I wasn’t going to blog today, but rather than disappoint my reader, and seeing a ooupla photos that were kind of nice, I pushed through the laziness. I hope you’re happy now….
Also, humid air is pushing up from the S today, and while it hasn’t gotten here yet (dewpoint here in Sutherland Heights next to my gravel driveway being but 36 F now, its in the 60s at Yuma, Nogales and Douglas. With that invasion of water vapor molecules comes a slightly better chance of a shower, or at least SEEING one somewhere! You might hang out some wash today to further increase the moisture content of the air; it would be a more basic form of “cloud seeding”, maybe “cloud doping.”
Sunset to sunrise, because they imported that way:
7:19 PM. Cirrus spissatus, in the distance; foreground and center, Cirrus uncinus, if you care.6:48 PM. Cirrus fibratus and spissatus. This was kind of funny to me. Looks like a flying ghost or something with outstretched arms trying to grab me, or maybe something else.5:36 AM. Cirrostratus fibratus instead of CIrrus because of the all sky coverage.
Factoid: The amount of rain that continues to fall in the formerly severe drought areas of Kansas and Oklahoma continues to astound. Here, from WSI Intellicast, their 7-days of radar-derived totals. Also note the substantial rains in eastern Colorado and New Mexico. Good news for all.
Radar-derived rainfall totals for the 7 days ending August 13th. Areas of dark green to yellow indicate totals of between four and TWELVE inches.
:
(colon deliberately left above at left to provide some tension, some anticipation in case you’re bored already)
5:55 AM. Flakes of a droplet cloud, Altocumulus, rather suddenly appeared or moved in.
Cirrus fibratus and Cirrus spissatus, of course. Here they are from yesterday.
2:56 PM. Cirrus fibratus, straight or gently curved elements.7:28 PM. CIrrus spissatus (thick, patchy Cirrus) with other varieties.
The weather ahead
Troughulent weather is ahead as you can plainly see here from the NOAA spaghetti factory:
Valid for May 28th at 5 PM local.
Here’s what it looks like on a regular 500 millybar map (IPS MeteoStar):
No rain in it for us, but if you missed having wind yesterday the 21st, well this situation will make up for it. Likely to be gusts over 40 mph in these here parts when it actually peaks out in about a week. In the meantime, a West Coast trough ahead of this violent jet streamer from the Pacific will keep the air moving long before this unusual event slams into Cal.
At sunset yesterday, this rarely seen optical display called a “sun pillar”:
6:58 PM. A sun pillar sprouted from the horizon due to a few plate-like ice crystals falling from those Altocumulus clouds.
Waited for a cute bird or bat to fly above or through the pillar, making it a more popular, valuable photo; instead a helicopter came by. But it “works” as shown below. You’ll have to look hard, but its there.
Also at 6:58 PM. “Sun pillar with helicopter” $975. But, if you call now, you’ll get TWO of these exact same photos for $1,950.
Some of yesterday’s other interesting cloud formations:
4:25 PM. Patch of CIrrus spissatus with flanking Cirrus uncinus.
5:30 PM. CIrrocumulus (center, left, fine granulation) and Altocumulus (larger more separated elements) right side. The whitish veil to the left of these droplet clouds are ice crystals that likely formed within them.6:38 PM. The fine and extremely delicate patterns in Cirrocumulus clouds still amaze.
Today’s clouds
Weak wave/trough passing to the south of us has some great middle and high clouds in it, splotchy ones that are sometimes incredibly spectacular, clouds like Altocumulus castellanus/floccus with virga. Just looked outside now and some of those are to the southwest of us at 5:35 AM. You can see how complex the cloud coverage is at IPS MeteoStar’s sat-radar loop here. They’ll be gone later today so enjoy them while they’re here.
The Weather Ahead
There are many troughs foretold for the Southwest and Great Basin area over the next two weeks. That the good news; it also goes with long term climo patterns that troughs like to nest in the Great Basin. But none extrude far enough southward, that is, the jet stream racing around the trough bottoms does not reach us, to bring precip to southern Arizona. Occasionally precip hits northern Arizona over this two week period, which is good, of course, for them and water supplies. In fact, its not even likely that we’ll see a cloud below 10,000 feet above ground level here if this pattern holds. And with troughs and low pressure centers nearby to the north, periods of windiness and dust will occur as they go by.
