“Too many pictures, for one site…”, a continuing theme here1, to paraphrase “? and the Mysterians1“.
Two stations near Picture Rocks reported 1.25 and 1.35 inches, respectively, so some major rain fell fairly close to us. You can see the amount arounds around the State or here at the Banner U of AZ rainlog,org site.
Below your October 8th, 2016 cloud day, a Saturday in which the author’s former company fubball team, the Washington Huskies, spanked the Nike University of Oregon Duck, 70-21, ending years of futility against the billionaire’s sports teams. Too bad Washington multi-billionaire Gates is more interested in saving the world instead of helping the Huskies get better in sports like Phil Knight does with The Duck there in Duckville, OR….
Oh, well, off task there for a minute. I’m back now!
7:06 AM. Pretty Cirrus uncinus (tufted ice clouds with the larger ice crystals falling out where the wind is not as strong as where the head is) with a few Altocumulus over on the left.8:43 AM. The really sharp-eyed cloud maven junior person would have noticed these little icy trails in a sliver of Altocumulus or Cirrocumulus. These supercooled clouds were converted to ice along the path of the aircraft. The brighter one is the most recent one and is so white due to the extremely high concentrations of tiny (order of 10s of microns) germ-like ice crystals. Concentrations would be something like 10s of thousand per liter. Once formed, they compete for the available moisture, some evaporating, some able to grow larger and fall out just as ice crystals do in Cirrus clouds. The less white trail is older and is one where the crystals are spreading out and also evaporating so the concentrations are much less. Presently it is believe that the air going over the wing of a jet drops the temperature to below -39° C where crystals form spontaneously and can survive and grow within a supercooled water cloud egad this is getting to be a long caption.
Now, here where the excitement begins. Recall Mike L. and Bobby Maddox, both super experts concerning convection, called for severe storms and large hail today due to what the models were showing in the vertical wind profile and the amount of moisture available. Below, we start yesterday chapter of convection, and see where it leads.
3:47 PM. Beginning to think Mike L and Bobby M are going to be wrong. Cumulus in the heat of the day have only reached moderate, “congestus” sizes around here, though Cumulonimbus cloud tops can be seen off in the distance.2:50 PM. Another pretty sky scene with an ineffectual Cumulus congestus there north of Saddlebrooke. Looks like is has a little ice ejecta on the far right, middle. But see how any rain would fall out not within the main cloud body but out the side away from the base. More evaporating of any drops would occur. This is happening due to the moderate southwesterly winds higher up, with slower winds from the south below. Thinking about taking a nap….2:51 PM. On second thought, maybe I should see how the septic repair is going…. Looks OK. Wonder how many thousands it will be?2:58 PM. Even though it looks like Mike and Bob are still going to be wrong, at least someone’s getting some good TSTMS (weather text for “thunderstorms” in case you do that, but don’t do it whilst you’re driving, a public message from your CMP. Some cloud science: On the right is a turret that’s climbed up beyond the level of “glaciation” but still contains tons of water. Center left, is a complex of turrets a little behind that one that are taller, and in those tops you woud find little or no water, just ice crystals. Can you see the difference in texture between the rising turret full of water (though graupel, hail, and small ice crystals are likely inside it)3:58 PM. Septic crew was asking, “where’s the hail you said would happen today?” I corrected them by saying that Mike and Bobby told me that, I didn’t personally make that forecast. I told them, hang on, things are starting to happen. And, about this time, the NWS started to issue severe TSTM alerts for Cochise County due HAIL and high winds! Still, it didn’t yet look that great for us here in Catalina, Oro Valley area. The Cbs shown here are that “tough.”4:27 PM. Still kind of bored, think I’ll take picture of an interesting shadow pattern.4:34 PM. Gads, looks awful out there. Only the anvil is left of a former thunderstorm toward Twin Peaks as the wind shear aloft rips from it from its root base. Not too bad there on the left, though. Still looks like a dud day for us in Catalina anyway at this moment.4:55 PM. Modest Cumulonimbus forms in the lee of the Charouleaiu Gap. Notice here that looking to the NE you can only see the rising turret part of this Cumulonimbus. The anvil is trailing downwind away from you, some of that anvil can be seen at the far right,just above the ridge. But you can clearly see some precip is falling out of this, Code 1 (transparent shaft) likely because as we saw earlier, the precip is not falling through the whole depth of the cloud but is falling from a higher portion of the cloud that has been blown off toward the NE before the precip got going in it.5:01 PM. Yikes, when did this happen? Must have been between commercials during football viewing. You can only go outsie during commercials so you miss some things. Bobby and Mike are going to be correct for our own backyard! Hope we get something, and it appears to be upwind of Catalina!5:06 PM. Just because it was pretty. Cumulus congestus tops, brilliantly white (that higher one in the back).5:31 PM. More commercials allow a quick trip down the road to get this. Of concern, the shafting is shifting rightward and away from us. What’s upwind is now the Code 1 transparent rain. BUT, the base in the middle of the photo, and close by, looks great! Perhaps some stupefying dump will emerge from that and grow more good base material exactly upwind of us!5:58 PM. Another discouraging day of promise gone unfulfilled here in Catalina/Sutherland Heights. Feelling sad, though I would take a funny picture of my shadow whilst walking the dogs at half time, makes me look bigger than I really am. made me smile amid the dismal sprinkle that started to fall, giving us yet another “trace” of rain day.6:06 PM. There goes our complex of rain, thunder and lightning off into the distance. Still, the scene was great.6:08 PM. Day ended with some dramatic, colorful scenes, something said here alot, but true.
The End.
