Not as good as a rain day with lightning, but yesterday did have its moments in the sky, enough to make the astrologers on Mt. Lemmon jealous with displays of parhelia (“sun dogs”, or “mock suns”), faint haloes, a rare parhelic circle, something you don’t see but once every year or two, and fallstreifen (fall streaks) from Cirrus uncinus clouds going in almost opposite directions, an extremely rare sight.
The rare “parhelic circle” is a local brightening often extending out from a parhelia (sun dog) at a sharp angle, which I just learned about here1. Usually you don’t see a whole circle, just part of one.
These optic displays are caused by ice crystals, of course, ones not too complex, but rather simple ones like prisms, short solid columns, bullets, and hexagonal plates. Some examples of these can be seen here.
The bottom of yesterday’s moist layer was just above 30,000 feet at a temperature of -35° C and extended all the way up to about 40,000 feet above sea level where the temperature were around -65° C.
The balloon sounding launched around 3:30 PM AST yesterday from the Banner University of Arizona.
Some photos documenting the excitement of yesterday
5:30 PM. Cirrus uncinus crystals heading in two very different directions. Wow. Notice the fibers from the contrail that are starting to fall out are going in the “correct” direction, back toward that west or southwest.3:04 PM. Parhelic circle erupts in mostly Cirrus uncinus clouds.3:06 PM. The astounding sight continues, but fades away just after this.3:33 PM. Local brightening at the position of a sun dog suggests these are tiny ice crystals or possibly even droplets that have just formed, the sizes too small to allow refraction into color normally seen in sun dogs.3:32 PM. A zoomed view of that little bright spot. Sure looks like it may have been droplets. Droplet clouds have been reliably reported to temperatures as low as -44° C. Of course, wouldn’t stay liquid long! I thought this was a pretty exciting shot! Hope you got it, too.
3:42 PM. Amid all the optical excitement was this ghost-like halo. Can you make out the faint circle around the sun? In ascents through thick ice clouds having complicated ice crystals like bullet rosettes down below the tops, as you climb to the top of such clouds, amazing haloes can be seen where the crystals are newly formed and quite simple in structure, allowing the refraction required for a halo. So, this halo was likely at the top of these thicker Cirrus and Altostratus (dense portions) clouds, though no one would penalize you if you just said they were all Cirrus clouds.
3:59 PM. Another spectacular bright spot at the sun dog location (which is also at the 22° halo location, faintly evident here).3:59 PM. Zoomed view of this sun dog/parhelia. Lots of fine structure evident, which is not usually the case with parhelia.4:25 PM. Another finely structured parhelia/sun dog suggesting the ice crystals were newly formed. Fine structure like this can’t last long with the usual turbulence, and so that’s a sure sign this feature has just formed. I don’t recall seeing so many atypical sun dogs in one day!5:09 PM. The normal, amorphous sun dog. No really fine detail can be seen here.
Below, examples of cold Cirrocumulus, ones that quickly transition to Cirrus clouds.
5:19 PM. This group of CIrrocumulus clouds appeared very quickly almost overhead. The tiniest elements are those that have just formed. These are composed of ice crystals in extremely high concentrations, perhaps 10,000 per lilter. Once that ice has formed, its gradually spreads out, much like a puff of smoke would, thinning, some crystals growing large enough to start fall steaks.5:19 PM. Some elements are still forming, but the spreading of the older ones is well underway, producing a “blurred” look as the elements merge and thin out.5:28 PM. Off to the southwest of Catalina, a promising intrusion of lower moisture indicated by these approaching Altocumulus clouds. Will there be enough today for a sprinkle somewhere? Not looking so good now, clouds did not lower much overnight. Well, maybe if it doesn’t sprinkle, maybe we’ll get to see some nice virga and dream about rain…
No rain in sight for Catalinans, to get that over with.
However, if you’re bored and are thinking about a quickie storm chasing vacation with the family, monster storms, likely to produce newspaper headlines will be smashing the Pac NW in the next few days. Expect to read about flooding and hurricane to 100 mph winds on the Washington/Oregon coast sometime. Also, Tofino, British Columbia, along the SW coast of Vancouver Island, would be a great place to head for, watching giant waves crash up against the coast and around that lighthouse they have around there, pounding rains…
The long fetch with these storms in the Pacific guarantees some monster waves.