Fortunately, I guess, there’s little confidence indicated in these forecasts beyond about 11 days, NOAA spaghetti says, and so there are surprises that can pop up yet.
Wasn’t going to blog, gets boring after a while with only dry conditions ahead, but then saw this and got pretty excited, as you will, too. Might not need that extra cup of joe to get going today.
Its valid for Wednesday, April 17th, at 5 PM AST. Pretty cool, huh?
Its unusual to see a strong signal 312 h from the model start time as here, but especially so as we get later into the spring when the jet stream is slowing down all over the northern hemi and the troughs in it smaller, spaced more closely together, slower moving, too. (Summer is really goofy in that regard.)
Here, both the 00 Z (yellow lines) and 12 Z (gray lines) model runs in the past 24 h are indicating a big fat trough in the Southwest, and the bunching together of the red lines suggest a lot of confidence in that forecast. It would mean another real chance for rain here near this time, plus or minus a day or so.
The weather just ahead, Monday
In the meantime, our very next big trough, cold slam, and stupefyingly large low center, one that explodes from a tiny “Tonopah Low1” early on Monday morning, to one whose circulation extends from southern California to Missouri, virtually covering the entire western US! In spite of its gigantic extent, it still looks dry here, any rain accumulation here very “iffy.”
On the other hand, a half inch of dust accumulation is quite likely since it’ll be darn windy that day, dramatically windy. Likely to see more than 40 mph here in Catalinaland and visibility noticeably reduced in dust later on Monday.
BTW, its quite normal for low centers that are weak over the ocean to erupt into deeper lows as they move inland, during the spring. Just the opposite happens during the deep winter period when ocean lows move inland and weaken or die over the cold continent because they lose the temperature contrast that drives them. In the spring, the warming continent is “food for lows”, like spinach for Popeye (you remember Popeye, don’t you?). Ok, then in more modern terms, like that Hulk guy that got so gigantic when he got mad or something. That’s what happens in the spring to little lows and their troughs when they move inland, especially into the warm Southwest from the Pac NW.
The great news here, and I am so pumped about it, is that this giant low will be a whopper in terms of precip for so many droughty areas of the mountainous West and the central and northern Plains States. Check out the Canadian model here as an example of what’s coming to the Plains States. Just what the weatherman ordered. I’m sure it will make the news.
For reference purposes, a before you, if you will, here is the awful drought situation from the drought monitor folks in Lincoln, NB, in the central and Southwest US as it stands today:
US drought status as of April 2, 2013. Ugh
Yes, this Monday’s low will be a billion dollar baby for some. And here’s where storm chasing is truly fun because of all the happy people you’ll meet in the rainy areas, not like those storm chasers who relish seeing tornadoes and destruction, as might happen farther to the south in Texas and across the South2.
Yesterday’s clouds
Cirrus, thickening into a dull, kind of lifeless layer of Altostratus by late afternoon and evening, the latter a deep all ice cloud; no opening in it to the west for a great big sunset, nope, just gray all the way. Staring with sunrise:
5:59 AM. Cirrus/Cirrostratus over Samaniego Ridge.10:41 AM. Cirrus fibratus (the thicker patches might also be termed spissatus, but who cares? :}) There also appears to be a high thin layer of Cirrostratus. There are definitely multiple layers where clouds are located.6:08 PM. Altostratus opacus. Note the mottled look due to virga, demonstrating that its a precipitating cloud (light snow); just doesn’t get to the ground
Today’s clouds
We’ll see the end of our pretty Cirrus and Altocumulus clouds that we have this morning by mid-day to early afternoon. Enjoy them now. Might get a good sunrise bloom here in a few minutes, too. Hope so.
————— 1Usually located on top of Tonopah, Nevada
2 “Truth-in-packaging”: Mr. Cloud Maven person chased Hurricane Carla in 1961, one of the 20th century’s greatest, ended up in Seabrook, Texas, near Galveston, and let us not forget the song about Galveston (has some wind in it) as a kind of distraction, so he’s being just that tiny bit hypocritical here.
On going theme here: excessive excitement over not much. Might need binoculars to see them, but they’ll be up there over the higher terrain I am pretty sure, maybe even a 2-minute Cumulus fractus over Ms. Lemmon.