1If you don’t believe ? said something like that, go here
Let’s face it, for most of the people living in Arizona, their best years are in the rear view mirror, as are mine which were probably about 50 years ago… Following that thought, let us not look ahead to further declines, but rather look back at the last water year for Catalina, ending this past September 30th, and see what it says, if anything, about the changing global climate we hear so much about:
Your Catalina water year history, compiled through 2008 by the folks at Our Garden there on N. Stallion Rs. off of Columbus Blvd. where you can find fresh organic vegetables every Wednesday and Saturday morning. Tell them Art sent you! Haha.
Can’t say I see too much going on here in Catalina so far; things seem pretty stable in the precipitation arena for the full water year’s rainfall.
I point out again, with great redundancy since I have pointed this out before, that the Our Garden climate record started just as a monumental change in circulation patterns occurred. Most climate scientists would attribute that to a shift as due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, discovered by important scientists I know well, like Mike Wallace1, of the University of Washington Huskies Atmospheric Sciences Department where I worked for about 30 years, but in airborne studies of clouds.
The PDO shift, if that’s what done it, was a circulation pattern change that brought astoundingly wet conditions to Catalina and the whole Southwest US, wet conditions unlikely to be seen in our remaining lifetimes, which aren’t that much longer anyway.
You may remember that bristle cone pine tree rings in California, analyzed by Haston and Michaelson in 1994, found only one period in the last 600 years (!) that was as wet as the late 1970s into the 1980s there (certainly spilling into AZ).
Remember how the Great Salt Lake was filling up to record levels back in the 1980s?
And any long term resident here, like the ones that I have spoken to, will tell you about the days of yore when the washes around here were running all year.
Well, that wasn’t the norm. sadly. They were just so lucky to have seen that era.
In weather, what goes around, comes around. Count on it happening again at some point in the future IMO. (Some climate changers might disagree with this assertion.)
How about our summer rainfall, June through September. Well, here’s that graph, updated through this past summer! Hope you like it:
Not much going on here, either.
Yesterday’s clouds–another day, another rainbow, of course.
Sprinkles of rain occurred off and on all day yesterday, but couldn’t muster even one hundredth of an inch of rain! With a few exceptions, the clouds producing the rain weren’t too deep, though still icy ones, and pretty high off the ground, mostly above 8,000 to 9.000 feet above us, which doesn’t help.
First, a rainbow shot:
4:20 PM. Looking north toward the Charouleau Gap (on the right). We have so many rainbows in Arizona, maybe, following the example of the University of Hawaii (Rainbow Wahini), the Banner University of Arizona sports teams should call themselves the “Rainbow Wildcats”…4:42 PM. Here’s a problem for a great shaft of rain, sloping tops of Cumulonimbus clouds. Don’t see any shaft here, just rain. When tops slope like this, it indicates the updraft isn’t very strong and the ice in the cloud is going to collect very little in the way of “supercooled” cloud droplets because the ice that forms is ejecting downstream from where the greatest growth would occur due to collecting cloud droplets, ones that would stick to the ice crystal, eventually making it a graupel or soft hail particle, the kind of thing that our vertical shafts are largely comprised of aloft. Slopey tops mean not a lot of growth of the precip, more “stratiform” like rain with fewer is any pulses of big drops.5:31 PM. Of course, still another rainbow. Notice how the colors are not as vibrant as some rainbows. This would indicate the concentrations of drops are less, and smaller than in the bright ones. So, not a lotta rain falling over there.3:50 PM. Now here’s a shaft with a real top, a pretty vertical one above it. There were a couple of these. Once again the spaces between the shafts lined up to pass over Catalina, rather than the shafts. The Tortolita Mountains got most of this one. I love these scenes, the backlighting, though, so many times they have resulted in disappointments.4:01 PM. The “Torts” cleaning up with a decent rain as that complex passed over them.5:19 PM. But even with a rain disappointment, we get to see these scenes here in The Heights over and over, again and again, to add to redundancy, We are so lucky! The cloud line above the mountains would be Stratocumulus.5:21 PM. Here crepuscular rays of sunlight produced by falling light rain diverge from the sun’s position. Light from an “infinite” source is supposed to be parallel at great distances. This seems to prove that our reality, as is sometimes suggested by philosophers, is not what we perceive with our tiny human brains. These diverging rays demonstrate that the sun is much closer to the earth and much smaller than generally believed by astronomers… The true reality of life and the universe are sometimes right in front of us.5:37 PM. By this time, the crepuscular rays and the existential questions they raised were gone and our perceived reality back to normal. Here a pretty good Cumulonimbus with a pretty vertical top and big shaft heads in the general direction of Catalina, once again raising hopes for measurable rain. Instead, it faded to sprinkles and our total rain from them was only a trace.
The End
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1Well, actually we said “hi” in the halls once in awhile, I gave a talk in his class once, and, along with a bunch of Atmos Sci faculty, got to watch the 1992 New Year’s Day Rose Bowl mash down of Michigan for the Washington’s 1991 NCAA Division I fubball championship at his house. He also mediated an authorship kerfluffle between Peter Hobbs and me.
Kind of getting tired of gorgeous rainbows every day, ones without a lot of rain here in The Heights. But, here they are again:
5:44 PM5:54 PM.
Upwind Cumulonimbus clouds faded as the trudged toward Catalinaland yesterday, bottoms evaporating, raining out, leaving only a big patch Altostratus cumulonimbogenitus way up (at least ten kft above the ground) there with rain drops just big enough to survive evaporation and reach the ground just before 3 PM.
