“Frog strangler”, folk expression from the South for extra heavy rains, btw, which is what we had, except we have toads, not frogs.
Here’s what I think happened to produce 3.36 inches on Sutherland Heights. The winds were from the east at cloud levels. Cumulus spawned off the Catalinas/Mt Lemmon area, but the wind shear brought the tops over Sutherland Heights about the time they got cold enough to form ice, yesterday around -5° to -10°C (higher than the usual temps for ice formation because the cloud bases were so warm. I know what you’re thinking, “huh?” Take my word for it, that’s the way it works; the warmer the bottom of a cloud, the higher the temperature at which ice forms in it. Of course, over the oceans cloud base temperature doesn’t make that much difference… I better quit here on that.
Where was I? Oh… So, leaning out from the mountains is where they began to dump their loads beginning in mid-morning, when updrafts were likely modest. The first one missed Sutherland Heights altogether (except for a sprinkle, but drenched Oracle Road and the Basha’s area. And, likely because it didn’t rain on the east side of the Catalinas until later, those monster turrets kept spawning upwind of us.
The second in this series was a stronger turret, one that could stand more upright against the wind shear and dropped its load on Sutherland Heights. Indicative of stronger updrafts in that one was the onset of thunder, first aloft, then in ensuing turrets shooting upward, increasing cloud-to-ground strokes until it was unsafe to go outside without the thought of being fried.
And of course, the rainrates picked up, and stayed that way as new turrets launched off the same zone of the Catalina Mountains through mid-afternoon. That in itself was remarkable, and if you looked around, you could see that it wasn’t raining all that much either to the north or south of Catalina, and that the rainshafts faded as they trekked across Oro Valley.
The net result, an incredulous 3.36 inches here (3.37 inches in NWS-style gauge here), bound to raise eyebrows concerning possible rain gauge fraud; nothing like it anywhere in the local area! The ALERT gauge on the Golder Ranch Bridge only had 1.46 inches and Samaniego Peak, 1.93 inches! There will be very few days in our lifetimes like yesterday. Go to rainlog.org to see how amazing our local amount was in comparison to other gauges, once again raising the specter of fraud due to an outlandish amount1.
And, again, it was closer to what a REAL monsoon day in India, say, at Cherrapunji, where passing heavy rains are accompanied by the occasional thunderclap. So, in a sense, yesterday you were climatically transported to a land faraway, where tree roots are so big they make bridges out of them…
Some photos of this event, well, too many, really, after all, too many cloud photos is our niche!:
10:03 AM. The MO for yesterday’s rains in miniature. Cumulus launched off around Mt. Lemmon and leaned out over Sutherland Heights as they rose upward. As the tops got higher over us, ice began to form in them, and, down and out it came. Some of the ice, because cloud bases were so warm (about 60°F, 15° C), probably was frozen raindrops.11:08 AM. Only SPKLS so far, but since tallest part of cloud is over Sutherland Heights, some large drops are almost imminent.11:13 AM. Rain begins in earnest.11:27 AM. Shafts intensifying.11:53 AM. Pretty much out of control, just snapping away at this incredible intensity of rain!11:53 AM. One second later. Haha. It was three seconds later!12:37 PM.2:20 PM.3:16 PM. The CDO wash is full, but not huge, where standing waves a few feet high form (as in the 4+ inch dump of September 2015).4:06 PM. The raging Sutherland Wash. Was making a lot of noise down there, mostly from this area near the Cottonwoods where the wall is. You could hear it probably all over Sutherland Heights if you listened carefully. Was raining lightly at this time, OCNL LTG, too.4:06 PM. Another view of the raging Sutherland Wash, probably near its peak.4:25 PM. The lightning from this once proud Cumulonimbus cloud has ended, and now it is resigned to be lightly raining Nimbostratus or Altostratus, I don’t which, but I what I do know is that its, “cumulonimbogenitus”, “Genitus, of course, being one of the books of the Old Testament Bible–you find information like this that you won’t find on other sites.
The End, of a very hurriedly thrown together piece. Got actual work that must be completed soon, something if you read it, it would be so boring you’d want to shoot yourself before you finished it! Sciency stuff. Oh, well, nose to grindstone now.
Haha, most readers won’t even notice! But maybe some cow-centric, instead of cloud-centric, folks will drop by, raising the worth of this blog to above $35 if sold….that according to a “biz” site.
Had a rainbow yesterday. Hope you noticed. It was pretty early and overhead west. I think the clouds did not have ice in them. The rain echoes were not showing up on the radar, suggesting the beam went over the tops. Sounding suggested tops might have been as cool as -5°C. In any case, the drops were able to tip the bucket a couple of more times, and along with yesterday afternoon’s brief, light rain showers our total has climbed to 0.37 inches for the storm. Not bad, though as in money, you always want more.
These storm breakup days are always our prettiest, and that’s often what this site is about, being pretty. Yesterday had some fabulous scenes; couldn’t stop shuttering cam. It is a real neurotic compulsive behavior pattern, as afflicts some of us cloud and storm-centric folk. Check Mr. Olbinsky’s work; his work goes beyond phenomenal whether you want a wedding photographer or want to see a storm chasing video. But it takes that kind of eccentric energy to be special, to stand out as he does.
Here, though, we let the storms and cloud scenes, such as they are, hope for the best, and let them come to us…. Kind of a lazy storm chaser’s attitude.
5:49 AM. I really do think this rain came out of clouds that had no ice…maybe 70% sure.6:27 AM. Stratus fractus springing to life as Cumulus clouds lining the sides of Sam Ridge (Samaniego). Showed how much instability, the ease of which the slightly warmer air in these clouds could jut upward yesterday6:49 AM. Just pretty and so green after the rain.6:50 AM. Same scene, focusing in on a highlight.7:01 AM. More prettiness in a highlighted baby turret.7:01 AM. In case you missed it, here it is again, a little zoomed.9:03 AM. Rise of the Cumulonimbus capillatus incus (has anvil). This scene had a lot of portent for the day. You knew more would be forming, maybe drift over us later.9:33 AM. I thought this was a pretty neat scene, though its just a cloud shadow lining up with the rise of the Catalina Mountains.9:36 AM. Hmmmm. What the HECK is happening now? Low center was off in the direction, headed for us, with still cooler air aloft. But where are the Cumulonimbus clouds that should come with it? (They formed rapidly, but later.)2:23 PM. By mid-afternoon, things were swell all around, lots of Cumulonimbus clouds. They seemed to fade, though, as they marched toward Catalinaland, as this complex did. The rather sharp line in the lower part of the photo, and beyond which you can see distant clouds, is where the melting level was. This is often appears to be the “cloud base” but its really not in the sense of having cloud droplets. If you were to fly in it, all you would see is rain and melting snow just below this line, and just snowflakes above it. If the whole sky was covered in this, we’d call it Nimbostratus, and say the base was at that melting level.3:42 PM. Another pretty major band appears to be headed this way, rotating around that low center, shifting northward. Didn’t make it.6:35 PM. Somewhat promising that a nice dark line and heavy shafts were out there, thinking they might shift northward again. Nope. Fizzled.
