Though the the castellanus twins dropped by yesterday:
10:24 AM. After a hazy start, this pair showed up; two perfect examples of Altocumulus castellanus, side by side. Have never see this before. Castellanus indicate a layer of the atmosphere where the temperature declines more rapidly than in other moist layers, allowing little baby turrets to extrude from the base that bit. Sometimes, though, they can reach high enough and get large enough to have virga. But not yesterday. You definitely should not have logged any virga from these clouds.
Altocumulus castellanus, that is. Suggests atmo in this layer ripe for convection, but unless there’s some humidity below these clouds, it can be kind of an old saw that doesn’t work out a lot of times, unless they themselves get overly enthusiastic and begin to shower and thunder. It happens.
While yesterday had these interesting clouds, and a couple of distant Cumulonimbus tops, the only real excitement was this dumpster NW of us shown below. Did any one drive over there to get under it and measure the rain it put out? I would dole out some extra credit if you did. Otherwise, we’re going to have to rely on radar to estimate how much came down over there.
1:50 PM. Surprisingly dense rain shaft to the NW from a rogue Cumulonimbus. Nothing much else really all afternoon. Boring! Remember how we used to yell, BORING!!!!” in that movie when that guy was talking1? You don’t find people/whole audiences yelling at the movie screen anymore because something is going on they don’t like and feel motivated to erupt with a comment. People are more reserved now days and hold in feelings at movies, probably not the best thing.4:46 PM. The Lemmon cloud factory was “on strike” most of the day, and here, that dark blue sky made you think of college football.6:15 PM. Evening clump of Stratocumulus trails a little snow from its bottom. Lately we’ve had “blooms” energized convection, growth of Cumulus, but yesterday was, well, BORING!!!!! Nice little flourish of Cirrus, though.
The week in rain
Since most of Arizona is unpopulated, and even when there are people, not everyone reports rain, so we have to rely on radar-derived rainfall amounts to “fill in the blanks” Are you a “blank”? Think about it. Now looking back at this past 7-days, ending yesterday, and using radar for any sense of what happened all over the State here’s what we get, from WSI Intellicast. We had an amazing 7 days of rainfall, rains that did so much to dent the NW AZ drought with many inches of rain. Need more, of course, but here it is:
Radar-derived rainfall for the week ending August 27th, 2013. Look at those 4-8 inch totals W of Prescott! And indications of over 8 inches a tad west of Needles!
The weather ahead
U of WA mod, and his one, crunching last afternoon’s global data, have the size of clouds picking up today and over the next couple of days. Yay. Need more rain.
The End.
————– 1Furthermore, it was supposed to be a horror movie, and instead it had SINGING! Unbelievable. No wonder people were upset when they saw it!
Trying to adjust “working” schedule to accomodate exede.com data choke hold after 5 AM…
Here in the “The Heights” we’ve only had about 4 inches of rain so far in July and August, compared to a normal of about 7 inches. Still the recent five days in a row of measurable rain have brought life and flying ant swarms back to the desert. Great to see, well, maybe not all of it. From yesterday morning these shots:
7:37 AM. Grasses are rebounding as they can in the free range lands.Height of desert grasses where no cattle can go. Camera hog horse, takes a munching break to insure it gets a face shot.8:10 AM near the Sutherland Wash. Doesn’t compare to last year’s growth with nearly 8 inches of July August rain, still, it was nice to see.8:29 AM. Riparian scene at the Big Rock tributary to the Sutherland Wash. There was no water, though.1:26 PM. Early afternoon downspout mostly N of Saddlebrooke. Another great sight. There were numerous ones around, but as this summer has gone, none blasted “The Heights.” Only a trace of rain was recorded.2:09 PM. Photo of shaft with some ill advised advice written on it along with an arrow.3:07 PM. There were several nice deluges on the Catalinas yesterday. (Can a deluge be nice?). Anyway, this one looks to have inflated the water in the Romero Falls area.4:12 PM. What was especially great about yesterday was that the showers re-building over the mountains. Here, in the same exact spot as the one an hour earlier, a new shower has formed. It was a day that just wouldn’t quit. As darkness fell, still another complex with vivid lightning moved over the same area.4:23 PM. Marana storm trudges westward to bombard Dove Mountain area.5:31 PM. In spite of all the cool air around at this time, the many showers, another complex of thunderheads boils up to the ESE in the upwind direction. It just kept giving yesterday. This is the one that about an hour later produced the vivid lightning, with most of the rain falling again toward Catalina State Park. Shaft pretty much obscured lights down that way when it rolled in.