2:18 PM. Heading for Catalina, right side will maintain–note nice flat base, left side of heaviest shaft is a gonner. So, hope is on the right (not a political statement, but rather referring to the part of the cloud you want to be heading for you, which is not the shaft itself due to the short lifetime of shafts, but the new parts where new shafts will emanate. No renewing base/updraft over there on the left. You hope that segment isn’t exactly heading for you. We shall see in just a few minutes of yesterday time.2:24 PM. OK, we’re done as far as rain goes in Catalina from this. The updraft and solid base are propagating to the right, meaning that nice appearing rainshaft will be what targetis us. But the lives of shafts are so short without renewal, and that renewal is going to slip to the west of us. Notice how in six minutes the shaft on the left is almost completely gone.2:48 PM. Hard to believe that this is all that’s left of that pleasant Cumulonimbus cloud, an Altostratus translucidus cumulonimbogenitus , maybe with praecipitatio as well with it since you can see a veil of preicpitation is reaching the ground. Note the sun is shining through larger ice particles like snowflakes, its disk cannot be made out, though its position can. If this cloud was a thin droplet cloud, the sun’s disk could be seen as a sharply outlined disk.
In the meantime, all the excitement, possibly spurred by the gusty outflow winds that accompanied the above seen, was happening almost overhead to the NW-NE, as a great line of Cumulus bases blackened. They were already passed us, but if they unloaded and sent a pulse of wind out and toward us, then we might end up in a wind clash zone, with huge clouds forming overhead. OK, was dreaming again, but here’s what was going on, which ultimately led to another major dump on the CDO watershed.
2:20 PM. Dark Cumulus bases mass over Saddlebrooke and north. No precip trails yet, but they were virtually assured. Started videoing this scene about now.2:28 PM. In just eight minutes this has become really menacing, possibly a major dump on Saddlebrooke with more golf balls flooding down into the CDO wash as happened the previous day. Now looking for the first strands of the largest hydrometeors (likely hail or graupel) to drop through the updraft, which is looking very substantial at this time due to that well-formed base.2:30 PM. Here’s a close up of that base over Saddlebrooke, now placed in the “Cloud Base Collection” series that we offer to readers from time to time. We’re hoping ot get into a gallery soon.2:37 PM. “Thar she goes!” This is really hard to see, but at top center the rain/hail/whatever is just starting to show out the bottom. Some of these, likely gigantic drops, are already reaching the ground. Notice the slight dimming of the Cumulus clouds in the background. That would be the developing rainshaft is going to be.2:39 PM. Now even little teeny babies can see the shaft dropping out.2:42 PM. For all to see now….just three minutes later.2:44 PM. Just another two minutes later. Its pretty remarkable how fast these things collapse. The whitish strands are likely hail/graupel shafts, often located on the upshear/upwind side of thunderstorms.2:49 PM. Soon the plop of all that rain push enough air out of the way that the shaft extruded outward toward the west. Note that rain would be falling on people from a raining cloud some mile or three away. The heaviest rain seen in the ALERT gauges from this event was only 0.79 inches at Pig Spring, near the Charouleau Gap. The peak rain was probably in the 1-2 inch range.
Hiked over to see if the Sutherland Wash, east of the similarly named housing development, Sutherland Heights, had a good flow from our “Mighty Kong” of prior day. It had:
3:45 PM. The Sutherland Wash scene showing that it flowed bank-to-bank as did the CDO here in Catalina.
The weather ahead
Seems Remnant Roslyn will spit out another snippet of moisture ahead of our fall-like cold front passage late Sunday or early Monday bringing clouds, and with clouds, a slight chance of measurable rain. Don’t hold your breath for measurable rain IMO. Hope I’m as wrong as the prediction I made to a friend that the Stanford Cardinal would trounce the wildly overrated Washington Huskies fubball team last night.
Just back from a horsey ride with Zeus the horse. Rode into the CDO to see the surprising view that it had run bank-to-bank last night after that mighty cell passed by along the foothills. In the wash, were golf ball-sized golf balls scattered throughout the wash, indicating that it hit the planned community of Saddlebrooke with it many golf courses very hard. No golfers were found.
The Pima County ALERT gauges really did not call out that such a flow would occur from precip data around here, the greatest amount being barely over an inch, and its likely that such a flow in the CDO, bank to bank would need 2-3 inch dump in its watershed.
This morning around 10 AM in the CDO south of the E Golder Ranch Drive bridge,
———-end of updated material unless I get more updated——
After an afternoon of “steady-state” Cumulus congestus and small Cumulonimbus clouds trailed northward from the Catalina Mountains, the “Mighty Kong” erupted about 5 PM providing one of the most intimidating, yet majestic and beautiful scenes of the summer rain season; this or any.
Cloud Maven Person was indoors drowning his sorrows concerning what appeared to be a a grotesquely failed forecast of a good rain day (“about half an inch”) here in Catalina in flavorful Indian cuisine when the unexpected began to take place outside. So, the photo record is incomplete for this event. “CMP” had given up on the day.
Just measured in NWS-Style 8-inch gauge and CoCoRahs gauge:
0.12 inches was our total here in the Heights.
And, the photos aren’t quite as good as they should be, slightly out of focus since CMP didn’t adjust his camera for the dark scenes his was seeing. Oh, me. Missed the great sunrise, too, due to not having memory stick in the camera! Oh, me.
6:48 AM. The day started propitiously enough with a ton of clouds, and a line of weak Cumulonimbus heading for us from the SW -W. horizon. A small Cb ahead of this line can be seen on the left.7:14 AM. Looking at this scene, and pondering a day and evening of these, “CMP” is wondering just how many inches of rain we might have,
However this line faded, bringing only sprinkles, a trace of rain to Catalina, and was followed by a huge clearing and sunny skies, thought to be a good thing at the time. Soon, gigantic Cumulonimbus clouds would erupt to over the mountains all quadrants… Nope. By mid-afternoon, only Cumulus congestus had formed with an occasional bit of ice and rain visible, all to the north.