Still cold aloft, so having some nice Cumulus today is in the bag, the early Stratocumulus devolving into Cu, that is.
One passed over at 9:19 AM with a hard multi-second, surprise rain shower. One person reported a couple of graupel, or soft hail particles. Tipped the bucket, too; 0.01 added to our Sutherland Heights storm total. Its now at 0.23 inches. Of course, there was no damage, but putting that word in a title might draw “damage trollers”, increase blog hits….
The rest of the day was clouds withering, getting mashed down on tops as bases rose and tops settled back, then suddenly, about 3:30 PM, small areas of ice crystals began to show up in a couple of spots, and, boy, did things take off after that. Tops were lifting to higher temperatures, likely due to an approaching trough, one that otherwise is too dry to do much else.
Honest to goodness cold, wintertime Cumulonimbus clouds formed, though not very deep ones. Probably of the order of 2-3 km thick is all (eyeball estimate).
But with our cold air aloft, tops were well below -20° C (4° F), lots of ice formed in them and produced streamers of ice and virga across the sky, and in tiny areas, the precip got to the ground.
And with “partly cloudy” conditions, there were lots of gorgeous, highlighted scenes around the mountains.
Let us review yesterday’s clouds and weather and not think about the future too much, starting with an afternoon balloon sounding temperature and dew point profile from IPS MeteoStar:
The Tucson balloon sounding (“rawinsonde” in weatherspeak) launched about 3:30 PM yesterday. Takes about an hour to reach 60,000 feet, but goes higher. Cloud bases were just about at the top of Ms. Mt. Lemmon. Tops were only around 18,000 feet above sea level, but were extremely cold for such small clouds. Hence, they were only about 9,000 feet thick at their maximum.
So what do clouds look like when they have tops as cold as -28°Ç?
Well, I really didn’t get a good profile shot of those clouds, they were either too close, obscured by other clouds, or too faraway, so instead let us look at two dogs looking at something as a distraction:
4:11 PM. Dogs observing a plethora of glaciating Cumulus clouds, transitioning to Cumulonimbus.
Well, let’s start this when the ice first appeared in a cloud, much later in time than what was thought here yesterday morning. If you logged this “first ice” you are worthy of a merit, a star on your baseball cap:
3:24 PM. FIrst ice of the day, finally, spotted on the SW and WSW horizon in two little areas. The file size is huge so that you can see it for yourself. I had just about given up on ice in clouds, Notice, too, how small the clouds are at this time.
Well, while flawed from a cloud profile sense, here’s what they were looking at, it was the best I could do:
4:19 PM. Note sunlit shower reaching the ground. The hazy stuff is ice crystals, a lot of them all over the place.4:22 PM. A close up in case you don’t believe me that the rain was reaching the ground. I sometimes find that credibility is lacking here.4:39 PM. Eventually a cluster of precipitating clouds developed near the Catalina Mountains and here are dropping snow and graupel trails.
Let us go zooming:
4:39 PM. Shaft up close. That dark, narrow line in the middle is without doubt a soft hail (graupel) strand. THere might be others, but this one is obvious. The “verticality” is due to faster falling particles comprising that strand, which graupel are because they are ultimately snowflakes that have captured cloud droplets on the way down, making them much heavier than just a snowflake.4:45 PM. Just light snow falling out here on the Catalinas, no real “verticality” in this shaft, which would be a sign of graupel falling out.4:46 PM. An opening allowed this zoomed cross section of a cold, wintertime Cumulonimbus (capillatus) cloud streaming a shield of ice and virga downwind. On the left sloping-upward part, the Cumulus turrets still contain liquid droplets (have that ruffled, hard look associated with the higher concentrations that go with droplet clouds compared to all ice clouds). Sometimes, in spite of the low temperature, here, from the sounding the top is likely approaching the minimum temperature of -28°C, droplets can still survive for a short time before freezing, giving way to lower concentrations of ice crystals. That appears to be the case here at the tippy top. of the cloud in the back What is interesting here, an enigma, is that the foreground cloud in front of the cloud I was just discussing, is clearly all ice from the smallest element to its top and mimics the cross section of the background cloud. Could it be that its simply older and ice generated in the colder regions has permeated the whole cloud?
Below, diagrammed:
Same photo with writing on it since the written explanation didn’t seem very satisfactory.5:07 PM. Graupel in the Gap (the Charouleau one). Well, maybe its a little beyond the Gap, but it sounded good to write that.. This started to fall out of a Cumulus congestus transitioning to a Cumulonimbus. The first particles out the bottom are always the heaviest, hence, graupel or hail.
Looking elsewhere, there are snow showers everywhere!
5:08 PM. Nice shafting over there near Romero Canyon. Pretty straight up and down, so likely has a lot of small graupel in it.5:08 PM. Looking down Tucson way, this is NOT a graupel shaft, but rather gently falling large snowflakes.. Sure the particles are large, but look at how they’re just kind of hanging there getting mixed around by a little turbulence, almost forming a mammatus look. There are likely aggregates of dendrites, fern-like ice crystals that grow like mad around -15° C, and because of being complex forms, often lock together when they collide. Its not unusual to have 20 or more single stellar. dendritic crystals locked into a single snowflake. Where the bottom disappears, likely around 3000 feet above sea level, is where those big aggregates are melting into rain drops.5:10 PM. Interrupting the tedium with a nice neighborhood lighting scene as a sun poked between clouds. We’re not completely cloud-centric here, but close.5:26 PM. This strange scene of a very shallow snow cloud, completely composed of ice and snow, obscuring the tops of the Catalinas, but being very shallow, hardly above them may explain the cross section enigma. The snow cloud here is all that remains of a much deeper cloud that converted to all ice, then those crystals just settling out, the whole cloud dropping down as a snow flurry. It may well have been as deep as the cloud top on the left or higher before converting to ice and just falling to the ground “en masse.” Or is it, “en toto“? What makes this odd is that there is usually some “cloud ice” (ice particles too small to have much fall velocity) at the level from which the precip fell from. You don’t see that here; just a belt of light snow. Maybe this is why there was that shallow, glaciated cloud in the Cumulonimbus cross section shot….. That shalllow cloud was not a new portion, but rather a tail dragger like this stuff, once having been much higher and was actually ice settling out, not new rising, glaciated cloud. From the back side, you can see that this ice cloud would appear to slope up if viewed from the east instead of the west like our cross section iced out cloud. Setting a record for hand waving today. IS anybody still out there? I don’t think so. Maybe I need another dog picture….5:34 PM. Here’s the last of that unsual snow cloud as its last flakes settled to the ground.