The End, except it looks a little drier today, but then, it was supposed to be a little drier yesterday, and really wasn’t.
It was great to see a huge Cumulonimbus squatting on Ms. Mt. Lemmon yesterday just after noon, then hours of intermittent thunder as new clouds piled high into the troposphere around it. One site, White Tail by Catalina Highway up there, got almost two inches in just an hour! So, the atmosphere was quite juicy yesterday.
Still, to see all those pretty curtains, rain ones, dropping down around us as new Cumulus powered up into Cumulonimbus clouds, many such events due to Cumulus spawned by outflow winds from the Lemmon dumps, was visually nice, but “unsatisfying” because none landed on me.
Too, we need to catch up to our nearly 7-inch normal July-August rain from the half that we have now, and we came up with only a trace here in the Sutherland district.
BTW, under “advanced observation taking”, you would have logged the first drops from the anvil overhang of the “storm on the Lemmon” at 1:51 PM. Well, maybe not exactly that minute at YOUR house, but I nailed it! Had to be outside though, and wait around for those drops, since it was not clear drops would even make it to the ground from what was over me. The wait was worth it.
Of course, those early storms, rising off the Catalina peaks, usually don’t make it here off the mountains early on with anything but sprinkles. Only later in the day, when we’ve been baked some more, do those giants start making their way on to the lower elevations, and yesterday they did.
Here is your cloud photo diary for yesterday, beginning with your precursors for a good cloud day:
10:51 AM. RIght here you should have been thinking, “Man, this could be a fantastic rain day!” Look at how thin and tall this cloud got, and it happened soon after the first scruff formed (Cu fractus).
11:14 AM, the prior cloud devolving into a reminder, with its narrow stem, of atomic testing back in the 1950s1 see historical note, “nuclear winter” scenarios in the 1980s. a way of defeating global warming…..(gallows humor). The flattening of the cloud at top indicates that there was a temperature barrier that still needed to be punched through as the day warmed.12:28 PM. Minimal lid capping prior cloud punched through as day warmed–see protruding top; thunder began at this time. I probably did not need to tell you that. Sorry.2:20 PM. Pretty curtains, just after drenching Pusch Ridge, drift S to deluge TUS–see today’s AZ Star. It is truly remarkable how much rain can fall from these clouds! Note the stranding here, detailing differences in the cloud’s structure above, generally associated with hail and graupel up there.
Today’s clouds and weather?
You know the drill. Early cloud conditions (due to Altocumulus opacus), followed by a slow burn off, then the rise of the Cumulus clouds. U of AZ mod expects a very active day today, so maybe the curtain will come down on Catalina this afternoon.
Farther out: “tropical river” still floods SE Cal and western AZ, as we remain on the edge, getting something but not the full force as those areas will. Remnant center passes over Yuma Sunday AM. Might be worth a trip. Hell, they could get their annual precip in 12 h, something to write to the family about if you’re there.
—————— 1 Historical note re “atomic testing”: It was a common perception in those days of atomic testing, generally scientists believed, by naive, uninformed peoples, that the explosions were changing the weather. So, when anything weird in weather happened, some would point to “atomic testing”, kind of like some scientists do with global warming and weird weather today. (“Real scientists” are more cautious about attributing a storm or other singular event to GW.)