2:08 PM. Cumulus congestus repeatedly formed in the lee of the Catalinas. Occasionally one produced a shower. The clouds are moving from right to left in southerly flow, probably pinching together in the lee of the Catalina Mountain “sky island” as happens in the lee of real islands.4:21 PM. Another nice Cumulus congestus, but where’s are the Cumulonimbus clouds, that big line of them coming in from the S and SW? Pretty much threw in the towel, gave up except to document for purposes of training a little conversion from water to ice visual lesson in one of these turrets that climbed just high enough to convert.4:25 PM. Thus in a series is just 5 min long. Shows how fast the liquid looking cloud can convert to one that is all ice and droplets evaporate due to incursions of dry air, and their molecules race over to that ice crystal next to them. When water and ice are together, its supersaturated with respect to ice, and water molecules head toward any ice around, accumulating as a solid on the ice (a process called deposition), racing over there as a vapor.4:27 PM. A very slight change has taken place. The tight cauliflower look due to liquid water “cells” (such as those on the left side where a new turret is rising up) are disappearing, Its not very obvious at all, but you should be thinking even with this little bit of change, “There she goes! It made it to the “glaciation level” today.”
4:28 PM. Underneath this converting turret are ice particles that are just starting to fall out. Can you see the little fibers of ice? Since they don’t have a long water path to fall through, these would be pretty pristine ice, maybe only lightly “rimed” covered in frozen cloud droplets. Notice to here and in the next shot, that they are sloping a bit, indicating they’re not heavy ice particles at all. If you’re really good, you can see that the whole turret has changed, no longer looks “watery”; that tight, hard, cauliflower look has “mellowed”, the crenelations have mostly disappeared. What is a “crenelation” anyway? Better look it up….4:30 PM. Its a gonner here, no liquid water is left in that turret. The question we still struggle with is how this conversion happens so fast?
This was the last photo I took until walking out of a local Indian restaurant and exclaiming, “What? When did this happen?” It was so clear to the S-W with the exception of a single dissipating Cb that it didn’t even seem worth a photo.
6:04 PM. Hope for that great, meaningful rain in Catalina, though I am in Rancho Vistoso when shooting this.6:04 PM. Looking over the Catalina Mountains as much as I could. Look at that nice, solid base!6:08 PM. Luxurious shafts of rain begin to pour out of solid cloud bases. And look at the one protruding outward toward Rancho V. THis is looking incredible for something humongous to happen. Not sure why this happened? Was there a trigger aloft that was going over this late in the day?6:11 PM. Now, a rainbow to boot! This shot from Honeybee Canyon Park.6:13 PM. This is becoming something memorable. Losing control, photos every minute or so, but ISO level too low!6:14 PM. In the meantime a shelf of clouds, Stratocumulus I’d say, spreads westward from the storm. Would they, could they erupt, too? No, as it turned out.6:16 PM. As darkness fell at Honeybee, and the rainbow faded, it was now becoming evident that this odd late eruption was becoming something special. The rest of the time was spent racing home to be there when it hit Catalina/Sutherland Heights.6:26 PM. Got this kind of crummy shot waiting at the light at Rancho Vistoso Blvd and Oracle Rd. By this shot, I am thinking, unbelievable what has happened! This has become the “Mighty Kong” of summer storms, and its spreading away from the mountains toward Sutherland Heights!6:33 PM. Car was blasted going down Golder Ranch Drive by not blowing dust but blowing gravel as outflow winds slammed down Golder Ranch Drive. Estimated gusts 60 mph. Afraid to look at front of car this morning. Also look at how firm, solid that leading base is, telling you that there is a strong updraft feeding into it. More cells will develop downwind. That’s Jenny and Matt’s house shining in the sun on the hillside.6:33 PM. Looking from Golder Ranch Drive toward Samaniego Ridge, obscured in rain.
Well, as it turned out it was a near hit, only 0.06 inches fell in a violent few minutes of huge drops at my place in Sutherland Heights. From what I saw going by, and needing 0.44 inches on yesterday morning’s forecast of 0.50 inches in Sutherland Heights. about 500 yards farther west for this remarkable, dramatic storm would have given us that amount easily. 1.06 inches was recorded at Cargodera Canyon, NE corner of Cat State Park, and several sites in the foot hills of Catalina toward the mountains area had more than half an inch.
A quickie take on a U of AZ model run from last evening’s global data, has Cumulonimbus clouds developing to our southwest and rolling across Catalina in the afternoon. This would be, appropriately, considering the definition of the end of our summer rain season as September 30th, very appropriate.
Should be some good rain today in Catalina, FINALLY! Thinking maybe half an inch or so over the next 24 h, something decent, as tropical air drains o northward and over us out of tropical storm remnant, Roslyn (“Rozzi”).
Clouds and weather interruption:
Due to the name of our weather-affecting tropical storm, Roslyn, I am now reminded of a profound, life-altering “Hallmarky” chapter of life when I was in HS, involving another Roslyn (aka, “Rozzi”). In an another attempt to increase blog readers, those really not interested in clouds and weather anyway, I have inserted this story about a 15-year old, shy boy and his incapacitating crush on a Rozzi R as a junior in HS I suspect it is a fairly common one in some ways, although this one leads to the formation of other people with a different classmate. The Story of Rozzi R
This story was passed to Rozzi, who had no idea who I was, only in 2009, btw. She seemed to like it, and told me about her life, family and three kids. I think its OK to share it.
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Back to weather, at 7:11 AM, one pulse of rain is within a half an hour or so. (Later, we only got sprinkles out of that first pulse).