The day concluded with a very nice sunset:
5:53 PM. Sunset color with shafts of snow turning to rain down Tucson way.
Now, the long dry spell… Break through flow from the Pacific under the “blocking high” eventually happens about a week away now, but more and more looks like that flow might stay too far to the north of us, rather blast northern Cal some more, and not bring precip this far south. The blocking high needs to be in the Gulf of AK, but now is being foretold to be much farther north…
The End, gasping for air here. More like a treatise than a quick read!
A few more hundredths fell after 7 AM yesterday, boosting our storm total to a remarkable 1.42 inches, January now about twice our long-term average.
Here’s what all that precip did to our beloved Cañada del Oro Wash:
3:53 PM. The CDO in full flow at East Wilds Road, road closed.
Yesterday’s clouds
8:04 AM. A Stratocumulus overcast with areas of virga and light rain showers began the day.
After a few more hundredths of rain, the skies broke open, and as we know well, some of our most spectacular scenes occur under deep blue skies punctuated by puffy Cumulus clouds, shadows and highlights on our now snow-capped Catalina Mountains.
10:36 AM. Cumulus clouds race toward Catalina borne on brisk west winds. In looking at this scene you can feel them coming at you.10:36 AM. Deeper clouds capable of producing ice and precip still lay to the SSW of us.11:19 AM. Heavy Cumulus line the Catalinas, spewing ice farther downwind. Glinting rocks highlight the scene.1:38 PM. Coming at you. The south end of the Tortolita Mountains is a common formation point in westerly and northwesterly flows for cloud street development, a line of clouds that stays in the same place, but elements are replaced.1:38 PM. The end of this cloud street shows that its tops got high enough to form a little ice, seen by that veil like cloud coming out the downwind end.2:57 PM. Samaniego Ridge and its new coating.3:06 PM. Cloud streets continuing to stream off the Tortolita Mountains, but are now half the depth they were 2 h ago. No ice will form now.3:48 PM. “Devil’s Post Pile” to the left of Samaniego Peak catches a sun break.4:01 PM. Last of the Tort cloud streets, shallower yet (estimated depth, 1000-1500 feet) is about to fade into oblivion, wherever that is.
In the meantime, more highlights on Sam Ridge:
4:50 PM. So pretty!4:50. Drawing back a bit for perspective on the scene.
Finally, that incredible sunset afterglow on our mountains:
5:46 PM. I hope we never take such sights as yesterday’s for granted.
The End.
Oops, oh yeah, storm tomorrow, supposed to begin in mid-day to afternoon hours. Looks like a third of an incher. Also looks to be a bit colder than the last storm, may see a flake or two by Tuesday morning.
Catalinans experienced a FOURTH cloudy day in a row, and, over the past few days, including yesterday’s few drops that fell at 4:24 PM, have experienced over an inch of rain!
Some grumbling has started concerning muddy, pot-holed and puddled up dirt roads, about the washes running across roads lately, water and mud splashing on the car day after day, and brutally low temperatures dipping to well below 50° degrees in the morning now for several days in a row. Its 40° F here as I write this.
While a brief respite is in progress now, Catalinans were discouraged to learn that more strong storms are due in this weekend, bringing possibly damaging winds and heavy rains that will augment the poor road conditions.
How much rain?
Let us look below and see how much has been calculated by our best model at the University of Arizona’s Wildcat Hydro and Atmos Sci Dept (I am so glad they provide this service; I donate to the Dept, as we all should!):
Precip totals by 8 PM, January 23rd after a few storms have gone by. As you can see lots of red and yelleows in Arizona’s critical mountain regions for snowpack, and we’re in the inch or so of rain, pretty much like the amount produced here by the last storm. What a January this is turning out to be!
Hah! We can’t complain too much about inclement weather compared to California’s pluvialities. Here is a table and map of precip amounts for that State through just the first 14 days. Prepare to gasp:
A map and table of the highest 20 rainfall totals in California and Nevada just through January 14th. Astounding! And 10-20 inches more are expected at some of these sites before the month is out. Yep, by Jan 14th, one station was closing in on 40 inches of rain!
The remarkable aspect of this rainfall anomaly on the West Coast and in the Southwest, which is also quite wet, is that it could not be seen in climate forecasts days to a couple of weeks in advance. Its not that the folks at the Climate Prediction Center aren’t the best that we can get, its just a statement about how hard it is to get a longer term forecast right. Many are right, but lately, recalling the “Big Niño Bust of 2015-16” where the forecasts of a wet Southwest and central and southern California went terribly awry, those forecasts have taken a beating. Here’s what was expected this winter by the CPC, first, for January, a forecast made on the last day of December. when the forecast models we use day to day would have had some influence:
The precipitation forecast for January 2017 by the CPC.
As can be seen, the extreme rains that hit California, and our own well above normal precip, though on the doorstep on December 31st, were unforeseen. That’s how tough it is.
Below, the forecast for January through March, also going astray, though a recovery could be had by a very dry Feb and March in Cal and the Southwest, something not likely to happen now.
Below, the forecast for the three month period of January through March, also now going astray.
Glad I’m not forecasting for a month or three months! Gads, yesterday we had ice galore here and there, and I had predicted that morning that it was doubtful that ice could form in our clouds yeserday and how about that rainbow yesterday afternoon, to change the subject quickly, but smoothly; hardly a ripple, something gleaned from the election debates:
4:59 PM. A rainbow, an implicit indicator of ice in clouds yesterday. There was a lot in some areas, particularly over the Catalinas in the late afternoon.
Some additional views, including a horse, which should increase web traffic:
Horse, muddy corral, and supporting rainbow evidence for why the corral is muddy. Horse “Chero-key”: “Why is that rainbow on my butt?”Rainbow empties into a NWS-style, 8-inch diameter rain gauge. Real weathermen have real rain gauges, not the cheap plastic toy types. Just kidding, CoCo and rainlog, orgs that use cheap plastic toy-type gauges. Just kidding again, CoCo and rainlog. orgs.5:09 PM. Here a completely different rainbow, because I moved a few feet, and the rain drops in the prior bows have fallen to the ground, empties into yet another 8-inch diameter rain gauge, a tipping bucket one which is online at KAZCATAL4. Its been under-measuring the rain, however, for some time.