Today will be one of those days you write home about, if your home is not here, and you haven’t gone back to Wisconsin yet. The sky should be so blue today as it dries out aloft and the Cirrus goes away, with the temperature “just fine” as a weak trough passes by over the next day taking the temperature down some.
No rain in the “Big Trough”, the one that sits on Catalina in about a week (April 8th and 9th), sorry to say. It crashes down on us a little too far to the east, so there’ll just be real cold air for April here, and a sky dotted with a few clouds, ones likely to sport virga. This will be a good time to tell your eastern and northern friends, or ones in Europe1, the latter place where they are having one of the coldest springs ever, that it will be brutally cold here, so cold that the high temperature might only get to 73 F (21 C) during the afternoon of the coldest day, Monday or Tuesday of next week). (OK, its a cruel joke…but kind of fun anyway. I tell my brother in NC things like that all the time.)
Still pretty green in isolated spots in the desert, though most everything looks stressed now. Here are some examples of how green it is in those isolated spots. When you’re walking around in places like this, there’s hardly any sunlight that gets through the canopy, and in some area, the purple flowers are the size of helicopters at the top of it (view from hot air balloon). Amazing.
Jungle-like vegetation seen on a recent hike/ride near the back gate of Catalina State Park.
For comparison, a photo by the author of the jungle in the northern state of Rondonia, Brazil, 1995, taken while skimming tree tops in U of WA research aircraft collecting data on biomass burning. Of course, the jungle’s likely gone now, but… (and what a sad thought):
Near Porto Velho, Rondonia, Brazil, 1995. No flowers at top of canopy here, just bugs, birds and smoke.
Yesterday’s clouds
Cirrus!
Our desert, even in drought, showing its tinge of spring green, followed by a nice sunset.
6:12 PM.
6:55 P. M.
The End.
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1Unintended consequences, described here when we’re planning for later warmth, much later, when brutally cold weather is still going to occur from time to time, and always will, as in Europe now. I thought it was a pretty fair read so am passing it along (this from Mark Albright, climate folk hero from the U of WA). Some models predict that while the Arctic warms over the decades, the land masses nearby will still see extreme cold (as the Chinese scientists recently asserted concerning THEIR extreme winter cold); we don’t want to forget those susceptible to cold. What a mess this planet is in! Dammitall! End of editorial content.
I don’t know. Got burned last time because of overconfidence in spaghetti assessment, so being more circumspect seeing the same strong signal ahead in that stuff today. Here’s NOAA’s best spaghetti from last night (leftovers) for you this morning:
Valid for 5 PM April 8th. Means it will be cold for April. Some rain? You would think so, but then again, we live in a desert and its hard to have rain in a desert, especially in April, May, and June. How will I make it? I need some motivational rain for blogging! See how the red lines dip halfway down Baja! Even a few blue ones in the Southwest indicating this could be a very cold event for April.
Cirrus to pass over Catalina today!
Its not like the space station, or Comet Panstarrs, but as a CMJ (cloud maven junior) you should pretend to be pretty excited anyway. That’s all we got for awhile. That exclamation mark should be treated as like a cup of coffee, should get you going, excited about anything.
An example of yesterday’s sunset Cirrus/Cirrostratus:
6:51 PM yesterday, in case you weren’t looking, though to me, that would be quite odious.
2:11 PM. Cirrus uncinus march in tandem across the NW sky.2:19 PM. One Cirrus uncinus element playfully mimics Comet Panstarrs, trying to get in on some of the publicity: “I can be a comet, too!”
Cirrus get this way after an initial “formation burst”, often like a bunch of porous tiny Cumulus clouds with very slight updrafts, maybe centimeters (inches) per second. But those there is enough structure/variation in those tiny updrafts that some of the ice crystals that form get larger than most and begin to fall out. These bursts of formation, from vertically-pointed radars, are usually in a thin layer of air that has no wind shear, that is, the layer is moving at the same speed over a thin depth. So the clouds that form in this “mixed out” layer, are vertical.