Yesterday’s clouds
Nice rainbow last evening; nice sunset, too:
6:26 PM. Altocumulus and patches of a higher mostly ice cloud (Cirrus spissatus or Alstratus?) provided quite a nice sunset yesterday evening. Back the other way, were rainbows galore.6:11 PM. Rainbow under a more or less stratiform remnant of a Cumulonimbus cloud.6:17 PM.
The Prodigal Storm yesterday afternoon
Yesterday afternoon had quite the dump and something of a little ‘boob from the outflow winds, so much rain came down initially around Oro Valley/Marana, west Tucson, south of Pusch Ridge. Was heading this way, too, with nice big, black, solid-looking base. Started a video of it, thinking about the gush was to strike Sutherland Heights/Catalina.
Here it is, in all of its glory and subsequent dissipation:
3:09 PM. Outflow from TUS storm builds ledge of Cumulus base S-SW of Pusch Ridge.3:20 PM. Only 11 minutes later that new base has unloaded its load on Oro Valley. ).59 inches at the CDO and Ina Road intersection yesterday, but likely an inch fell out of this in the peak rain area. Note how the winds are pushing rain and dust west and northwest.3:25 PM. She’ll be comin’ around the mountain when she comes. This was looking so good for us. Why? Look at that great SOLID base coming at us ahead of the rain! The lower scruffs of cloud are called “pannus” and in this case they are created by the nose of the outlfowing winds from this storm. What you want is for those outlfowing winds to keep generating new, fresh Cumulus bases, ones that explode upward into Cumulonimbus clouds. Without the new, good base and the updraft that goes with it, all of the rain can fallout in less than half an hour from the ones already raining. Its a supply thing, you have to keep it going. What if there were no new people born? Well, after awhile the supply of people would run out.3:31 PM. By this time, you’re getting worried about this incoming system. Look what’s happening to the formerly solid base. Its beginning to get “lumpy” looking with dark and lighter spots telling you the updraft is getting broken up, fallling apart, maybe due to the blockage presented by Pusch Ridge. But there’s still hope, the updraft MIGHT reassemble itself….and there are still a couple of pretty good base “hot spots” where the updraft is still good.3:37 PM. “Its is finished.” What;s heading toward Catalina is that transparent veil of rain on the left of the shaft. We now have no chance for a major dump. Maybe it will measure though, a few hundredths…3:44 PM. Need more be said? Sprinkles occurred here, it did not measure. Warning: A sprinkle isn’t drizzle, a continuing theme here. Look at the “crapulent” bases now! Oh, me. I wanted to go in the house and never come out again, it was SO DEPRESSING to see this happen. Lots of storms make it past Pusch Ridge, too, but not this faker.3:44 PM. As usual, major shafting occurred AROUND Catalina, and not on it, pretty much like this whole summer has been. This is looking north toward Bio25:16 PM. Nice interplay of rain and sun.
Models, with spaghetti support, show a strong, but dry, cold front coming through next week, and fall will be in the air as nighttime lows drop into the 40s in our colder, lower spots, like at the bottom of Catalina State Park, in the CDO wash, etc.
A very few small, isolated drops fell between 4:50 and 5 PM here in Sutherland Heights from what appeared to be nothing overhead. You’d have to be really good to have not been driving, and to have anticipated the possibility (by recognizing ice in upwind clouds) and then having observed it. You would be recognized, given some extra adulation, at the next cloud maven junior meeting if you did observe it, that’s for sure.
So, a long blog about anticipating and observing a sprinkle of rain (RW—, “RW triple minus” in casual weatherspeak or text).
We start with some nice, but inapplicable to our main story photos from yesterday.
3:14 PM. Another one of those, to me, memorable, dramatic shots just because of cloud shadows on our pretty mountains caused by Cumulus humilis and mediocris clouds; Cirrus uncinus on top.3:15 PM. Pretty CIrrus uncinus, “Angel’s hair.”3:15 PM. Looks like a cloud street off the Tucson Mountains, one that streamed toward Catalina. Hope you were “unbusy” enough to notice it. Its a pretty common one here when the lower level winds are out of the SSW, and the clouds shallow.3:50 PM. Shadow quirk. The cloud shadow follows the terrain line. Wow. Never seen that before, but I suppose if you had an infinite number of monkeys watching, they’d something like this all the time. Maybe they’d type out some Shakespeare as well in time.3:54 PM. While busy watching the cloud-sahdow dappled mountains, some honest-to-goodness Cumulus congestus arose in a line to the southwest! Not at all expected! Looks like they’re tall enough to form ice, but don’t see any. Will take too many photos to see if any develops though.3:56 PM. That poor turret that first extruded from this line (center raggedy one) is being ravaged by “entrainment”, that cloud killing process wherein the surrounding dry air gets in and kills off the droplets. Pretty sad when you think about. It also shows you just how friggin’ dry the air was just above the main tops. No ice visible here.3:56 PM. Let’s zoom in to be sure. Anyone saying they can see some ice in this is either an ice-detecting genius or just plain lying. BTW, that turret on the left, partially visible, is much taller, so its got a good chance to convert to ice.