3:49 AM, 14 Oct: Mark “WeatherPal” Albright informed me that a 94 mph wind was observed last evening (the 13th) near Astoria, OR.
The next low, a “regular low” but one energized by leftover moisture from Typhoon Songda, looks to be even stronger than last night’s low. This one comes in moving really rapidly tomorrow evening while deepening (central pressure is dropping further) as it passes over the Washington coast. Looks like that one will be a “blow-down” storm; good-bye timber.
The synoptic pattern (placement of jet streams and lows) is “Freda-esque”, that is, similar to that of October 12, 1962, the infamous Columbus Day storm where a remnant of Typhoon Freda zipped in as a regular low that deepened explosively as it raced up the Pacific NW coast bringing winds of 100-200 mph and blowing down BILLIONS of board feet of timber as well as weather pal, Mark Albright, mentioned above, when he was a kid1.
Well, we sure hope its not THAT similar!
Yesterday’s Clouds
Lots of interesting patterns and complexities in yesterday’s skies. If you didn’t see them, here they are, though its kind of a much ado about nothing, really:
1:23 PM. Icy Cirrocumulus. As a solid band of high and middle clouds approached, the first things we saw as the moisture began to increase aloft were some spectacular patterns in isolated high clouds as the solid band approached. Probably most of the Cirrocumulus we see is composed of droplets, and never glaciates, but here, it appears to be composed of ice, though likely started as droplets at the upwind edge (middle of photo). At the top of the photo, the tiny “granulets” are fibrous, clearly ice, and strands of ice crystals are starting to make their way down.1:23 PM. Got excited and thought you might like a zoomed view of this patch in case you didn’t get one.1:30 PM. I thought this was kind of a strange and fun pattern for you. Look how the youngest cloud elements are over there beyond the Catalinas and the oldest ones with strands of ice crystals falling out are overhead. Besides perspective giving you a sense of radiating lines, one would normally guess that the wind way up there (about 30 kft above the ground) is heading toward you, newest cloud (Cirrocumulus, maybe lenticularis) back there, oldest ones arriving overhead, which would be from the south in this shot. But the wind was from the west-southwest at this level, perpendicular to this scene. Can’t say either of us has seen this before; quite the “Tom Foolery” in a cloud scene, a real knee-slapper. Clouds do that a lot where we think we know what is going on, but, as they say, “upon further review”…..1:32 PM. Confusion? Strands of ice and waves in this cloud that produced lines seem to run in various directions. Some lines are perpendicular to the wind, blowing from the lower right to the upper left side, representing little bumps in the air, ones resembling sea swell rolling in to the shore,1:40 PM. Pretty much unfathomable, too complex to even begin describing in less than a page, which makes it worth photographing. We can make out what CMP deems as some icy Cirrocumulus though, here and there, with that lenticular-looking backside beyond the mountains, though perspective may be bunching it up to look that way. I’ve already taken too many photos in just eight minutes!2:10 PM. Breathing easier now, here, “simple” Cirrus fibratus, lined Cirrus clouds with mostly non-curving fibers,Also 2:10 PM. The scene upwind of that “liney” Cirrus. Also “fibratus” except overhead there looks to be “uncinus” as evidenced by those thick regions (upper right hand corner) likely trailing ice strands back toward the viewer.2:18 PM. Pretty soon the heavier masses of CIrrus (Spissatus) with some gray shading began to appear, with lower, but still very cold and at least momentarily, Altocumulus droplet clouds (above bush on the right) began to appear just below the Cirrus. Clouds almost always lower in time, even when they don’t lead to a storm.2:18 PM. More patterns. Here we have a mush of Altocumulus, very fine granulation of Cirrocumulus (top) and CIrrus clouds passing overhead. You can tell if clouds are at different levels by looking to see if they are moving all at the same rate. Here, if you looked really carefully, the little white tufts of Altocumulus clouds were moving in a slightly different direction than the Cirrus clouds were. How important is this. Not too much.4:18 PM. Skipping ahead, the full boatload of this band, consisting of a thick Altostratus, was passed over at this time. The clearing on the right told you there was going to be a nice sunset in a couple of hours. This was the lowest level the moisture got to. somewhere in the 22-25 kft above the ground, according the the TUS sounding though the darkness of it may make it look lower.6:01 PM. Almost could have been a painting. VIncent Van Gogh himself could not do this scene justice. If you’ve seen his work, like “Starry Night“, you’ll know how bad he was at capturing the sky. But for him to try to capture this scene, it would be beyond “bad”, but rather a total and complete travesty,. The gradual ascent that produced the heavy line of Altostratus is now being broken up by patches of downward moving air, leaving holes and streakiness in the former solid cloud shield. But who cares when you can just sit and take scenes like this in!6:06 PM. The moon amid CIrrus spissatus and other varieties of Cirrus. Notice that the disk of the moon is just a bit blurry, out of focus. That blurring is due to ice crystals in those Cirrus clouds. If it was a thin droplet cloud, the disk would appear crisp and very sharp..
