Rain masses will be forming to west of Catalina today and will pound eastern Cal and western AZ for about 24 h before roaring in here tomorrow morning. Staying the course, best guess, from extremes of at least 0.33 to a max of 1.50 here, is 0.915 inches (the average of the worst and best case scenarios) here in “Catalinaville” as the total amount from this “hit” tomorrow and the showers afterwards into later Tuesday, as a second storm part comes by. Thunder tomorrow seems likely from this keyboard as the big rainband goes over.
During the passage of the rainband tomorrow, rainrates are likely to get up to an inch an hour, at least briefly, (this is the rate, NOT the duration) and typically, with several hours of moderate (0.1 to 0.3 inches per hour) to heavy rain (greater than 0.3 inches per hour) we should get a nice drenching.
The weather way ahead, 10 days or more
After a long dry spell following this upcoming rain, spaghetti is strongly indicating we have more troughiness in our future after the temporary dry spell!
Check it out, spaghetti connoisseurs2:
Valid at 5 PM AST, Saturday, March 11th. Note clustering of red and blue lines in trough off Cal.Valid at 5 PM, Sunday, March 15th. Southward bulging red lines, so many of them, indicate a very good chance of a trough here at that time. Blue lines, for a colder part of the jet stream, also tend in this direction, a good sign.
The spaghetti plots, taken together, indicate to the present Arthur that the chance of rain twixt spaghetti 1 and spaghetti 2 shown above is about 70%. It will be extremely FUN to see if this interpretation works out for rain between March 11-15th, at least one event anyway, to continue overusing that word.
The End, finally.
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1Didn’t Jimmy Buffet do a song about Catalinaville? Has a nice ring to it. Maybe we should think about it… Or maybe, in a vein similar to Carmel-by-the-Sea, “Catalina-by-the-Catalinas.”
2Remember, spaghetti is better than the model in the medium range forecasts that are presented based on the global data. Spaghetti is there to help you decide whether that model output is from the WRF-GFS looney bin or not. Here’s how:
Spaghetti is the result of DELIBERATE little errors put into the model when they start crunching the data to see how the forecast that you see on the maps could go wrong if there are errors in the data.
Of course, there are ALWAYS errors in the data! So, when the Fujitsu Computer DIvision made gigantically capable computers for us that were better than the ones we could make, ones that could do teraflops per second, we in the weather community could then run many permutations of the same model with itty-bitty errors in the initial data to see how the results changed (diverged) in the longer term.
Remember, too, in weather itty-bitty differences can add up to large ones in the longer term. So, when the model permutations with little errors cluster and DON’T diverge, it provides more confidence that the forecast storm, for example, is more likely to happen in that fuzzy forecast range of beyond 10 days or so. End of giant footnote.
Here it is. You may need an optical enhancement tool to see the radar echo speck nearest Catalina, and its not the one nearest the arrowhead below, but continue in that direction:
Satellite and radar imagery for midnight last night. Notice cloud blob and radar echoes over and near Catalina, Arizona. I really thought there’d be some drops here as this went over!
You can also check on all the rain that fell overnight in the region here, courtesy of Pima County ALERT rain gauges. BTW, they aren’t capable of reporting traces, so if you see bunches of zeroes, it doesn’t mean some drops didn’t fall somewhere in the network.
Non-verification of this rain can also be found via our fine TUS NWS “storm total” view, 10:30 PM to 4:30 AM this morning:
Regional radar-derived storm total from “rainy cloud blob.” Arrow almost reaches Catalina; didn’t want to cover up a pixel of rain, if there. THAT radar did not pick up the rain I feel must have fallen, so we have quite a conundrum. If you would like to see for yourself how much rain fell last night, go here. Will be looking for drop images in the dust as soon as it gets light, too!
In the meantime, all those rainy cloud blobs to our NW right now (first image) look like they will be able to just make it to Catalinaland after all.
In our last chapter, it looked like the strong cold front would move through tomorrow as just a dry cold one, but now the chances of having a little rain (a wet cold one) have been zooming up. The models have readjusted their thinking and now that critical ingredient, the core of the jet stream (at 500 mb) passing over us ahead of the trough core itself is being predicted.
And with that configuration as the front goes by Catalina, and believe me you’ll know by the 10-15 degree temperature drop, a tiny amount of rain might fall. Also, look for a pronounced lowering of cloud bases to the W-N of Catalina as it gets close, something in the way of an “arcus cloud”, marking the leading edge of the windshift to the N. Could be nice and dramatic looking tomorrow. Those cloud base lowerings are pretty common with fronts here.
How much rain?
Oh, possibilities range between 0 (a complete bust is still possible) to only about 0.25 inches, tops in the “best” of circumstances. But, this keyboard would like to see ANYTHING measurable; that would bring happiness.
There are some more rain blobs showing up in regular intervals in the days ahead for you to think about, as rendered by IPS MeteoStar. Arrows have been added to show you where you are, if you are in SE Arizona:
Valid tomorrow morning at 11 AM AST. Colored areas denote regions where the model has calculated precipitation during the preceding 6 h.
In the storm below, which is pretty much going to happen now, the range of amounts as seen from here, at least 0.15 inches, top, 0.50 inches, best guess, therefore, 0.33 inches (from averaging the two.)