However, when the largest ice crystals settle out, they usually encounter layers of air where the wind twists in direction and it loses some velocity compared with the thin layer in which the clouds originally formed. So, those lonely larger crystals get left behind. And they usually fall into drier air and gradually start getting smaller, the trail of the uncinus flattening because they can’t fall so fast as they get smaller. Its kind of sad when you think about it; getting left behind, withering away, usually all the way to nothing at all, being vaporized. We used to sing about being vaporized during the Cold War, or at least, the band X-15 did there in SEA, an anti-“pop” band.
Below, a Cirrus formation burst. Look at how they look like tiny, porous Cumulus clouds:
2:39 PM. Cluster of new Cirrus elements appears–could be termed Cirrus floccus maybe. Some fine trails are already beginning to emit from these elements (center where its starting to look like chicken scratches. The youngest burst is in the upper third of the photo.
The weather ahead
NOAA’s not helping out with any green rain “pixies” (aka, “pixels” in model forecasts) in southern Arizona through the end of the month. That’s really sad. However, there is a close call on the 28-29th. It will get windy. and much cooler at that time.
Any blobs of anomaly in the US future again? They’re back! Happen around the 25th (as rendered by IPS MeteoStar):
Valid on March 24th, 5 PM. The warm and the cold exceptionalism at 500 millibars, almost always together as a couple.
So, while we’re complaining about another March heat spell, the folks back in the East, and especially the southeast, will be complaining royally about how cold it is for late March. Few will be happy.
Spaghetti virtually confirms this pattern. So, let’s say you have a brother and his family living in Asheville, NC, maybe he’s a retired policeman or something, you’ll want to call him and advise him of some cold air ahead, as an example of taking action on the weather ahead you’ve just found out about…
6:44 PM. Some Cirrus spissatus (thicker blobs) floated over late yesterday. When its unusually warm, Cirrus are often unusually high altitude such as yesterday’s.
Still no rain in the two week model “headlights”…and believe me I look for it.
A science story
While we’re waiting for “weather”, I thought I would partially bore you with another science story.
I am supposed to be dead by now, well, within 5-10 years after 2003 due to the development of a rare disease called pseudomyxoma peritonei, resulting from a tumor called, mucinous cystadenoma. Actually, I feel so good today at 71 years of age, doing more weight at the gymnasium than I ever have in the past 16 years on some machines, I tell friends that it must be a pre-death “bloom.”
But back in August of 2003, I left work with an incredible gut pain and ended up in the ER at the University of Washington’s hospital, never having finished that afternoon cup of coffee. After a day or so of monitoring, the doc there, Mika Sinanen, “went in” with his team. It wasn’t presenting as a classic appendicitis. He found a tumor exiting the appendix. He had never seen this before, and didn’t know what it was.
Later, while in his office, the pathologist came back with the report on it. It was a “mucinous cystadenoma”, not cancerous. But SInanen wasn’t as excited as I thought he should be that it wasn’t cancer. He told me to meet with the University Hospital’s surgical oncologist.
A few days later I was informed by that oncologist that I would likely experience a series of abdominal operations over the coming years due to the development of the disease called, pseudomyxoma peritonei, in which a mucinous jelly like growth attaches to organs in the gut. There is no cure I was told; portions of the gut are removed, the doc said, until no more can be removed and you die of “blockage.” It didn’t sound good.
Keep in mind the date of this event, August 2003.
Now the science part.
In September of 2002 a farmer from west Texas was upset over a cloud seeding program his county was going to undertake and had decided to write to all of the universities having atmospheric science programs about the status of cloud seeding. Was it proven? And would it work in the summer clouds of west Texas?
He eventually reached me at the University of Washington. I had published critiques and reanalyses of cloud seeding experiments in peer-reviewed journals, usually with the Director of our Cloud and Aerosol Group, Peter V. Hobbs, as a co-author, over the preceeding 25 years. In the farmer’s note, he said that he had contacted over 130 universities, and that my name had come up often. I cherish that e-mail even today, an indication that your peers had noticed your work.
I should mention that all of this reananlysis work was self-initiated, and except for one paper, they were done off and on on my own time with no funding whatsoever over a period of about 25 years. I sometimes partially joke about this aspect in introductions of talks on this subject by describing all this self-funded work as a “crackpot alert”. But I was trying to be a good crackpot.