—————————- 1Mark. like most kids who are blown over in a windstorm, wanted to be a meteorologist right after that. Its pretty traumatic and life changing when you’re blown over by wind. CMP’s life was traumatized and changed forever when it snowed a few inches in the San Fernando Valley of southern California when he was six year’s old. Not sure you’ll find this information in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders #5, however, but its a well-known phenomenon in the weather subculture.
“Too many pictures, for one site…”, a continuing theme here1, to paraphrase “? and the Mysterians1“.
Two stations near Picture Rocks reported 1.25 and 1.35 inches, respectively, so some major rain fell fairly close to us. You can see the amount arounds around the State or here at the Banner U of AZ rainlog,org site.
Below your October 8th, 2016 cloud day, a Saturday in which the author’s former company fubball team, the Washington Huskies, spanked the Nike University of Oregon Duck, 70-21, ending years of futility against the billionaire’s sports teams. Too bad Washington multi-billionaire Gates is more interested in saving the world instead of helping the Huskies get better in sports like Phil Knight does with The Duck there in Duckville, OR….
Oh, well, off task there for a minute. I’m back now!
7:06 AM. Pretty Cirrus uncinus (tufted ice clouds with the larger ice crystals falling out where the wind is not as strong as where the head is) with a few Altocumulus over on the left.8:43 AM. The really sharp-eyed cloud maven junior person would have noticed these little icy trails in a sliver of Altocumulus or Cirrocumulus. These supercooled clouds were converted to ice along the path of the aircraft. The brighter one is the most recent one and is so white due to the extremely high concentrations of tiny (order of 10s of microns) germ-like ice crystals. Concentrations would be something like 10s of thousand per liter. Once formed, they compete for the available moisture, some evaporating, some able to grow larger and fall out just as ice crystals do in Cirrus clouds. The less white trail is older and is one where the crystals are spreading out and also evaporating so the concentrations are much less. Presently it is believe that the air going over the wing of a jet drops the temperature to below -39° C where crystals form spontaneously and can survive and grow within a supercooled water cloud egad this is getting to be a long caption.
Now, here where the excitement begins. Recall Mike L. and Bobby Maddox, both super experts concerning convection, called for severe storms and large hail today due to what the models were showing in the vertical wind profile and the amount of moisture available. Below, we start yesterday chapter of convection, and see where it leads.