OK, now for the rest of the day, your daily cloud diary:
8:09 AM. You got yer normal TUS exiting smog plume heading for Mark Albright’s house in Continental Ranch over there on the right. There is some Stratus fractus in that plume as well. The damp air has caused some of the hygroscopic particles to swell up; be deliquesced, which increases the opacity of smog. Such an effect is particularly bad on the East Coast ahead of cold fronts when warm, humid, smog-laden air is brought northward ahead of fronts. Gads, its awful. Even when the sky is cloudless, you can hardly tell its blue! Above the smog, Stratocumulus.9:36 AM. Had evidence of a little smog up thisaway, too. Again, the whitish haze is due to deliquesced partilces. As the air dries out and the day warms up, this effect disappears. even though the aerosol particles that were “deliquesced” are still around. The Five Satins, “Still Around.” Gads, that takes me back a-ways when I was 2 inches taller than now….10:10 AM. Smog plume, as sometimes happens, begins to drift northward as the mountains start launching Cumulus clouds and cause the wind to move toward them. Can’t say too much about the central cloud feature, a gesture of some kind it would appear.10:27 AM. Nice lighting scene I thought. Cumulus turrets were rocketing upward at this time.1:48 PM. Not much going on. Underlying Cumulus bases lifted, some Cumulus spreading out adding to the slightly higher general Stratocumulus deck. No ice around, as was forecast.3:02 PM. Something is going terribly WRONG with the anticipation of no ice producing clouds yesterday. Rain begins to fall on the Catalinas.3:20 PM. A totally humiliating, completely glaciated tiny Cumulonimbus remains breaks into view from the Stratocumulus deck. On the other hand. another fascinating day of ice multiplication here in Arizona! Look at that little guy, all ice, and tops almost certainly warmer than about -12° C from sounding data. This would mean that those 10s to hundreds per liter of ice that you’re looking at are needles and hollow column ice crystals called “sheaths.” Man, I wanted to sample that cloud so bad! What happened to cause this cloud was that at one point its top got a couple of degrees Celsius colder than the surrounding clouds that did not produce ice. Rain was reaching the ground at this time o er there even though it is in the dissipating stage, too.3:43 PM. In the meantime, the showers emitting from the clouds over the Catalinas were getting more enthusiastic (read, “personally insulting”). No doubt if you could get on top, they would have looked exactly like that dissipating Cb shown above.
But, then there were some great sun and lighting scenes in those showers, not to mention the brilliant rainbow that was to come:
4:47 PM. Its a little crazy, I know, but I just love these rainy, sunlit scenes on our mountains, or those sun and shadow scenes that I post so many of. Just never will get tired of them.4:51. More of same. Notice inclusion of man-sized rain gauge in foreground. Its a nice touch if you, too, have one, which I hope you do. It really says who you are.
What a gorgeous day yesterday was with deep blue skies dotted with Cumulus and one or two shallow Cumulonimbus, highlighted by our snow-capped Catalina Mountains. After the brief warm up, more storms ahead for Catalina!
Yesterday’s clouds
10:23 AM. By this time Cumulus were popping up all over, and with the temperature at just 10,000 feet above sea level (7,000 feet above Catalina) cloud mavens everywhere were pretty sure ice would eventually form in lots of Cumulus.10:24 AM. Shallow Cumulus congestus (left side) converting into an equally shallow Cumulonimbus capillatus (right half of cloud). This scene from a fairly primitive area of Arizona.10:26 AM. Pretty scene over Saddlebrooke.10:37 AM. Ice, there it is. Even shallow clouds spewed ice crystals and or small snowflakes (clusters of individual ice crystals.
Explanatory module below
The TUS balloon sounding, launched at about 3:30 AM yesterday morning from the campus of the University of Arizona Wildcats.10:27 AM. Wintry scene #1, view toward the Charouleau Gap, and why do the French make spelling so hard?11:04 AM. “Ice, there it is!”, to paraphrase a song from “In Living Color.”11:12 AM. Wintry scene #2. View is toward the Charouleau Gap.11:12 AM. Icy, but shallow Cumulonimbus cloud heads toward Catalina spewing a light rain shower and soft hail called “graupel.”11:44 AM. Wintry scene #3.12:32 PM. Not an advertisement for the University of Washington Huskies sports powerhouse, but rather a demonstration and graupel did, in fact, fall from our shallow Cumulonimbus clouds yesterday. BTW, the Washington Huskies play the NFL-ready, #1 Alabama Crimson Tide on New Year’s Eve at 1 PM AST in a fubbal playoff game. It would be great if you watched, raising viewer numbers, and possibly therein, the revenue stream flwoing into the University of Washington (from which I emanated). Oh, there appears to be a conical graupel there on the left. Graupel falling through a cloud of droplets often stays oriented with one face down, and that face collects all droplets that are freezing on it making that downward facing side, as you would imagine, bigger than the rear part, and so you get a pyramidal-shaped piece of soft ice. If it mainly tumbled on the way down through the cloud, it would be pretty spherical. That white streak on the right is one that’s falling.11:12 AM. Another ice producing candidate forms in cloud street aligned with Catalina. Couple of drops is all that came out of this.3:18 PM. Very shallow, ice-producing clouds. Few in the area had ice at this point in the afternoon, and a very tedious inspection of these clouds, comparing them with surrounding clouds, suggested that their tops were just a bit higher than the ones around it that did not spew a little ice.The TUS balloon sounding launched at 3:30 PM AST, also with writing on it.5:06 PM. Wintry scene #4 Pretty, eh?5:32 PM. Stratocumulus with red liner. Nice.
After the brief warm up ahead, still looks “troughulent” and stormy in the SW as December closes out, continuing into January.
Here are the latest 24 h totals, ending this morning the 23rd at 3 AM AST from your Pima County ALERT gauge network. Our own amount over this period is embedded for comparison purposes:
Gauge 24 Name Location ID# hours —- —- —- —- —- —- —————– ——————— Catalina Area 1010 0.71 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.83 Oracle Ranger Station approximately 0.5 mi SW of Oracle 1040 0.87 Dodge Tank Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.59 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 mi W of Charouleau Gap 1060 1.10 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 mi NE of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.79 Cargodera Canyon NE corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.79 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash NE of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.67 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Rd
xxxx 0.58 Sutherland Heights, Catalina
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 1.14 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 mi N of Rice Peak 1090 1.34 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 1.22 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 mi S of Coronado Camp 1130 0.87 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.79 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.71 White Tail Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.71 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.35 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Marshall Gulch
Yesterday, with it many twists and turns, with that significant rain overnight providing a happy, moist beginning. Then, there was a sad middle of the day when two windshifts passed, the second a major, long-lived one one bringing a substantial drop in temperature and fronted by a dramatic arcus cloud, but there was no rain to speak of with either……at first.