The US Weather Bureau (ATOMIC EXPLOSIONS AND WEATHER USWB) and the US government went to great lengths to explain to these people why atomic testing could not have changed the weather; it was too small an event to have changed the weather.
In fact, with the rise of Chaos Theory, where it is deemed by some scientists2 that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil might have something to do with a tornado in Texas, of COURSE, atomic testing changed the friggin’ weather! We just don’t know how and where…
Also, it is normal and proper for scientists to correct, enhance, or reject prior theories as new facts come in. “Hey” think about how embarrassed the cosmologists were back in the 1990s or so when they discovered they had the friggin’ sign of the “Cosmic Constant” wrong. The Universe was expanding, ever more rapidly, not collapsing. Then, and this is really funny, they made up some magic called, “Dark Energy” to explain that inexplicable new finding! But, as the ideals of science demand, they did change their minds and theories! Not sure that happens so easily today in some domains I could think of.
2Nick, research faculty, U of WA, private communication, as seen in the Seattle Times.
Quite happy early on yesterday with Cu sprouting upward rapidly in the mid-morning, then it ended up being a sad day for us yesterday with only a trace. It appeared, with the early generation of towering Cumulus over the Cat Mountains, then thunder just before noon, that we were going to have a good chance of a big dump, a land-filling rainstorm, to make a play on the word “dump.”
But no.
——–
Next, in a continuation of negative thoughts, I propose a spending cap on college athletics. Here’s why from the NYT, no less1. In the short of it: the Duck has more money to spend than the Dawg, and, as a former employee of the University of Washington, I am upset. Yes I am THAT great a former employee. Even when working at the U of WA full time, I advertised the company teams AFTER working hours by wearing this and that with Dawg logos, that’s how good an employee I was.
But Oregon has crossed the line; its got to stop. Think of the poor AZ Wildcats, too, if you’re so inclined. The only worse thing that could happen is for the University of Phoenix, with all their money, to start a football program and join the Pac 12 after the WAZU Cougars drop out because they are so bad. (The Cougars ARE really bad, to get an in-state rival Dawg dig in. hahahaha, Cougs.
———-
Now, some clouds, real drama queens, but still pretty darn photogenic:
11:25 AM. Cu pile up nicely beyond the Gap. Note pileus clouds atop Cu left and distant right, a sign of good updrafts. I like pileus clouds.11:36 AM. While these two Cumulus clouds became marshmallows, the first ice (fibrous area, upper left) begins to show.
11:49 AM. Rain shaft begins to show, first thunder a few minutes later.
1:55 PM. With flow from the south, I was ecstatic at this point. Why? The big rain shaft to the south. Oh, no, too late for that one to be anything when it gets here. But, those Cu building over Pusch Ridge, they’re what needed to fire up and keep this complex going, and they are looking GREAT at this point, no doubt pushed up by the outflow winds of the rain just behind them. But it gets better….
2:18 PM. Heading upward into euphoria from ecstaticness (is that a word?) here as Cu congestus bases enlarge, don’t seem to have weak points in the center suggesting irregular updrafts. Its going to rain from them soon, no doubt it. And it did. But….not that much. Rain shaft behind and to the right, already thinning at this time.
So with all the drama shown above, here’s what ensued from that great looking base, demonstrating that you can only be “mostly be sure, but not all sure”, to paraphrase a Billy Crystal line in “The Princess Bride.”
3:02 PM. The pitiful “rain shaft”, if I may so elevate such light rain, on Samaniego Ridge, the outpouring of precip that eventuated from that great looking base. Little baby rain was falling here at the time. Traced is all it did.
What happened? The intensity of the shaft tells you how high the tops of those really dark bases got, and in this case, probably they probably got no higher than the marshmallow clouds shown above with their equally weak shafts. Not much rain, either, in the Catalinas.
Why didn’t the tops get higher?
The outflow shove wasn’t enough to jack them up, the air just a bit too cool feeding into the bases, weakening outflow winds. You can make up a lot of stuff. But, darn, it looked SO GOOD there for a moment.