3:47 PM. Beginning to think Mike L and Bobby M are going to be wrong. Cumulus in the heat of the day have only reached moderate, “congestus” sizes around here, though Cumulonimbus cloud tops can be seen off in the distance.2:50 PM. Another pretty sky scene with an ineffectual Cumulus congestus there north of Saddlebrooke. Looks like is has a little ice ejecta on the far right, middle. But see how any rain would fall out not within the main cloud body but out the side away from the base. More evaporating of any drops would occur. This is happening due to the moderate southwesterly winds higher up, with slower winds from the south below. Thinking about taking a nap….2:51 PM. On second thought, maybe I should see how the septic repair is going…. Looks OK. Wonder how many thousands it will be?2:58 PM. Even though it looks like Mike and Bob are still going to be wrong, at least someone’s getting some good TSTMS (weather text for “thunderstorms” in case you do that, but don’t do it whilst you’re driving, a public message from your CMP. Some cloud science: On the right is a turret that’s climbed up beyond the level of “glaciation” but still contains tons of water. Center left, is a complex of turrets a little behind that one that are taller, and in those tops you woud find little or no water, just ice crystals. Can you see the difference in texture between the rising turret full of water (though graupel, hail, and small ice crystals are likely inside it)3:58 PM. Septic crew was asking, “where’s the hail you said would happen today?” I corrected them by saying that Mike and Bobby told me that, I didn’t personally make that forecast. I told them, hang on, things are starting to happen. And, about this time, the NWS started to issue severe TSTM alerts for Cochise County due HAIL and high winds! Still, it didn’t yet look that great for us here in Catalina, Oro Valley area. The Cbs shown here are that “tough.”4:27 PM. Still kind of bored, think I’ll take picture of an interesting shadow pattern.4:34 PM. Gads, looks awful out there. Only the anvil is left of a former thunderstorm toward Twin Peaks as the wind shear aloft rips from it from its root base. Not too bad there on the left, though. Still looks like a dud day for us in Catalina anyway at this moment.4:55 PM. Modest Cumulonimbus forms in the lee of the Charouleaiu Gap. Notice here that looking to the NE you can only see the rising turret part of this Cumulonimbus. The anvil is trailing downwind away from you, some of that anvil can be seen at the far right,just above the ridge. But you can clearly see some precip is falling out of this, Code 1 (transparent shaft) likely because as we saw earlier, the precip is not falling through the whole depth of the cloud but is falling from a higher portion of the cloud that has been blown off toward the NE before the precip got going in it.5:01 PM. Yikes, when did this happen? Must have been between commercials during football viewing. You can only go outsie during commercials so you miss some things. Bobby and Mike are going to be correct for our own backyard! Hope we get something, and it appears to be upwind of Catalina!5:06 PM. Just because it was pretty. Cumulus congestus tops, brilliantly white (that higher one in the back).5:31 PM. More commercials allow a quick trip down the road to get this. Of concern, the shafting is shifting rightward and away from us. What’s upwind is now the Code 1 transparent rain. BUT, the base in the middle of the photo, and close by, looks great! Perhaps some stupefying dump will emerge from that and grow more good base material exactly upwind of us!5:58 PM. Another discouraging day of promise gone unfulfilled here in Catalina/Sutherland Heights. Feelling sad, though I would take a funny picture of my shadow whilst walking the dogs at half time, makes me look bigger than I really am. made me smile amid the dismal sprinkle that started to fall, giving us yet another “trace” of rain day.6:06 PM. There goes our complex of rain, thunder and lightning off into the distance. Still, the scene was great.6:08 PM. Day ended with some dramatic, colorful scenes, something said here alot, but true.
The End.
1If you don’t believe ? said something like that, go here
A very few small, isolated drops fell between 4:50 and 5 PM here in Sutherland Heights from what appeared to be nothing overhead. You’d have to be really good to have not been driving, and to have anticipated the possibility (by recognizing ice in upwind clouds) and then having observed it. You would be recognized, given some extra adulation, at the next cloud maven junior meeting if you did observe it, that’s for sure.
So, a long blog about anticipating and observing a sprinkle of rain (RW—, “RW triple minus” in casual weatherspeak or text).
We start with some nice, but inapplicable to our main story photos from yesterday.