3:58 PM. Now even little tiny babies can see the ice that formed in that now dessicated turret. This means some rain fell out of it! Wow, did not see that happening today.3:58 PM. Pulling back to grab the whole scene, those Cumulus congestus clouds converting to small Cumulonimbus clouds that will bring those few tiny drops to Catalina in an hour even as the dry air up there wasted them. Real cloud mavens would be thinking about the possibility of rain here, seeing the ice form in clouds upwind of us, that right at that time! Congratulations!4:09 PM. Doesn’t look that great now, but areas of ice visible, and its heading this way with a light shower falling out of it! Maybe we’ll pick up another trace! But what cloud name would you put on this scene? Well, its kind of embarrassing to call them “Cumulonimbus”, but we do have a suitable moniker for weakly-producing Cumulus ice clouds with a little precip, Cumulus congestus praecipitatio. Yep, that’s the name I would use here since the rain is reaching the ground (is not just producing virga).4:30 PM. Code 1 rain shaft, a transparent one. We’re going to a LOT of trouble for a trace of rain here! But, you should have been really excited by this time. The possiblity of rain is just minutes away, but you’ll have to be outside to notice it!4:40 PM. Drawing back to look at the whole scene, which is not that great. Bottom of sprinkle cloud has evaporated leaving that big patch of ice, left side of photo. Can the sprinkle heading toward us survive? Your heart probably was really pounding at this point since you wanted to see some drops so BAD, report that trace the next day, one that maybe only you would have noticed.4:47 PM. Three minutes to first drops, though here no drops would be reaching the ground from the condition the cloud is in now, its too high, just really anvil ice, and the ice crystals too small, The drops that are going to be intercepted are surely the last ones reaching the ground, the top of the sprinkle shaft, above which there are no more drops.4:55 PM. Drops are collecting on the windshield a few hundred yards from the house with almost no cloud aloft at this point! A trace of rain has been logged!
The End
(What about those gorgeous Cumulus congestus and Cumulonimbus calvus clouds over toward and well beyond Charouleau Gap about this time? Maybe later or tomorrow.)
The day started with some nice Altocumulus “pancakus”, some lenticulars and breezy conditions, reminding one of fall day with a cold front approaching. Small Cumulus appeared quickly, but with the wind, you wondered if they would get enough heating to power upward into Cumulonimbus clouds.
By noon you had your answer as a large Cumulonimbus complex settled in just beyond the Tortolita Mountains west of Catalina. And it pretty much recurred there and over the Tortolitas all afternoon. In the meantime, passing light showers dotted this side of the Catalinas, but that was about it. No “Code 4” shafts on those mountains yesterday. Rain totals were less than a half inch, and most less than a third. On the other hand, would guess that parts of the Torts got well over an inch. The cores missed us again, with Sutherland Heights logging only 0.03 inches.
Developing showers passed over Catalina dropping occasional very large, sparse drops, but shafts generally fell out of those clouds after they had passed off to the northeast.
Late in the afternoon, the line of recurring showers finally approached Catalina, but as dry air encroached in the middle levels, at the same time, catching up to that standing line, all those great mushrooming clouds were no more. The cloud story board is below:
(by Chad and Jeremy but with photos of Peter and Gordon with whom the former were often confused with, the site notes! How funny is that?)
Oh, well, yesterday might well have been the end of the summer rain season here in Catalina as far as rain goes, so an ending point song seemed appropriate.
6:16 AM. Altocumulus with a underlying Altocumulus castellanus.6:16 AM. Another view of Altocumulus with an underlying line of Altocumulus castellanus.8:06 AM. Altocumulus perlucidus translucidus (real thin).10:55 AM. Altocumulus lenticularis clouds provide the real look of a fall day with a significant jet stream overhead. Cumulus begin to form on the Tucson Mountains in the distance.12:56 PM. The idea of a fall day is quickly dispelled by the rapid growth of a narrow Cumulonimbus calvus cloud.12:57 PM. Wow. At the same time, there’s been an explosion of Cumulonimbus clouds to the west through northwest of Catalina. This looked REALLY promising for a dump here, since it would surely expand southward (to the left) from the rain shafts in progress.1:30 PM. Line of thunderstorms reaches the Tortolita Mountains. This is looking extremely good for Catalina though the thunderstorm is moving left to right rapidly, not toward us. Why does it look good for Catalina? Because you expect winds pushed away by all that falling rain to blow back against the sotuhwest winds and generate new Cu congestus and Cumulonimbus clouds upwind of the shafts, and more in line with Catalina. Summary: it didn’t happen though there were numerous times it looked like it was verging on doing this. So, all those thoughts you had out there that this was going to happen were in considerable error. This was probably because the southwest wind against which the outflow was clashing, was too strong yesterday, limiting how far upwind new clouds could develop.1:34 PM. This was looking so great! Bases massing there on the right side, pretty much upwind of Catalina.1:43 PM. Tortalitas now obscured by water.1:49 PM. Showers are developing farther upwind of the main blast over the Tortolitas as expected and near to upstream of Catalina! Gloating here. Was SURE now we’d get a tankful of rain within the hour.1:53 PM. In only a few minutes its looking so much better for us, and those showers and thunderstorms are racing this way! Looks like the whole line is drifting east, too. In the meantime, the thunderstorms moving away from the Tortolitas and toward Saddlebrooke Ranch and points north have sent out a blast of northerly winds into Sutherland Heights, pretty much like yesterday. The clouds overhead begin to respond to that uplift caused by this blast of north winds.2:06 PM.2:16 PM. That first nice cloud base waited until passing by to drop its load, but another promising one appeared upwind!2:17 PM. In the meantime, another ferocious thunderstorm is dumping on the same area of the Tortolitas as the prior ones!2:21 PM. A closer look at the Tortolita blast. Expect wind from this to