Then the surprise, the unlikely resolution of the sad middle of the day just as a dismal clearing advanced from the west: a highly unusual thunderama and cloud burst beginning at 1 PM, one gushing a half an inch of rain in 18 min! This, just when it looked like a total dud was certain from the passage of that front. That “TRW++” (weather text for an extra heavy thunderstorm), provided the happy ending, thus making it a day truly out of Hallmark. The total rain was 0.58 inches, with the three day total at 1.03 inches! Yay, flower help! Rain table at bottom.
Though it was late December and at the winter solstice, the breezy 63° F damp air yesterday morning made it feel like you had awakened from your long vacation flight and found yourself in Hawaii or Miami. It was a truly remarkable, even a joyful feeling.
With that strong upper low WAY off to the southwest of us yesterday morning, and moving right this way, you KNEW that the rain wasn’t over, that thought adding to the joy of yesterday’s early morning. 0.34 inches had fallen mostly during the night before, adding to the humid feel.
Too, yesterday morning’s joy had a withering effect on all those dry weeks that had preceded these past few days with measurable rain, maybe even withering the hard feelings that remain in many of us about those disappointing Big Niño forecasts of a wet Southwest last year. You were finally beginning to feel that you could let go of those hard, grinding, grudge-holding feelings you had against weather forecasters, the ones that misled us so much last year about the Big Winter in the Southwest due to the Big Niño, a record Niño, they told us, indeed, a “Godzilla Niño.” Then, what followed was, “The Big Winter that Didn’t Happen.” And it will be years before we get another Big Niño!
But, let us move on from that tirade to current events; you can see that I am personally completely over the hard feelings of last year’s disappointing forecasts and have moved ahead, as we need to do in life…
Now, finally (!), for yesterday’s clouds, so fantastic in all their presentations and drama, that one really could finally forget the busted Big Niño forecasts of last year2:
Oh, yeah, the cloud diary for yesterday, probably more than you need to know, but, what the heck:
7:56 AM. A shower complex heads north toward Catalina, only to graze the city.7:57 AM. Stratocumulus clouds topped Sam (Samaniego) Ridge as that shower approached, the lower bases telling you how humid the air was. Dewpoints were in the low 50s!8:04 AM. Gettin’ closer, gettin’ pumped for a nice rain blast in tropical air!8:22 AM. That complex of rain mostly slud off to the east of us, as so many have this year. However, note the lack of good shafting, just rainy areas that are a little thicker and thinner. This tells you that they’re really not Cumulonimbus clouds, but rather shallow ones not having strong updrafts. Earlier, it appeared to be a complex with a Cumulonimbus in it, and in that case, you would see strong shafting. Wonderfully dismal scene, I suppose to those of you with normal sky values; sunny and blue are just fine. Those of you with sky values like that might just as well get the HELL off this page right now! There’s a lot more dismality ahead, except maybe for the next couple of photos…10:24 AM. Sky breaking out more and more, probably some non-cloud maven people exulting over the clearing. But, it was still moist and humid, and no real windshift had occurred, something that woud presage descending air behind it, and a true clearing. Indeed, true cloud maven folk were exulting over the clearing since with the low aloft approaching, some warming of the ground might lead to real Cumulonimbus clouds while the air aloft was cooling! In this photo are Cumulus humilis and fractus (down low, darkish cloudlets) a riff of Altocumulus castellanus (indicating mid-level instability) and above those, a separate layer of Altocumulus with ripples (“undulatus”), and maybe Cirrocumulus adjacent to the higher Ac clouds. A Cu fattening on calories of sunlight can be seen on the horizon, center. I hope I can be done with this cloud story before dark today….10:22 AM. Here we go! A line of Cumulus congestus and “soft-serve” Cumulonimbus clouds HAS to be associated with a windshift line. Its got to come through Catalina. This view is looking to the NW. Such a band is likely to extend to the SW from here, and beyond the SW horizon, so you won’t see it yet over there. Altocumulus perlucidus clouds overlay Catalina at this time along with a few puffs of Cumulus fractus. Its still humid.11:44 AM. Pretty scene of course, but look carefully on the horizon below the bases of the clouds and you will see arc-shaped clouds curving back toward the NW. This view is to the SW. Those arc-shaped clouds are that windshift line where air converges to form a line of clouds as was seen in the prior photo. Too many intervening clouds prevent seeing a line here, but as a cloud maven junior or expert, you know there will be a LINE! We hope to have a lot of good testimonials at the next club concerning who saw these arched clouds first. Right here, you KNEW something dramatic was about to happen to the sky, and almost certainly something to your rain gauge as well.12:25 PM. Here it comes across the OV! No telling how many inches we might get! (However, the shafting looks weak.. Not congruent with big “Cumulonims” with good updrafts in them….so some doubt beginning to creep in.)12:31 PM. I feel like I am in Louisiana or Alabama awaiting a cold front. This was SUCH a dramatic scene, I know, like me, you were having a hard time constraining yourselves; not running to tell neighbors about it.12:32 PM. Zooming in on a fantastic scene for Arizona! Camera can’t fire fast enough! I was getting light-headed here.12:39 PM. The windshift to the NW has passed the house, the temperature is dropping like mad, but those arched clouds above the windshift are getting pretty ragged. And where’s the rain? Pretty scene, though.12:45 PM. Within a few minutes, a few hundredths of an inch fell, propelled on gusty NW winds, but then it quit, the low clouds banked up harmlessly against the Catalinas, which still had sun on them! This was looking really bad. No rain was in sight, either. Pretty scene, though. We don’t want to lose sight of beauty when its in front us, even when we’re getting sad about the turn of developments, which in a Hallmark movie would be that point when the owner of the building that a bakery or flower shop is in, says he has to lick them out because he has sold the building. Yep, that’s how bad it looked right at this point.12:50 PM. The arcus clouds and wind shift had moved in from the west, and so this clearing out there HAD to be approaching, the day’s rain likely over. I can only imagine how glum you all were out there in seeing this abyssal scene, “sunny skies just ahead”, spoken sarcastically.12:53 PM. The Stratus clouds now hung even lower, as though wanting you to touch their empty innards, a truly humiliating scene. I have never seen such vacant clouds, so filled with portent only minutes before. This was, indeed the low point of the day. The sun would soon burn them off.1:02 PM. Just after the most amazing thing; a blast of THUNDER overhead E or SE, And, it was starting to rain! But here you can see lower clouds (Stratus or Cumulus fractus) that are separate from a higher layer (top). So, where the HECK was the Cumulonimbus?1:09 PM. Heart of the blast; visibility is less than a quarter mile, thunder, close to overhead it seemed, had become more frequent, once every minute to two, unheard in winter storms. This winter storm, on the solstice, was almost exactly the intensity of our summer ones. Completely out of control here snapping photos of nothing but rain, hoping camera battery doesn’t give out. But, then I know I would have had company with all of the CMJ’s out there losing your minds over this as well. What a day, Mr. and Mrs. Catalina! Is this what “global warming” has ahead for us, as one Arizona scientist mused? Summer-like storms in the heart of winter? Maybe it would be so bad…. Hardest rain I’d seen here in nine winters.1:18 PM. A few hundred photos, 18 min, and a half an inch of rain later, I ventured out to see what was the result. Here, ponding had occurred in a swale following the gush. Considering the warmish nature of the rain, would toads now re-emerge along with flying ants?4:42 PM. One of the rewards of clearing skies, are the quilted-with-sunlight mountains sides of the Catalinas.4:43 PM. While plump Cumulus clouds and dark skies abounded, these clouds no longer reached the level where ice could form, and were “dry” clouds as far as precip goes.4:51 PM. Highlight toward the Gap.5:16 PM. More evening color; note rain gauge. Such a pretty scene!