3:14 PM. Another one of those, to me, memorable, dramatic shots just because of cloud shadows on our pretty mountains caused by Cumulus humilis and mediocris clouds; Cirrus uncinus on top.3:15 PM. Pretty CIrrus uncinus, “Angel’s hair.”3:15 PM. Looks like a cloud street off the Tucson Mountains, one that streamed toward Catalina. Hope you were “unbusy” enough to notice it. Its a pretty common one here when the lower level winds are out of the SSW, and the clouds shallow.3:50 PM. Shadow quirk. The cloud shadow follows the terrain line. Wow. Never seen that before, but I suppose if you had an infinite number of monkeys watching, they’d something like this all the time. Maybe they’d type out some Shakespeare as well in time.3:54 PM. While busy watching the cloud-sahdow dappled mountains, some honest-to-goodness Cumulus congestus arose in a line to the southwest! Not at all expected! Looks like they’re tall enough to form ice, but don’t see any. Will take too many photos to see if any develops though.3:56 PM. That poor turret that first extruded from this line (center raggedy one) is being ravaged by “entrainment”, that cloud killing process wherein the surrounding dry air gets in and kills off the droplets. Pretty sad when you think about. It also shows you just how friggin’ dry the air was just above the main tops. No ice visible here.3:56 PM. Let’s zoom in to be sure. Anyone saying they can see some ice in this is either an ice-detecting genius or just plain lying. BTW, that turret on the left, partially visible, is much taller, so its got a good chance to convert to ice.
3:58 PM. Now even little tiny babies can see the ice that formed in that now dessicated turret. This means some rain fell out of it! Wow, did not see that happening today.3:58 PM. Pulling back to grab the whole scene, those Cumulus congestus clouds converting to small Cumulonimbus clouds that will bring those few tiny drops to Catalina in an hour even as the dry air up there wasted them. Real cloud mavens would be thinking about the possibility of rain here, seeing the ice form in clouds upwind of us, that right at that time! Congratulations!4:09 PM. Doesn’t look that great now, but areas of ice visible, and its heading this way with a light shower falling out of it! Maybe we’ll pick up another trace! But what cloud name would you put on this scene? Well, its kind of embarrassing to call them “Cumulonimbus”, but we do have a suitable moniker for weakly-producing Cumulus ice clouds with a little precip, Cumulus congestus praecipitatio. Yep, that’s the name I would use here since the rain is reaching the ground (is not just producing virga).4:30 PM. Code 1 rain shaft, a transparent one. We’re going to a LOT of trouble for a trace of rain here! But, you should have been really excited by this time. The possiblity of rain is just minutes away, but you’ll have to be outside to notice it!4:40 PM. Drawing back to look at the whole scene, which is not that great. Bottom of sprinkle cloud has evaporated leaving that big patch of ice, left side of photo. Can the sprinkle heading toward us survive? Your heart probably was really pounding at this point since you wanted to see some drops so BAD, report that trace the next day, one that maybe only you would have noticed.4:47 PM. Three minutes to first drops, though here no drops would be reaching the ground from the condition the cloud is in now, its too high, just really anvil ice, and the ice crystals too small, The drops that are going to be intercepted are surely the last ones reaching the ground, the top of the sprinkle shaft, above which there are no more drops.4:55 PM. Drops are collecting on the windshield a few hundred yards from the house with almost no cloud aloft at this point! A trace of rain has been logged!
The End
(What about those gorgeous Cumulus congestus and Cumulonimbus calvus clouds over toward and well beyond Charouleau Gap about this time? Maybe later or tomorrow.)
Since the forecast given HERE for large Cumulus clouds becoming Cumulonimbi did not happen last evening, it seemed appropriate to show some wildflowers as a distraction. First, a light, purple one of some kind; second, what we here call an “Arizona rose”, those fabulous blooms that form on prickly pear cacti. The photos below were, in fact, taken late yesterday afternoon as the forecast of the development of those larger Cumulus was failing to materialize.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could GM these to have long stems?!
Now that you’ve forgotten the erroneous forecast of large cumuliform clouds made here yesterday, I would like to point out that the cooler air up top has finally arrived in the pre-dawn hours today, and we do have Cumulonimbi in the area; even some LTG over there by Mt. Graham around 4 AM as this is being written.