I sent this farmer the fairest objective one-page note on cloud seeding I could, one that I thought my peers would also agree with. Its our job as scientists, even if with think they are still faulty reports out there, we have to cite them until they are officially overturned. I wrote to the this farmer that cloud seeding had not been proven in those types of clouds (summer Cumulonimbus ones) in ways that we in the science community would find convincing. That is, proven through randomized experiments, double blind ones, and in which the results had been replicated. That’s the gold standard for all science. I did point out, as I must as a scientist, that there were “promising results” using hygroscopic methods of seeding of such clouds. That was about it.
Implementing a commercial cloud seeding project creates jobs (don’t forget, the author has participated in these), and it looks good for sponsoring organizations, like state and county governments, to try to do something about droughts. Makes constituents happy even if most academic scientists question such a practice absent proper evidence.
Within 24 h of sending that note, I received this e-mail from Texas:
“You will die in 11 months from a fast-growing tumor, you f…… rascal.”
It was pretty odd since it had a timeline, and that 11 months was odd, and I thought use of the word “rascal” didn’t fit the preceding expletive. Another expletive would have fit better. There was no way to connect this e-mail to the note I sent that farmer, but the timing made it clear it had something to do with it.
Well, EXACTLY 11 months after that note I was on my way to the hospital leaving a half a cup of coffee on my desk at the U of WA due to an odd tumor exiting my appendix. And, by golly, I WAS going to die, but in 5-10 years!
I will never forget that day the surgical oncologist at the U of Washington hospital told me that. The disease never showed.
I always wanted to write to that e-mail address from where the threat originated (a phony one) and say,
“Hah-hah (emulating “Nelson” on The Simpsons); it was a SLOW growing tumor!”
——————————–
One final note.
Scientists don’t like it when you’re reanalyzing their work, naturally. The very first review I saw of my first paper reanalyzing a randomized cloud seeding experiment was so bad, and had a personal attack that I did not have the credentials to reanalyze that experiment1 it made a fellow, cartoon-drawing graduate student in our group, Tom Matejka, laugh. He then came up with the image below of how that reviewer must have seen me. His drawing was so perfect a depiction, I loved it. The paper, “A reanalysis of the Wolf Creek Pass cloud seeding experiment”, was the lead article in the May 1979 issue of the Journal of Applied Meteorology.
I have also included a photo of Tom, one of my favorite grad students passing through our Cloud and Aerosol Group at Washington. You can see the playfulness in his face.
Tom Matejka, circa 1979.
—————–
1True, actually; I had no credentials in that domain at that time.
This is so great, today’s badly needed substantial rain for our Cal pops and other wildflowers, now beginning to bloom. You may have seen some poppies along North Oracle Road in the past week.
Here is the current radar and cloud situation from IPS MeteoStar (loop is here). You can see three rain bands, very similar in configuration to the historic snowstorm of February 20th that also had three bands. What’s potent and interesting is that the lead band with precip just to the west of us (passing over Ajo at this time). That cloud band is usually just that, composed of thick, middle and high clouds (Alstostratus/Cirrus/Altocumulus) without any precip or just virga. And its usually also followed by the “clearing before the storm”, the ones that lead on many occasions to those super spectacular sunsets before the surge of low clouds and precip. You can see that “clearing before the storm” aspect in southwest AZ in the image below.
But, as you can see, THIS cloud band “before the storm”, has developed some rain. So, in this case, we have a chance to pick up some light rain before the major bands arrive later in the day. You can also follow the progress of the storm on those great WunderMaps here. Might be on this site ALL DAY.
4:10 AM combination satellite and radar, the best on the web IMO.
Here, too, is the University of Washington’s 500 mb map for 5 AM AST this morning showing the flow at about 18,000 feet above sea level. You can see the three bands here, too, and a fourth taking shape in the center of the low, now off southern California. You will see that the strongest winds at this level are over Tucson now, meaning rain is imminent, and it is. Already had a trace, a few drops fell at 4:06 AM. Expect lightning in AZ today, maybe around here, too, with the second or third bands.
Here’s the loop U of AZ weather department’s mod output from last night’s 11 PM run, which gives you an hour by hour account of the storm over the next two days. While the main bang is today, a lobe of cold air aloft follows it and scattered light showers continue into tomorrow. What will help Catalina’s rainfall is that the wind will be more westerly rather than southerly at cloud levels during and after the storm, which means they will pile up on this side of the Catalina Mountains the best, and which should do better than other areas. The U of AZ mod knows something of this, and you can see the precip in the panel below extending from the Catalinas toward the west and over us. Its due to this frequent occurrence during and following storms that really boosts our winter precip totals over surrounding areas of similar elevation.