Today? Well, the same scenario replayed over and over again it seems. Likely Cu building on the Cat Mountains again, probably not as early a start as yesterday–TUS sounding’s a little drier. I should see what Bob sez, since he really knows stuff.
——————-
1 Sent to me by a science prize-winning friend2 with whom I shared Husky season ticks with. It was interesting since I got a minimal science prize of sorts, too. The headline: “Prize-winning meteorologists attend college football games together.” Kind of an unexpected scenario I would think.
2Got his prize, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and congratulations from Al Gore at the White House back in ’00 or so. (Can you put a footnote in a footnote?)
First about the rainfall around Arizona yesterday….
Jack is happy. Got 1.21 inches yesterday afternoon. Nice! No doubt some of our friends, fellow lowlanders, who can’t take Catalina-Sutherland Heights when the temperature rises above 82.5 F unlike you and me, experienced that cloud downspout that occurred at to Happy Jack Ranger Station in Pine, AZ, at almost 8,000 feet elevation.
For additional rainfall reports beyond those provided at “Happy Jack”, of course, we have to go to about 3 dozen other places because no one has managed to cull ALL of the rainfall reports we get into ONE daily list. Well, maybe the NSA has them all… Here are a few more links to rainfall data:
Not to mention the many “school net” and TEEVEE station-established rainfall reporting stations, and those folks who monitor rainfall at home but don’t report it to the rest of us who want to know about it. Maybe NSA can help out there, too. Hahahahaha, sort of. (BTW, I have nothing to hide to whomever is reading this; well, mostly nothing.)
——-EDITORIAL OUTBURST——
How strange it is that we cannot go to ONE friggin’ site and get all of the rain reports for the whole State! Would it be due to a lack of…….inter agency cooperation and competition, even among non-profit organizations???? (Insert creepy organ music here)
——-END OF EDITORIAL OUTBURST——
Back to rainfall observations…..
Douglas, AZ, if you haven’t heard from your favorite TEEVEE meteorologist who makes a lot of money1, has experienced its wettest June through August ever, with 13 plus inches, with about two weeks to go! This is for the purpose of generating a thought about a trip, a weather vacation, for you. That whole area down there, with its historic heavy rains this summer MUST be seen! Your weather diary will be sadly lacking without some notes about the vegetation, ponding and stream flows in that area. Damn well know I’m going again. There is a treasure of scenes, maybe new lifeforms, down thataway that won’t happen again in our lifetimes. The specifics below from the NWS:
SXUS75 KTWC 130105
RERTWC
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TUCSON AZ
605 PM MST MON AUG 12 2013
...DOUGLAS ARIZONA RECORDS WETTEST METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER ON RECORD...
RAINFALL OVER THIS PAST WEEKEND AT BISBEE-DOUGLAS AIRPORT PUSHED
THEIR 2013 METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER TOTAL TO 13.23"...WHICH ECLIPSED
THE OLD RECORD OF 13.07" FROM THE SUMMER OF 1964.
METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER IS THE PERIOD FROM JUNE 1 TO AUGUST 31ST.
THE 13.23" IS ALSO THE TOTAL FOR THE 2013 MONSOON. THIS RANKS AS 2ND
WETTEST MONSOON ON RECORD...STILL WELL BEHIND THE RECORD OF 15.90"
FROM 1964.
LASTLY...THE 2013 CALENDAR TOTAL OF 14.10" CURRENTLY RANKS AS THE
19TH WETTEST YEAR ON RECORD.
$$
On to clouds, yesterday’s:
As a CMJ, you should have noticed the harbinger of better things ahead for late yesterday afternoon and evening when we had “thunder on the Lemmon” beginning at 2 PM, about 4-5 hours earlier than the two prior days. Earlier is better.