However, bases are pretty high, 7,000 feet above the ground, and so only the central cores of the rain shafts are producing much rain to the ground right now. However#2, these are the kinds of situations that incredible photos of long virga trails during sunrise can be gotten. Be ready! The whole situation is moving east pretty rapidly.
Yesterday’s clouds
10:22 AM. Cumulus fractus and humilis topped by Cirrus spissatus enhance a blue sky.10:28 AM. Wow, a Cumulonimbus capillatus top can be seen just beyond Mt. Sara Lemmon! And it only mid-morning! This is a test. A patch of Cirrus has aligned itself above some small Cumulus clouds topping the Lemmon. We’re you fooled for a moment? I hope not.5:13 PM. More Kelvin-Helmholtz billow clouds at Cirrus level. Pretty rare sight, actually. Shows waves in the atmosphere. Don’t want to fly in them. This was about the greatest cloud excitement of the whole late afternoon and evening.6:06 PM. “Slab lifting” by our incoming upper level thingy has led to the formation of a couple levels of flat clouds, Altocumulus lenticularis, some Altocumulus perlucidus (honeycomb look), and some Cirrus perlucidus way up top. Some small to moderate Cu can be seen on the horizon. Was still thinking they might “pop” as cooler air moved over us. You might be able to see that some of the little cloudlets at Cirrus-levels started out as droplet clouds before transforming to ice. Ma Nature likes water so much it almost always develops first before ice even at temperatures below -30 °C. Pretty amazing, really.
Thunder just now! Wow. 5:20 AM. Sorry for the delay, had to go outside and check things out. Really will be a fabulous sunrise!
6:16 PM. Still thinking it might pop. Didn’t even see ice as that Cumulus turret declined.
Though the clouds faded as the sun went down, there were still some highlights on the Catalinas that made it a near perfect day.
6:17 PM. What’s to say? We’re so lucky to be able to see scenes like this in Arizona.
The weather ahead
Turbulent, changeable, unsettled through the remainder of April. More chances to add to our 0.73 inch total so far for this month. Stay tuned to your favorite media weather folk!
People were wearing jackets as temperatures got locked down below 80° F the past few days, the wind blew once in a while, sometime lifting baseball caps off “gray hairs”, and gray skies hovered over Sutherland Heights for TWO and a half days!
A surprise, few-minute gusher in the early afternoon yesterday was enough to tip the old Davis tipping bucket rain gauge once1, too, to add another 0.02 inches to the 0.08 inches we were drenched with the night before.
What’s ahead. I dunno.
Really thought THIS storm was gonna be a doozie here, not in Mexico as it is now, for Pete’s Sake. Some weeks ago it was read by my reader (s?) here that we had only a 10% chance of LESS than 0.20 inches. In fact, we had a 100% chance of 0.10 inches.
I did not see that coming. But at least March 2016 has recorded SOME rain. Some insects benefited I’m sure.
Climate folks (Climate Prediction Center) are still predicting a wet March-May for us, at least as of mid-Feb. Unfortunately, its only a little more than two inches that makes that three month period wetter than normal here in Catalinaland as we begin to dry out, and heat up.
Time for another, “I love this map so much”, so fully packed with portent:
“Valid” (what a joke) in two weeks, March 24th, 5 PM AST. Giant low moves SEWD toward the Cal coast. Strongest winds on the back side tells you its shifting southeastward. Look how big it is!
Frankly, now as the jet stream in the northern hemisphere goes to HELL in the spring, the “Lorenz plots” or “spaghetti” are pretty clueless. As an example of “clueless” look at the spaghetti plot that goes with the map above:
For March 23 at 5 PM AST. No real clustering of lines anywhere so forecasts will be wild for this far in advance. That low could really be anywhere. There’s not quite so much chaos in the heart of winter when the jet is strongest and geographic jet stream anchors are strongest, like Asia.
Bottom line: NO rain days ahead, maybe a close call over the next TWO friggin’ weeks. Expect to see 90s on a day or two, as well. “Dang”, as we say in the Great Southwest.
Some clouds of yore, including yesterday.