reach Catalina.2:22 PM. WIth the north wind blowing you’re looking for something to erupt upwind of us as the nose of that north wind pushes into Oro Valley. But here you see that the organization of the cloud bases is poor, too many little light and dark areas, no broad base indicating a strong updraft. This was a depressing shot but I took it anyway.2:27 PM, The severe thunderstorm over the Tortalitas has moved NE. Here you see the kind of cloud base you want to see just upwind of you, not that mess in the previous photo.2:29 PM. Only a few minutes later, but look at the change that has occurred upwind of us! That north wind scooting down into Oro Valley has finally triggered a massive base just upwind of us We are going to get pounded!2:33 PM. But that great cloud base moves to the west of us, adajacent to yet another blast on the Torts. Ugh. Just can’t get this right.2:36 PM. Some lightning for you in case you don’t believe me that these were thunderstorms.2:49 PM. Yet another promising base, more in the upwind direction passed over, only to leave some enormous drops. Compare splash marks to that mesquite pod on the sidewalk. Sounded like hail at first. But the main load fell downwind. I thought we were going to really get shafted right then, too. Not.3:03 PM. An example of poor cloud base structure upwind of us.3:04 PM. Curtains of heavy showers continue to bombard the Tortolitas, Amazing how many cells passed through that area as this zone of converging winds remained stationary instead of advancing toward us as I believed it would.3:18 PM. As skies cleared overhead, some of the prettiest scenes of the day were of these brilliantly white Cumulus congestus clouds over the Catalinas.3:20 PM. Ice detection drill… Can you tell that those two turrets in the last photos are now mostly ice?3:28 PM. Can a scene be more beautiful? The turret on the far left has converted to ice.3:29 PM. A single strand of hail or the largest drops have plummeted out of this base. This suggests that they were either very large particles, or that the updraft had a minute weakness that allowed some of the load aloft to escape in something of a narrow chute. And, of course, its part of the line still pounding the Tortolitas!3:47 PM. FINALLY the line appears to be shifting east toward Catalina, but the tops aren’t as high, there are no giant cells any more, an indicating that both drier air is moving in and that the instability aloft is changing to less favorable for large storms. Oh, me. This was a discouraging scene.3:55 PM. While not as heavy as prior showers, there is still hope that the line will produce measurable rain in Catalina as it drifts east.4:05 PM. By this time, its looking like the slowly advancing line will die before it gets here.5:24 PM. That line: Done and done.6:39 PM.
Welcome to one of the great cloud blogs of our time today, great as in volume, not in eloquence or anything like that.
6:16 AM. Pink castellanus, Altocumulus castellanus. Note the “micro-cumulonimbus” turret complete with a little anvil that’s shearing off to the left (center left). So now what? Should we have a cloud called an Altocumulonimbus? Maybe so, since on this morning, clusters of Altocumulus grew into major true Cumulonimbus clouds with rain and lightning in Arizona yesterday morning. Its a pretty common thing having thunderstorms and Altocumulus castellanus and floccus based at the same level at the same time.6:21 AM. Looking pretty much at the same scene but a little farther to the north where a dissipated Cumulonimbus can be seen (on the right) formed at the same level of the Ac cas, in case you didn’t believe me that that could happen.6:43 AM. Rainbow and corral, horse poop in foreground. Yours today for only $1800. Shows that aforementioned Cumulonimbus was producing rain to the ground. Was the first rainbow event of the day.12:08 PM. While Ac cas and small Cumulonimbus clouds dominated the sky all morning, heating finally started to launch boundary layer clouds fueled by that heating. With lower than normal temperatures aloft due to an upper level trough, watch out! Here we go!12:13 PM. Hardly had the thought to “watch out” crossed my mind, when I looked up toward Winkelman and Mammoth areas and saw that it was too late to “watch out” as this gargantuan Cumulonimbus had already exploded up thataway.1:23 PM. A large Cumulonimbus erupts upwind of Catalina. Will it make it? Because this is a fall circulation pattern with a tough in the westerlies affecting us, the clouds are moving more rapidly than usual and from the southwest, not from the eastern semicircle, our as during our normal “summer rain regime.” Remember, the “monsoon” is in India and all around there.2:21 PM. OK, its an hour later, that distant Cb didn’t make it but this one upwind looks more promising. Why? Because its got a protruding Cumulus base on the left side suggesting it will keep developing. Same on the right side. Without those re-inforcements to the updraft of this complex, it would die, all or most of the rain fall out before it got here. Let’s see what happens.2:31 PM. Starts to look disappointing again, but hope arises in the distance. See caption-sized note on photo.2:43 PM. I could feel your excitement here as the farther out base developed, broadened, new shafts started to appear in the distance from that complex of firm-looking bases. I was excited too. Maybe we’d get half an inch out of this group!2:44 PM. In the meantime, nice lighting on the Catalinas and moderate Cumulus pass by in a hurry. Thought for today: “Mountains: the canvases on which clouds paint.”3:03 PM. Heart has sunk by this time, as did yours. New cloud bases (on the left side) driven by outflow winds is causing this thunderstorm to propagating to the right of the wind flow and so the part of this that appeared to be directly upwind of us, and looked so good, was now raining out because there was no new cloud forming to keep it going in a steady state way So, no half inch after all except maybe down there. Oh, me. Nice scene, though.4:21 PM. Break in the action. This Cumulus congestus cloud person seems happy, thumb is pointing up. Not so much here as upwind clouds have dwindled.5:13 PM. THen, just after it looked like it was over, and cloud maven person left his post, all HECK broke loose as a powerful thunderstorm roared out of the Tortolita Mountains and off toward Oracle and points north. The shaft that fell out has produced a small arcus cloud, that lower scruff ahead of it. That was to be our hope. A blast out of the north from this monster that could trigger overhead new cloud developments!