The End
New storm marches toward Catalina! Due in tomorrow afternoon.
1Meteorologists, outside of Buffalo and Seattle, have inverted values regarding clear and cloudy.
2I hope we get 30 inches THIS water year, dammitall, busting this year’s seasonal forecasts of a dry Southwest.
Doesn’t happen every November, thunder, but it sure pounded away at times yesterday. Seemed louder than usual thunder a few times even with the lightning over there by the Tortolita Mountains. Of course, that’s where the heaviest rain fell as several T-storms tracked along a similar path over there just a little to the W through N of us, Bio2, in one of the heavier cloberations receiving 1.17 inches.
Here, in The Heights, we received a disappointing, but nevertheless welcomed final total of 0.24 inches. This brings our total here in Sutherland Heights for November up to 0.60 inches. Average is 0.96 inches1. Here, the regional totals as the storm was coming to an end:
“Us” is here in the Sutherland Heights; “Them” is Bio2. Wanted to reflect the general world situation now days by using oft used cliché terms.
As is proper, let us begin examining the nubilations of our storm by looking at those clouds that preceded the actual rain day yesterday.
7:02 AM. This pretty sunrise over the Catalina features a couple of flakes of Altocumulus clouds, and a vast layer of Altostratus.7:04 AM. Yes, the sun is coming up, though really its the earth rotating toward the sun. The sun does not go around the earth every day; it only SEEMS that way. We’re looking at the same two cloud generas, btw. Nice rays produced by pretty regular humps in clouds over the horizon, a little row of Altocumulus castellanus might cause these rays/shadows.7:05 AM. This was pretty interesting, to use “pretty” again. This would be an Altostratus mammatus. Men often find this formation especially interesting and pretty. Here you can also see how a cloud protuberance can produce a shadow. But why is there only one feature like this? Typically mammatus are like upside down Cumulus turrets representing downward moving cloudy, in this case, air filled with ice crystals). Adjacent to this feature, the ice crystals and snowflakes are just settling out. As the moving downward air in mammatus features slows, these breast-like globules open up and you’ll have ordinary virga. The ice crystals are typically rather small and not rimed (that is, have not collided with cloud droplets) or they would fall out and not be constrained to this pretty, rounded shape.7:07 AM. The underside of the Altostratus is lit up, showing the detailed areas of virga. Altostratus, by definition, is a precipitating cloud. Its just that the bases are too high for the precip (snow) to get to the ground, though sprinkles could occur in the thicker, deeper versions. When and if it starts to rain steadily, the cloud is better termed a “Nimbostratus,”11:20 AM. The Altostratus deck departed with its pretty mammatus and virga, leaving great examples of Altocumulus opacus clouds most of the morning and into the early afternoon.3:24 PM. An example of Altostratus translucidues doesn’t get better than this. Hope you captured it. The As (abbrev. for “Altostratus”) cloud over took over by mid-afternoon as the moist layer deepened again following the Altocu. Tops of this all ice Altostratus layer, in spite of being able to make out (“discern,” not “make out” in the social sense of the phrase–still thinking about that mammatus formation) the sun’s position, are usually around Cirrus levels, the top of the troposphere. The TUS sounding suggested “bases” (actually where the ice crystals are evaporating rather than droplets that comprise the bases of Cumulus, Altocumulus or other droplet clouds) at 14,000 feet ASL, and tops around 34,000 feet ASL Subtract about 3 kft to get heights above the ground here in Catalina.
Moving ahead to yesterday…..
7:13 AM. With an approaching upper level trough and big low center in the Great Basin, the winds had become gusty, and the clouds had lowered to Stratocumulus status, topping the Catalinas. I thought the lighting was really pretty here, and that shaft out there shows that turrets are climbing shooting up well beyond the general tops of the shallow Stratocu. Pretty exciting since it meant that the tops of other Stratocu might bunch into other Cumulonimbus clouds, which is what that shaft tells you.8:18 AM. A line of Cumulonimbus quickly erupted and it looked like it was about to crash into the Oro Valley Catalina area, but instead stayed to the west over the Tortolitas. Thunder heard!8:19 AM. Looking WNW toward the Tortolitas.9:27 AM. As some light showers passed along the Catalinas, this pretty scene the sun broke through. Note the glistening rocks that added such pretty highlights.9:28 AM. Pretty nice over toward the Gap, too! I will never get tired of these scenes!11:12 AM. Disappointingly, in view of all the rain predicted here (0.575 inches) that first line of Cumulonimbus clouds stayed stayed west of Catalina. But, that line of Cumulus or Stratocumulus clouds on the horizon is full of stormy portent, that a windshift line might be about to strike and generate another line of Cumulonimbus clouds. Any solid line of clouds like that, kind of by itself, suggests a windshift; it more than just a fair weather “cloud street.”11:11 AM. Zooming in on that line of clouds. Its fun to zoom, since you are in a way, flying toward what you’re looking at, getting so much closer! I wish that line of clouds was here already!