As a cloud maven junior person, you should compare the shots below and try to chronologically unscramble them using your photos. Also, I would like you to name these clouds. Please keep your answers to yourself. hahaha (ACtually I am being lazy and just threw these in “willy-nilly” (huh, what’s that from? Will have to look it up some day.)
Am working on a true science story-book talk, something I wanted to write up before “tipping the bucket” as we meteorologists say about death. Its kindle-sized, maybe would take 3 h to present if it was an actual talk, having more than 250 ppt slide-pages! I won’t be at the TUS book fair, however, this year….
The End.
—————————-
1FYI, when a meteorologist dies, we meteorologists say that he has “tipped the bucket”, NOT “kicked the bucket.” Its an especially reverent phrase for us.
“Yep, rain’s on the way; yay”, to burst out with a little poetry there. But, it will be awhile before it gets here. See caption below.
Valid at 5 PM AST, February 21st. Pretty clear that undercutting flow from the lower latitudes will slip into Arizona bringing much needed rain to Catalina beginning around this time.12:55 PM. Wavy Cirrus showing waves in the atmosphere. Kind of reminds you of driving down the old Tangerine Road before they ruined it by filling in all the dips and rises that made it a fun drive at 50-60 mph, if you could drive that fast on it! I remind the reader that the speed limit is 45 mph on Tangerine Road. So, this is only a fantasy description of how much fun it would have been if you COULD drive that fast.
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Non-meteorological entry:
Gas now down to 21 cents a gallon in 1967 dollars (that’s what that $1.53 a gal here in Catalina now converts to in ’67 dollars). Here’s a history of gas prices, FYI.
As of February 6, 2016. This seems a little crazy.
0.07 inches here in Sutherland Heights yesterday afternoon. Much more SW-NW of us, as the photos below show.
A predicted super hurricane?
I now direct your attention to the forecast maps below, produced by the WRF-GFS model last evening’s global data, courtesy of IPS MeteoStar, the usual. The aforementioned extremely strong hurricane foretold in the models 24 hours ago, has acheived in this latest run, mythical strength, possibly a Category 6 or 7 (which don’t yet exist).
We presume the model went berserk, so its kind of fun to imagine how intense, how low the pressure in the center of such a goofy predicted hurricane could possibly be in the panels below.
First, the jaw-dropping -to-weather-nerds like the current writer, predicted height of 540 decameters height of the 500 millibar pressure level! For the pressure of 500 millibars in the atmosphere to be reached at a level that LOW in warm tropical air means that the sea level pressure must be astoundingly LOW to begin with. In warm air, the pressure doesn’t change as rapidly going up as it does in dense cold air.
I don’t believe, in viewing many weather maps with hurricanes that a height that low has ever occurred at 500 millibars. Thus, the pressure at sea level, for whatever reason, must be incredible in this predicted hurricane SW of Cabo. Surf will be up!
The record measured low pressure at sea level is 870 mb in one of the super typhoons (Typhoon Tip) in the Pacific some years ago where winds were estimated at about 200 mph. It is thought that recent devastating Super Typhoon Haiyan, 2013, had a lower pressure, 858 mb, or the equivalent of the density of air at 5,000 feet elevation was thought to have occurred at sea level!
The heights of the 500 millibar pressure level predicted for 5 AM AST, Sunday, July 19th. The center of the hurricane SW of Baja is shown to be 5400 meters (540 “decameters”).Valid at the time of the above map. The surface pressure lines are too packed to display, but the center pressure would certainly be less than 900 millibars, and in such a tight center, winds, maybe 200-300 mph, tornado-like. Kidding only slightly.
OK, enough fun with a crazy model prediction, though this hurricane will be extremely strong, and the models are still bringing its pathetic, but wet, remnant into California a couple of days later. Many July rain records, though they are not much to begin with, will be broken if this remnant does make it to Cal.
What we really hope for is some aircraft reconnaissance reports during the life of this strong hurricane instead of satellite-derived estimates of strength (though the latter are quite good).
Haven’t had much weather/clouds to gab about; maybe I’ll help reader with some extra material today, not usually associated with a site about clouds; kind of go outside the lines a little.