Val at 11 PM, March 1st. Colored areas are those in which the model has calculated that precip has fallen during the prior 6 h.
There’s great uncertainly in whether this last storm will actually occur, so range of amounts are zero to 1 inch. :} See reasons for uncertainty below, besides being too far in advance or our models to be reliable anyway.
Valid Friday, March 5th, at 5 PM AST. Colored regions NOW denote areas of precipitation that have fallen during the prior TWELVE hours. (Mod resolution degrades after about 192 h, and so a coarser view of precip areas is used.)
While a significant storm on the 1st is virtually assured according to spaghetti, this last major event in the panel above is doubtful. See below, in another lesson on consuming weather spaghetti:
Ensemble spaghetti valid for the same time as the panel above, 5 PM AST Friday, March 5th. Not much support for a storm, low confidence is indicated by the LACK of bunching red and blue lines, unlike those off the East Coast, and over there east of Asia. So, while a great storm is predicted in last evening’s model run, prepare for sadness and disappointment as a hedge.
Yesterday’s fine clouds
7:10 AM. A couple of shafts of big virga. Likely a drop or two reached the ground. Could have been caused by aircraft penetrations, or, taller Altocumulus castellanus-like turrets that reached lower temperatures, produced more ice. They look suspiciously like an aircraft artifact due to their very small size.7:41 AM. Nice stack of lenticular pancakes in the lee of the Catalinas. You can see some great lenticular occurrences in the U of AZ Time Laps movie for yesterday. There are also a lot other fascinating things that go on in yesterday’s clouds, too.8:05 AM. Clearly natural virga approaches Catalina. Looked for a drop as it went over, but saw none.8:22 AM. Pancakes downstream from Ms. Mt. Lemmon.8:44 AM. Fairy dusters in bloom!9:07 AM. Doggies, Emma, and little Banjo, sample and inspect water STILL running in the Sutherland Wash!1:46 PM. After a brief sunny period, banks of Altocumulus invade the sky.2:46 PM. Altocumulus opacus clouds continue to fill in, darken.5:40 PM. Muliple layers of clouds stream ahead of sprinkle-producing cloud blob just upwind at this time. Note how the Altocumulus opacus clouds disappeared, leaving lenticular like formations, with a thin ice cloud (Cirrostratus) above.
The End, though I COULD go on and on and on, and then on some more. Its who I am….
1While several inches of model2 rain has occurred in Catalina and in the nearby mountains this month, most of which cloud-maven person has festooned his blog with model panels of, there really hasn’t been any ACTUAL rain.
But having said that, there is even MORE model rain ahead, some beginning tomorrow in these parts. Tomorrow’s rain comes from a sub-tropical minor wave ejecting from the sub-tropics. You know, as a CMJ, a wave from that zone means a ton of high and middle clouds, i.e., likely DENSE Altostratus with virga, something that was seen yesterday off to the SW of us. This time, though, some rain should fall from these thick clouds, though almost certainly will be in the trace to a tenth of an inch range between tomorrow and Monday morning.
Model rain from 11 PM AST global data then falls in Catalina on:
February 24th
March 1st
March 7-9th
with the model total rain in these periods likely surpassing an inch or more! What a model rain winter season this has been! Astounding. The model washes have been running full since late December, too!
BTW, that last model rain period is really a great one, a major rain for ALL of Arizona!
Some recent clouds I have known and a couple of wildflowers
7:36 AM, Thursday, Feb 19: Iridescence in Cirrocumulus.7:52 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Iridescence in Cirrocumulus with a tad of Kelvin-Helholtz waves (center, right), ones that look like breaking ocean waves. Kind of cool looking.9:29 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Altocumulus perlucidus exhibiting crossing patterns, rows perpendicular to each other. Makes you think about football and people running out for passes.9:42 AM, Thursday Feb 19: An extremely delicate crossing pattern in Cirrocumulus, center. You’ll have to drill in good to see it, but its worth it.10:39 AM, Thrusday, Feb 19: Pretty (mostly) Cirrus spissatus, a thick version in which shading can be observed.6:13 PM, Thursday, Feb 19: No idea what that stick contrail is. Looks like a flight pattern to induce weightlessness. Climb rapidly, round off the top, and then go down. You can be weightless for maybe 10-30 seconds. Been there, done that in a C-130 Hercules, last FACE flight of 1973, Bill Woodley lead cloud seeding scientist. But, you pay a price, get smashed on the floor as the aircraft comes out of the dive. You cannot get up!Let’s zoom in and see if we can learn more about what happened here. I think a jet pilot was having fun. Nope.6:54 AM, yesterday. Altostratus virga provides a spectacular, if brief sunrise over the Catalinas.6:15 PM last evening.From a dog walk this VERY morning, a desert primrose.And a desert onion bloom.
The End. Hope you enjoy the copious model rains ahead!
The Big Boys don’t really know what’s going to happen with the May rain here, either, since we are also in an “EC” area. But boy, look at the May rain foretold for the Plains! Looks like a great place to spend May! OKC, maybe. WCWS begins at the end of May, amateurism at its best.