11:27 AM. Yep, there it goes, fattening upward into Cumulus congestus and to the N, Cumulonimbus clouds! This one will surely blast across Catalina as the upper trough and associated cold front approach; heck, maybe that’s the cold front windshift line and temprature drop right there!11:27 AM. Yep, there it goes, fattening upward into Cumulus congestus and to the N, Cumulonimbus clouds! This one will surely blast across Catalina as the upper trough and associated cold front approach; heck, maybe that’s the cold front windshift line and temprature drop right there! Repeated for emphasis.11:29 AM. A Cumulonimbus cloud is a bit farther north in this line. This HAS to be the windshift and cold front!11:46 AM. Was inside for a few minutes (18) and that cloud line just exploded over there. Here looking again toward the Tortolitas. But surely they will wall out and crash the sunny party in Oro Valley (I was thinking).11:52 AM. Well, these followup Cumulonimbus clouds aren’t looking so great, no evidence of strong turreting, weak and leaning, wispy, frail, “indolent”, cloud “couch potatoes.” Hope fading for a big shafting here in The Heights12:12 PM. The cloud line, as expected is progressing across Oro Valley, but shafting is meager. Its real windy, though, adding some drama. Gusts to 40 mph! Note however the weak shafting, as evidenced by a slope across the whole thing; no heavy, large particles falling out of this guy as we see in those vertical summer shafts. Indicates that the tops are getting very high, producing lots of condensate. So even here, with a nice dramatic scene, you’re thinking (to put words in your brain) that its going to be a disappointment in rain production, and you might be missed altogether!12:24 PM. It was pretty much all over 12 min later, that is, the chances for a real shafting. A well formed Cumulus congestus base formed just upwind of Catalina, but as so many do, slipped a little east before reaching Cumulonimbus stage and unloaded on the Catalina foothills NE of Catalina. Sometime, when clouds like this are overhead and show no precip, it just can dump out of the black. But, it didn’t happen yesterday. By now, the wind had shifted, the temperature was falling, and soon, the light to briefly moderate rain fell as the cold front went by.1:14 PM. By this time, you could pick up a couple of nice photos of just Stratocumulus clouds following the passage of the front. Here we see some indications of mammatus formations (upper center, right) in a droplet cloud, an extremely rare event since droplets evaporate so much faster in downward moving air that the pouches represent. One can surmise that those pouches may have contained higher amounts of liquid water, and the downdrafts were very slight. OK, so we’re kind of fixated on mammatus today…. No apologies; I’m just a man.
The great thing about yesterday was that because the upper trough lagged so much behind the cold front, you could be sure it wasn’t over, that is, the rain chances. In fact, as the wind turns aloft from a southerly or southwesterly direction to a more westerly one, we here in Catalina have a better chance of having the clouds pile up over us, even if they’re not full fledged Cumulonimbus clouds, they can still reach depths where they precipitate while upwind, they don’t because they may not be deep enough. The Catalina Mountains provides the lift that helps do this, and we saw that happen later in the afternoon and evening when it began to rain again long after the cold front and it so-so rain band went by.
3:06 PM. Starting to look more favorable for rain and the clouds began to cluster after the boring spell of Stratocumulus except for the brief display of pretty mammatus. The air aloft was getting a little colder, too, helping the Cumulus clouds deepen upward in spite of cool temperatures following the front. This view is looking upwind to pal Mark Albright’s house there in Continental Ranch, Marana. Mark is a fellow U of WA research meteorologist, though he hasn’t thrown in the towel yet, is still working.3:34 PM. Even as the clouds filled in and the light showers began, some pretty highlights were observed where the sun peaked through holes in the overcast. Here, Eagle Crest to the north of The Heights is spotlighted. If you are a resident of Eagle Crest and you would like a copy of this photo entitled, “Spotlight on Eagle Crest”, you can get one today for $1200, If you call now, you can get two for $2400.5:25 PM. FInally, as the light rain fell, adding a few more hundredths to our total, sunset occurred! You can see it WAS raining by the drop on the camera lens, I didn’t just say it was raining because I wanted it to. Note the lack of shafts. This tells you the tops of the clouds are pretty uniform, not protruding much above us. The rain was “pretty” steady, another indication that the clouds are relatively uniform in the horizontal.
The End, FINALLY!
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1If we don’t get more rain by the end of November, I will delete the sentence of a week or so ago stating that November would have above average rainfall. No use having people see that.
We’ve waited a LONG time for a rain day. It was so nice, so photogenic as well. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Also, you may have seen the Froude Number1 in action as Cumulus congestus and Cumulonimbus clouds developed and went around the sides of the Catalina Mountains instead of developing over them and dumping big shafts of rain on them. The heaviest rains yesterday were due to streamers of showers and with an OCNL TSTMS that were north and south of us, Oracleville, Bio2 area, and Marana, Avra Valley where over half an inch was logged in some places.
Still , we managed a third of an inch here in Sutherland Heights, the first appreciable rain since I don’t know when, though, I could look it up. Too long, though, even for Catalina.
Some regional totals, 3 AM to 3 AM: Precipitation Report for the following time periods ending at: 03:19:00 11/04/16 Data is preliminary and unedited. —- indicates missing data Gauge 24 Name Location ID# minutes hour hours hours hours —- —- —- —- —- —- —————– ——————— Catalina Area 1010 0.08 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.12 Oracle Ranger Stati approximately 0.5 mi SW of Oracle 1040 0.08 Dodge Tank Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.16 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 mi W of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.16 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 mi NE of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.24 Cargodera Canyon NE corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.20 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash NE of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.16 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Rd
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.04 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 mi N of Rice Peak 1090 0.16 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 0.16 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 mi S of Coronado Camp 1130 0.28 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.08 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.16 White Tail Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.04 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.16 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Marshall Gulch
Santa Catalina Foothills 2090 0.04 TV @ Guest Ranch Tanque Verde Wash at Tanque Verde Guest Ranch 2100 0.16 DEQ Swan Swan Rd at Calle del Pantera 2160 0.08 Sabino @ USFS Dam Sabino Creek at USFS Dam 2170 0.24 Ventana @ Sunrise Ventana Canyon Wash at Sunrise Rd 2190 0.16 Al-Marah near El Marah on Bear Canyon Rd 2200 0.04 AC Wash @ TV Bridge Agua Caliente Wash at Tanque Verde Rd 2210 0.00 Catalina Boosters Houghton Road 0.1 mi S of Catalina Highway 2220 0.04 Agua Caliente Park Agua Caliente Park 2230 0.04 El Camino Rinconado El Camino Rinconado 0.5 mi N of Reddington Rd 2240 0.04 Molino Canyon Mt Lemmon Highway near Mile Post 3 2390 0.24 Finger Rock @ Skyli Finger Rock Wash at Sunrise Rd
Yesterday’s Clouds