There are a lot of parameters available from this output. You can look at the whole range of them here.
Valid for 3 AM AST tomorrow morning, March 9th.
Yesterday’s clouds
It was asserted yesterday that there would be some Cumulus and Cirrus by Mr. Cloud Maven person.
Here they are:
4:16 PM. Forecast of Cumulus cloud(s) verifies! It was small, but great.6:10 PM. Cirrus creep underway from the west.
Sure, it was clear practically the whole day, and some people might complain that they got eye strain looking for Cirrus and Cumulus clouds during the day…. But then, you can find people who will complain about anything.
Its not about hairdressing. Its about the “curl of the low” and its jet stream configuration, as shown here by here (IPS MeteoStar):
Valid for Wednesday, March 20th, 2013. Want to see if anyone reads the captions.
Oh, shoot, this is for a storm and cold blast about 13 days from now! (Secretly, with the storm tomorrow so well predicted at this point by all—might as well show you that it might not be the end of March storms.)
OK, lets try again to get a more timely forecast map:
Oh fer Pete’s Sake. This is valid for 256 h from last night, or the morning of March 18th! But we’re in the curl AGAIN!
Oh, shoot, this ones for 256 h or almost 11 days from last night! What is going on here?
One more try for something relevant, well. its all relevant (suggests we’re in the “trough bowl”:
Finally, valid for 11 AM AST tomorrow morning, this from last night’s WRF-GFS run.
Maps look kinda similar don’t they? Hence, talk about the “bowl” phenomenon where troughs “remember” where they’ve been like your horse does, and they know where they should be. There’s a long fair weather gap between the one tomorrow and the ones later; don’t get fooled by thinking winter’s over.
This last one for tomorrow suggests the rain is either here or imminent at 11 AM AST as the jet core at 500 millibars, is already deployed to the southeast of us by that time. The timing of all of what happens tomorrow is pretty good for rain amounts since with the chilling air aloft (making it easier for air to rise from near the surface), the cold front will blast across Catalina in the later afternoon. This means that the little heating that we will get tomorrow, limited by windy conditions and clouds, will work to plump up the Cumulonimbus clouds in the frontal band–oh, yeah, there should be some, and that means what?
Graupel (soft hail)! Shafts of them, here and there in the frontal band. The presence of graupel, and it’ll be bashing snowflakes and ice crystals on the way down (the latter can’t get out of the way fast enough) means the clouds will get “plugged in”, electrified, due to those collisions because they generate electricity and lightning is virtually certain in AZ tomorrow. Talk about excitement! Cbs, graupel, lightning, a strong frontal passage, strong winds, and a greater than 100-200 percent chance of measurable rain in Catalina! It doesn’t get better than that!
This pattern also favors better accumulations of precip here with the winds being more southwesterly to west at cloud levels. Amounts? Mod, the very excellent U of AZ mod run indicates Catlania-ites will get around half an inch! I am so excited since this is close to the median amount (0.60 inches) forecast from this microphone two and more days ago! Something must be wrong! Here’s the AZ cumulative precip map for Arizona. Look at all the precip in the State, about an inch and a half of liquid expected on top of Ms. Mt. Lemmon! This is going to be so good for our drought.
Valid for 3 PM AST on the 9th. Most of this falls on the 8th, but passing showers add that bit more into the 9th.
Yesterday’s clouds
They were great, such as they were, and before leaving for NM and points east. Take a look:
6:56 AM. I wanted to hug these little Cirrus uncinus clouds. So cute, just trying like anything to make a little snowstorm to water the ground. Just look at those long tails!
7:47 AM. Then you got to see a Catalina lenticular cloud. How nice was that? Note parhelia on the right.8:04 AM. A nice, patterned Altocumulus perlucidus translucidus.
All in all, I thought it was quite a good day for you. As usual, thinking about others here.
Today’s clouds
Today we’ll likely see some precursor Cirrus, maybe a flake of Cumulus here and there. I will predict more clouds, if necessary, as they occur.