Also earlier were the first scruffs of Cumulus clouds forming over the Catalinas, in this case about 2 h ealier than prior days, another “earlier is better” scene for rain here in Catalina-SH. Here are some scenes; hope you seen’em. Oh, my, another outburst of creativity.
First, before Cumulus, these “strangers”:
8:11 AM. Billow clouds, Cirrocumulus undulatus, if you want a tech name. They weren’t around very long, just a few minutes, hope you scene’em. Best seen as action figures in the U of AZ time lapse film for yesterday.
11:13 AM. Cloud street streaming off the Lemmon is pretty advanced for this time. Cloud bases, too, a bit lower than the day before. Lower is better (for rain amounts).1:43 PM. First ice on top of Ms. Mt. Lemmon. Should be in your diary. Can you see it? Answer in next image. I’m trying to learn you up on these things…dammitall. Note lack of a rain shaft at this time1:43 PM close up of glaciated turret showing above the cloud mass above Lemmon. There’s some writing on it. Thunder b
While this early TSTM fabove aded quickly, dropping only 0.28 inches on Mt. Lemmon, the “Dump of the Day” (say, those within 5 miles of here) erupted suddenly just after 5 PM over and to the south of the Golder Ranch development at the foot of the Catalina Mountains. The cloud-to-ground strikes came within seconds, not minutes from this dynamo, though like its predecessor, it did not last long. Still, parts of it moved far enough north to give SH (Sutherland Heights) 0.12 inches. Here it is:
5:16 PM. “Dump of the Day”, looking toward the Golder Ranch development from the parking lot at the top of Golder Ranch Drive. LTG was too scary to leave car.
And, of course, the day finished out with another one of those dramatic sunsets, and the lighting on the clouds at that time of day that makes us so happy to be here, that we can take temperatures above 82 F without having to depart for higher ground. Last evening, this beauty:
7:03 PM. Looking north beyond Saddlebrooke, and along with it, another fabulous evening of lightning. Doesn’t happen like this as a rule in that colder, high terrain that our “temperature refugees” head for. Much better down here for evening and nighttime LTG.
——————
1I dream about being a TEEVEE weatherman making a LOT of money. I could then take those weather vacations I’ve dreamed of, never mind the State Department Travel warnings, to Cherrapunji, India, where they once measured over a thousand inches of rain over 12 months; to the Island of La Reunion in the southern Indian Ocean where tropical storms have sat and dropped, and your jaw will also drop, 72 inches of rain in ONE day, and 66 inches in 18 hours in a DIFFERENT storm–before that one let up.
Worn out from yesterday, which resembled the day before with the late “bloom” of fabulously photogenic Cumulonimbus clouds, much lightning, and an equally fabulous sunset. Took too many photos (200 plus I think) kind of out of control, due to excessive excitement again; hard drive filling up. Locating brain now in this cup of coffee.
First, before the cloud photo diary for yesterday, this wonderful, uplifting look at the weather way ahead from NOAA’s spaghetti forecasting machine last night, calculated from global data taken around the world, to be redundant, at 5 PM AST last evening, valid for 5 PM AST Friday, August 30th:
Isn’t this great?! One of the best maps I’ve seen this summer. Looks like the summer rain season1 hereabouts will be in pretty good force through the end of August now after abosrbing this NOAA check of chaos theory. Maybe Sutherland Heights will catch up to our average rainfall for July and August by the end of the month, 6-7 inches. Now sitting on only 3.2 inches since July 1st.
Yesterday’s clouds and storms
Here’s how it all started:
10:38 AM. Cumulus specks began to appear over Ms. Lemmon an hour or two earlier than the previous day, always a good trend.11:21 AM. Early sign of an aroused atmosphere, one ready to produce deep clouds. Thin, spindly clouds shooting upward rapidly, sometimes, as here, in the formation of an obscene gesture.12:57 PM. And before 1 PM, this early Cb (calvus) off the mountains to the NW! I was really preparing for giant storms ALL day in the area. But, that’s NOT what happened. They faded soon after this. Ms. Lemmon, never mind the raging heat, became devoid of clouds. It was nothing less than astonishing that it could be cloud free in the middle of the afternoon with such an “auspicious”, if rude, early start of Cumulus clouds.