6:50 AM. “Shape of things to come1.” “Nothing could change the Cumulus shapes of things to come” yesterday, to paraphrase here, as evident in this Cumulus shedding ice in the downwind decaying end on the left.7:35 AM. Look at this little guy, so full of ice. Another harbinger of the ice-filled clouds about to arise, and with ice, precipitation, snow aloft, graupel (tiny soft snowballs), and even some hail (solid ice). You could guess here from how shallow this Cumulus cloud is that the bases must be at near the freezing level, and tops must be at least as cold as -10° to -15° C, cold for such a small cloud. But what would we call such a small cloud? Cumulus congestus praecipitatio or virgae (since the present of ice absolutely means some precip up there, not likely reaching the ground though. Shoot from the hip estimated depth 2 km, or around six thousand feet.11:37 AM. Sure enough, as it got warmer, Cumulus congestus/small Cumulonimbus clouds arose trailing ice northwestward in huge plumes of ice. Note to airborne researchers: be sure to sample the older parts of the turrets that have trailed downwind and turned completely to ice even though that trailing portion doesn’t look much like a Cumulus cloud. It you only sample the newly risen portions, you will cheat the cloud out of how much ice it can produce since it takes a little time for all the ice to form. Lotta early airborne researchers made this error, reporting too little ice, but, of course, if they were in the cloud seeding business, they wouldn’t mind at all since they could report that clouds needed more ice, that from their seeding activities!11:37 AM. Oh, so pretty, those dark blue skies punctuated by a little muffin Cumulus cloud. Aren’t you glad you live here?1:25 PM. Showers and weak Cumulonimbus clouds trail off the Catalinas north of Bio2.1:25 PM. In the meantime, stronger Cumulonimbus clouds and showers track westward south of Catalina toward Avra Valley while the clouds over the Catalinas dissipate or remain disorganized while heading toward us.2:33 PM. A voluptous Cumulus congestus in the process of transitioning to a Cumulonimbus calvus (ice is visible but top stil pretty firm and round looking), then Cumulonimbus capillatus (fibrous top) AN older turret, looking all ice, leans to the left. Precip was already dropping out the bottom of this fat cloud. What kind would it be? Grauple, without doubt since so much supercooled liquid water would remain in this cloud amid the ice crystals forming inside. Those ice crystals, nice and pristine when they first form, would have their pretty forms obliterated by droplets that would freeze instantly on them, making them little snowballs, falling faster and faster, collecting more droplets.2:46 PM. Moving rapidly away from Catalina, of course, that cloud has now become a Cumulonimbus capillatus (hairy, fibrous top a,most completely composed of ice–some liquid may still arrive at cloud top in new turrets before quickly converting to ice.) A portion of a rainbow can be seen at almost ground level.2:48 PM. In the meantime, pretty strong storms, now having thunder, rage S through W of Catalina.3:14 PM. While we didn’t have any great clouds near us, at least we had some nice lighting (not LTG) on the mountains from time to time.3:41 PM. Finally, the dramatic skies were shifting northward and measurable rain was on the doorstep. Looking SW toward Pusch Ridge and the Tucson Mountains.4:43 PM. Took awhile, but a decent Cumulus with a nice base now transitioning into a Cumulonimbus plopped some big drops and hail down. Streak at right is a hail particle with its fall distance in about 1/400 of a second.4:47 PM. The hail got a little bigger and I took a picture of one of the stones, a little smaller than pea-sized in case you don’t believe me that some hail fell, too. Sometimes I think people don’t believe what I write, especially in footnotes….5:02 PM. While the sunset was dramatic, it didn’t bring the color hoped for, but this line of dark clouds presaged another bit of rain for Catalina.
Except for a morning or afternoon sprinkle, no rain in sight, just a warm up back to above average temperatures. Dang.
The End
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1The young fluid dynamicist, Richard Penniman, fascinated by the flow around mountains, and who later became known as the rock and R&B entertainer, “Little Richard”, first brought the Froude Number to public attention in his song, “Tutti Froude-e.” The title, after an early release failed to capture the public’s imagination, was later revised for greater “accessibility”, to the song we know today as, “Tutti Frutti.”
2Who can forget “Max and the Storm Troopers” and that great song? I would submit, “everyone.” Of course, few know that after 1968 they changed their name to “Led Zeppelin.” And that, my friends, is “the rest of the story”, as Paul Harvey might say if he was lying about something anyway.
A horse photo will always enhance a blog about clouds. Expecting a little uptick in readership due to this ploy, maybe will break out of the single digit column.
Not much happened early on, a thin film of Cirrostratus covered much of the sky, delaying the expected development of convection, as would be evidenced by the formation of Cumulus clouds, until mid-afternoon.
But they did form, mostly to the S through W of Catalinaland, upwind of us, and eventually rumbled in on their last legs as weak thunderstorms with gushes of sprinkles and gusty breezes, maybe ones over 15 mph!
Over there in Marana and Avra Valley, those places upstream of us, some spots got more than half an inch. But, i it seems this year that storms die when they move toward Catalina, and especially, toward MY house and its many raingauges (3).
Still, it was nice to feel cool breezes, air chilled by falling rain, even if elsewhere.
Here are a few dull and disappointing cloud shots from yesterday, including one with a horse:
10:56 AM. Horse looks ahead, examining the vellum of Cirrostratus cloud overhead, wondering if it means anything. If this was Seattle, such a layer would thicken and lower into a steady rain within hours 70% of the time. Pretty true for most higher latitude locations in the cooler time of the year. (This was horsey’s first true trail ride, going up and down rocky gullies with loose rocks along side the Sutherland Wash. Previously this horse had spent most of its 14 years in a small corral so this was all pretty new to him; rider tension high.)2:49 PM. A soothing gray of Altocumulus undercut the layer of Cirrostratus. Building Cumulus clouds can be seen toward the Mexican border on the horizon. Pusch Ridge is in the foreground. As you can see, no virga is falling from those Altocumulus clouds, so they must be pretty “warm”, warmer than about -10° to -15° C at cloud top.3:38 PM. Looking suggestive of rain here in Catalina. However, these storms were in the late, dissipating stage. Note too how the anvils have merged with the Cirrostratus layer and lean far out from the storms toward us, helping to cool the ground, ruin the chances of new Cumulus buildups ahead of them.4:19 PM. Not much going on over the Catalinas. Notice how broken up into light and dark patches these otherwise dark looking lower clouds are. Shows there’s no hope for any buildup out of them, though, lower clouds like these under precipitating Altostratus cumulonimbogenitus (that higher cloud here which is really the result of anvils) can help sprinkles get to the ground. That’s because drops or snowflakes falling out of the higher cloud, won’t evaporate while falling though these clouds (representing saturated air with respect to water).4:33 PM. Nice shaft, some cloud-to-ground lightning strokes toward south Tucson, but who cares? Wasn’t moving this way, and would be mostly dissipated by the time it got here anyway.4:57 PM. Some rain with an occasional lightning outrage did reach the southern parts of the Catalinas, eventually making it all the way to Ms. Mt. Sara Lemmon where 0.24 inches was recorded. SPKLS fell in Catalina.5:42 PM. Last gasp, last chance for rain here, dying shower with some new bases to the right, offer another slight hope that the new stuff will develop into showers like this one. It didn’t.
Still have rain chances last few days of Oct into early Nov.