Miscellaneous item 1
The Oracle Road report. Thought you’d like to see that.
Yesterday afternoon’s report. Seem to be some people working. That’s good. You can see some curbing going in, too. Kind of reminds me of how high pressure has been “curbing” our storms lately, to introduce a weather theme. Photo not taken while driving, of course.
Miscellaneous item 2
This. Its quite good. You’ll see people really liking it, too. It may raise the question in your mind, “How many other people are “‘question marks'”? Cloud Maven person?
Clouds?
Well, we had some nice Cirrus yesterday, and for the past few days. Lots more to come, too, but that’s about it for awhile.
3:19 PM. Pretty CIrrus uncinus.3:20 PM. If you on Mt. Everest this would quite a little passing snow shower of tiny crystals, quite fun, because it would only last a minute or so. Well maybe since the wind would be 100 mph, maybe it wouldn’t be THAT fun because the little crystals, likely bullet rosettes, as you would know, would sting your face if it wasn’t protected.
There’ll be a lot of Cirrus over the next two weeks, we hope with some rain underneath, with the best chance being
For yesterday afternoon, 5 PM AST. The green areas represent moist conditions at Cirrus levels, here for about 300 mb or 30,000 feet. Streamers of Cirrus are coming at us for awhile from the sub-tropics. You can see a lot more green in this two week forecast from IPS MeteoStar.
Regime change?
Yep, mostly for Cal, though, as far as rain and snow go. Folks in Cal are quite excited about the drought they’re having, but this April will put a damper on that excitement as the storms roar in from the Pac like they should have all winter. It won’t end the drought, but it won’t be quite as dire, either. You can read about direness here from the LA Times. You’ll read that Governor Brown1 has declared a water emergency in California. Of course, most of the water use is in sometimes inappropriate agricultural practices, like growing rice around Bakersfield in the San Joaquin desert, that kind of thing, not by home owners.
California can be very wet in April. For example, in 1926, and in 1965, Los Angeles got over seven inches, and five inches, respectively. So, “It ain’t over til its over”, the Cal rain season that is, as they say. It will be interest to look back as May arrives, and see how much the drought was alleviated.
How does Cloud Maven know for sure there is a regime change taking place that will help Cal? From a helping of spaghetti. Lets look at spaghetti two weeks out, way more longer than weather models can be considered reliable. Cloud Maven person was VERY excited when he saw this, as you will be as well!
Valid on April 17th, 5 PM AST. Note how the red lines (contour number 576 dm) are squished in the Great SW, drooping southward into Mexico! This is tremendous, since it virtually guarantees a trough in the SW. The other plots are similar. You just don;’t see this much in squished contours very often this far out in the model run in our area. Usually these contours are like the ones off Africa. I hope you know where Africa is…. Those blue lines (number 552 dm contours) are in the heart of the jet stream, really on the poleward side, and notice how some of them dip into the SW. This is good, too. Now, for California, olden studies have shown that its the contour BETWEEN these (564 decameters) that delineates where rain falls when a trough hits the Cal coast. That contour is between the red and blue lines, and so there would be plenty of rain falling in Cal during these first two weeks, with no sign of let up here at the end of the model run. SO, in conlcusion, that’s why CMP is sticking his neck out about a wet, drought-denting April in Cal.
What will our Catalina weather be like in April?
Under this new regime, whether it rains or not, you can expect windier conditions than normal during the month since storms exiting Cal will be close enough to excite not only meteorologists, but a “Tonopah Low” in the lee of the Sierras, something that helps generate wind here as they progress into the Great Basin after forming.
Wow, this is really too much detail for an entire month to come2! Oh, well. Remember our motto here at C-M:
“Right or wrong; you heard it here first!”
The End.
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1Remember how we used to call him, “Governor Moonbeam” when he was governor of Cal the first time around in the 1970s due to his quirky, ascetic lifestyle? That was fun. Lots of quirky people in the Haight-Asbury district then, too. How many question marks were among those folks…and where are they now?
2We’ll be looking back at April come the beginning of May, by which time you will have forgotten anything that was written here, and I could almost anything.
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.