3:08 PM. Its 106 F in Sutherland Heights. This view of piddly-pooh Cumlus clouds over the Catalinas didn’t seem possible, in a sense, an amazing sight. All the day’s early promise was somehow gone, drier air was moving in, and that thought made the heat even more intolerable, though I don’t mind it myself, adding a personal note here.3:25 PM. Its a 107 F; cloud drought over the Catalinas continues. May seem silly, but this was just an incredible sight I thought.5:51 PM. Within half an hour, the Cumulus began to perk up. Could the same thing happen, that sudden explosion of Cumulus into Cumulonimbus like yesterday occur AGAIN? Yes
5:51 PM. “Muffin” Cu congestus, center, has top high enough already to produce ice and precip!6:13 PM, 22 min later. “Muffin” Cu cong has grown into a small Cumulonimbus with this pretty rainshaft. But LOOK at how the clouds have filled in toward Sutherland H.!
6:53 PM. By this time more clouds were building upward, joining the fray, as here, and the whole sky was filling in. There was some stupendous cloud to ground lightning strikes with this one, but didn’t capture them.
7:05 PM. Hard to put into words how pretty a sight this was, and so dramatic, full of portent.
7:18 PM, 13 min later, the dump has come. This was the cell that produced almost continuous lightning toward the west into the early evening.
7:14 PM. In the meantime, this cloud base was expanding in the upwind direction toward Saddlebrooke-Charoleau Gap, eventually to be our rain-producer last evening just after 8 PM AST.
Today’s weather? You’ll want to see Bob’s view and, of course, that of the TUS NWS, or your favorite TEEVEE forecaster’s. U of AZ experts though today would be better than yesterday!
The End.
——————————-
1Sometimes confused with the “monsoon” of India and south Asia, which is really a MONSOON with a giant low center circulating air around it for millions and millions of square miles. Hey, Jabalpur had 17 centimeters of rain yesterday, 6.70 inches, and the rain is supposed to get heavier in the next couple of days!
Yesterday was interesting because Mr. Cloud Maven person1 gave up on ANY rain around here as late as 5:30 PM yesterday, when the sky was punctuated by only Cumulus mediocris clouds. Sure, there were large, and quite pretty Cumulonimbi to the NW-NE over the distant high terrain, but it seemed Ms. Lemmon could not take part in producing the rainfull joy those distant clouds indicated as she so often does; was a real Cb wallflower. See below.
5:21 PM. Under 104 F skies, Cumulus mediocris over the Cat Mountains having bases way up at about 14 kft above sea level (of course, less high above sea level in future decades) produces a yawn.5:23 PM. Nearly solid mass of Cumulonimbus tops line N horizon.
Within half an hour, things began to change. What happened? Sometimes when you see changes taking place all around you its a sign of some upper level trigger, some pattern in the upper level winds that is causing the air below to come together under it, and produce large areas of clouds and thunderstorms, a little cyclonic swirl. I can’t really see anything to explain the suddeness, so I will quit this topic rather than leaving you hanging. I think I will show you two ant cones now.
Thought break: 7:57 AM, before the cloud development mystery, two symmetric ant cones. But why? There are many mysteries in life that can’t be solved, so I’m not feeling bad at all.5:45 PM. Nice, but still, at this size can only produce sprinkles and virga. Note slight bit of virga above Pusch Ridge. This WAS a sign that these modest clouds with high bases were beginning to reach upward to the glaciation level, where ice forms, a level that changes in height from day to day generally because it is partly dependent on the aerosol content in the air. This began happening in several clouds almost simultaneously! I am sure you started to get worked up, as I did.5:58 PM. Cute narrow shaft falls from a glaciated turret that has also climbed that bit farther from the prior photo. You also can see that while there is a big fluff of ice up there above the base, the rain that falls out represents only a tiny portion of where ice formed in the cloud. This would be the graupel/hail region of the cloud, melting of course on the way down because its so friggin’ hot, to be colloquial there for a second.
Cutting to the chase, these surrounding cloud eruptions that occurred simultaneously, suggesting some help from above:
6:01 PM. Rainshaft fibers began emitting from this pile of Cumulus crumpulus. It was amazing since it now seemed everything was starting to rain! And rain reached the ground under this in Oro Valley. Stupendous, because now you’re looking everywhere for something to go over you.
7:02 PM. Great looking oval base about to “unload.”
7:11 PM. The hammer is down. Likely 0.50 inches or so in this short-lived water bomb.
6:51 PM. “Man with hat and beer”; sun illuminated rain in background.
7:01 PM.
7:11 PM. Part of the spectacular electrical show last evening.
Those morning Altocumulus clouds (no ice) were pretty yesterday! Took too many shots, as usual. Here are a couple:
5:56 AM, looking SSW.7:36 AM. A little later.
5:56 AM. A little earlier. Puffed up enough over here to designate them as floccus and castellanus.
The temperature at the top of these clouds, located at about 14,000 feet above sea level: 2 C, 35 F.
2:48 PM. A mid-afternoon mammoth Cumulonimbus capillatus incus arises in the distance toward the Rincon Mountains as closing time at the Marana Landfill Dump nears. Dumps, as you likely know, are one of the great research sites in America, as they are to anthropologists sudying the ancients. You can’t imagine how excited anthros get when find a previously undiscovered dump used by ancient peoples. Its the same today by those who refer to themselves as “trashologists.” Sez a lot about the society of the time, and what they did. Think of how important to us the plastic bag will seem to our society by future anthros and trashologists! Let’s face it, we LOVE the plastic bag! I noticed quite a few here, too, kind of blowing around all over. Gritty-not-pretty photo: $2,500. (Cost $10 to get in and take this photo, so passing along some of the cost to consumers.) Photographer’s note: This may be one of the most important photos in the GNP collection.
7:14 PM. Residual Stratocumulus clouds supply targets for fading sunlight.
Some pie, H-pie: Whereas a modest push of moisture into Tucson and central Pima County was deemed insufficient to produce rain here yesterday, some drops DID fall here producing a trace late yesterday afternoon.
But some areas of the Catalinas got clobbered with White Tail, over there around Sabino Canyon, collecting 2.17 inches (!) and Samaniego Ridge over thisaway, 0.47 inches, the latter from a pile of Cumulus congestus clouds that blossomed into a Cb with a dense rain shaft right before the writer’s eyes. This after he had opined to his wife that he doubted those dark clouds would rain on the western side of the Catalinas…. Hmmmm.
They thundered and rained a plenty, and the wind that came out of that shaft dropped the temperature some 15 degrees here in Sutherland Heights with wind gusts to more than 35 mph. Furthermore, that outflow, spreading out across Oro Valley and parts NW, and went on to launch one new thunderstorm north of Saddlebrooke, which was very nice, of course. Didn’t think that would happen either as very dry air was working its way in already from the SW.
As the clouds massed over Catalina-Sutherland Heights, was returning from a fabulous tour “investigating” the results of 8-12 inches of rain in Jul of the area around Sierra Vista-Fort Huachuca along HWYs 90 and 92 then through Coronado National Memorial Park (about 10 inches fell at Visitor’s Center in July), then over Montezuma Pass (6575 ft) and on to Sonoita.
Holy Smokes was that gorgeous; highly recommended. Traveling down HWY 90, With Stratocumulus topping the green, forested Huachuca Mountains, and the green in the foreground, one thought of Hawaii. Some photos from that trip FYI. It’ll be a LONG time before this happens again! Also, some summer wildflowers are in display as well.
10:12 AM, Sierra Vista.10:20 AM, Sierra Vista. Some kind of flower. I am a cloud maven, not a flower maven.11:13 AM. Entrance sign to the Park, in case you didn’t believe that I went there to see the effects of a lot of rain.11:13 AM. Another view going in, one from the viewpoint of driving on the wrong side of the road for the purpose of startling you, getting your attention here.11:22 AM. Rain gauge at the CNMP Vistior’s Center. I thought you would like to see that. Looks a little too enclosed by vegetation, and unless the rain is falling straight down. If its windy, its likely to under catch the precip. Should be in an opening twice the distance as the nearest high thing, something like that, quite an opening.11:55 AM. View of small Cumulus from the top of Montezuma Pass (elev. 6575 ft) in the CNMP. Temp was 81 F is all.12:07 PM. A view of the Pass environs, with moderate-sized Cumulus clouds. So green.12:24 PM. Another flower of some kind, who knows what? There were a lot of these things on the way down the Pass toward the west.12:56 PM. Hell, its beginning to look like KS here. What is with that? Also, it was disheartening not to see any cars for long stretches, cars likely containing people looking at the effects of historic July rains.4:52 PM. Got back just in time to see this thunderstorm develop. The blast of wind came about ten minutes later. A day doesn’t get better than this one.
5:45 PM. So pretty, this Cumulonimbus northwest of Saddlebrooke resulting from the outflow from the rain shaft shown above.
Hot dry days ahead for awhile, as you know. May have to generate some filler material….
Thought maybe a nice distraction from yesterday’s rain disappointment would be looking at some file boxes from the University of Washington’s Atmos. Sci. basement. This shot taken a couple of days ago.
Enjoy thinking about what might be in these boxes, and what you would do with the contents. Have some extra coffee, talk it over with friends, think about how much you might offer if one of these boxes was something on a quiz show, and you had one thing you knew what it was, but had to take your chances on what might be in one of these boxes1? Or if saw them in storage locker you were bidding on. How much? Lots of possibilities to think about.
———weather part——
You started to get a bad feeling about yesterday, in spite of the juicy clouds on Samaniego Ridge, bases around 15 C, extremely warm for AZ, meaning full of extra condensed water compared to our normal clouds, when the north wind began to blow, and the temperature was struggling to go beyond 80 F.
Usually, when the cloud bases are low, it doesn’t take a LOT of heating to power them up into Cumulonimbus (Cbs) clouds because the condensation itself releases heat. But struggling to reach 82-83 F here was just too little heat.
Late in the afternoon we did have a nice, if weak, Cb on the Cat Mountains (no thunder, of course, it was that weak). They did get half an inch on top of Mt. Lemmon and a couple of other places, so at least SOME rain fell near us.
And, not only did we have the “juice”, high amounts of water in the atmosphere over us, but also a nice cyclonic swirl passed overhead yesterday, too, something we normally look to cluster Cumulonimbus clouds into large groupings with major rains. From the U of WA, you can see it go by here.
To finish off thoughts of yesterday, some mood music to go along with those thoughts, I would like you to now hear covers of “pretty songs” by the Circle Jerks.
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Here are your clouds from yesterday, I know you’ll want to see them again, mope around some more about what could have been. We will begin our review of yesterday’s clouds with today’s morning rainbows:
6:00 AM. Sloping rain shaft tells you that the drops are very large, rain not too heavy.6:02 AM. Bow over the Oro.11:03 AM. Those oh so promising Cumulus congestus clouds lining the Catalinas!4:19 PM. Finally a Cumulus congestus that looked like it would exit the juvenile stage and mature into an adult (Cumulonimbus).4:36 PM. And it did grow up. This is what produced the half inch on Ms. Lemmon.
No real chance of rain now for a few days. Oh, me.
The End.
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From 30 years ago or so…. Wonder what historians would say now?
1Example of a quiz show where you bit on a mystery box if you want, or take the thing that’s offered in front of you.