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5:15 PM. Unnecessary close up of this monster.5:20 PM. Another look at the dramatic sideswiping storm. Looks more like a shot from Kansas or OK.5:20 PM. In the meantime a blast of north wind from the giant cell north of us has hit Sutherland Heights and is pushing up a great looking base that is creeping TOWARD us!5:21 PM. Its only a minute later, but its such a great, dramatic scene its worth checking again.5:23 PM. That great cloud base just north of Sutherland Heights is starting to unload, but it hasn’t progressed farther south. Hmmmm.5:29 PM. The north wind was accompanied by a scruff of clouds that topped Samananiego Peak. But what’s wrong here? Look at the poor “quality” of the cloud base over and just east of us now, full of light and dark areas, not a solid blob of darkness as we saw just to the north of us. So, this is going to do nothing here.5:31 PM. That low cloud continues to race south, and with the sun breaking through, produced a pretty scene if a depressing one due to the lack of a “good” big, dark base.5:32 PM. That large, dark cloud base has receded to the north while scud clouds still stream south. Dang.5:39 PM. That great Kansas-looking storm is disappearing now behind Pusch Ridge with only the middle portion of the cloud left to precipitate (once have a great bottom, one that disappeared as the shove upward went to the east. So, its still thick and low enough on the right side to produce a burst of moderate rain, but will it get here?5:45 PM. Remarkably heavy rain still falls out of clouds that now appear to be only residual Altocumulus/Altostratus (cumulonimbogenitus, of course). And, if you saw this scene, you could anticipate being in somebody’s rainbow when the sunlight got to you, and that you were going to see something special in that regard VERY soon.5:47 PM. Yes, but two minutes later, the sunlight reached Sutherland Heights causing this rainbow spectacle.5:48 PM. Another look at this spectacle. There appears to be a pinkish red drop, maybe a part of the rainbow I have to be in for others to the west of me! Real evidence maybe of being in a rainbow when your in the rain and the sun is shining! Never have seen a pink drop before.5:49 PM. Let’s look and see if there is another end to this rainbow… Yes! There it is toward Charouleau Gap.5:50 PM. Close up of a rainbow to see what it looks like a little better.6:44 PM.6:43 PM. Stratocumulus of the evening.
A humorous final note: Here are two model runs only 6 h apart from last evening. The first one, from 5 PM AST global data, valid on the 26th, brings that Mexican Pacific hurricane back into AZ/NM as that strong low drops down into Cal! How crazy izzat?
The second panel was the model output from just 6 h later for about the same time. No trough nowhere near Cal as is shown in the first panel, and our powerful hurricane stays well offshore. Still, it was an intriguing glitch of a magnitude you hardly ever see.
Also, I am also posting way below a new (!) not-previously-published. but rather rejected- by-important-scientists-a-long-time-ago-manuscript FYI!
Very exciting! (Hah!)
Its published now, though, isn’t it???!!!
“Online.”
Its about science and how it works, and how it has failed; examples given. I put it down toward the bottom of a normal blog because I am shy.
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Clouds from a few days ago, August 26th, now that the “choke point” in uploading photos to Word Press has been, at least temporarily ameliorated.
Here’s the sequence as a great cloud bottom drifted toward us from Pusch Ridge on the afternoon of the 26th. If you saw this coming, you should have been clearing channels around the house for excessive water flow. I forgot to.
Unloaded 0.45 inches at this site. 1.69 inches up on there on ol’ lady Lemmon. We sure needed this dump! Below, one of the great cloud bottoms of our time, that of a Cumulus congestus cloud, filled, as we say here, with rainy portent (maybe hail, too):
1:44 PM, August 26th. Note just a tinge of shading on the right side. First drops, the biggest ones, or even hail stones are just coming out.1:48 PM. Cloud beginning to bust open with rain now; updraft collapsing over there. Now its a Cumulonimbus.1:53 PM. Nice shafting over there, but will the cloud base overhead now split open over us?1:54 PM. Looks really good almost overhead toward Saddlebrooke! Just don’t unload after you go by! Note scruff of lower cloud (called, “pannus”) caused the the outflows of storms to the SW of Catalina. Not long enough really to be a “arcus” cloud, but clouds like this are almost always associated with a shift in the winds that helps build clouds overhead by acting like a micro-cold front, the rain-cooled air lifting the warmer, humid air ahead of it, and some of that warmer air being cooled to its condensation point producing these lower shelves of cloud.2:07 PM. The height of the storm, the visibility down to a hundred yards or two is all. This particular intense period hardly lasted a couple of minutes before it let up noticeably.
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Pedagogical or possibly, pedantic (boring) module
Update alert for the posting of new (!) not-published rejected items by this Arthur:
(the original title, submitted first in 1997), final rejection in 1999 (Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.)
The reviewers, Harold O., Danny R., and someone named “Anonymous Reviewer B”, guessed as, “”B”, for “Bernie S.”
Those in the cloud seeding culture don’t need the names spelled out. Harold O. is part of the “old guard” cloud seeding culture, while Danny R. is part of the new cloud seeding guard, one that has gone on to be a science superstar since his early work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the leader of the Israeli cloud seeding experiments. He did some work there on the clouds of the Mediterranean and satellite interpretations of them (available in Hebrew only the last time I checked).
While Danny R was there during the time of the reporting of the benchmark Israeli 2 randomized experiment by the leader of the experiment (1976-1986) he himself was not involved in those (ultimately flawed) analyses. Later, he participated in the unraveling of the 2nd experiment with Israeli statistician, K. Ruben Gabriel in 1990, J. Appl. Meteor. Half of the 2nd experiment’s results had been previously omitted, an omission which produced an apparent, unambiguous “confirmatory” success of the Israeli 1 experiment, for the short of it.
The 1990 development in Israel, in essence a retraction of what everyone thought was an unambiguous cloud seeding success, plus the fall of the equally important, earlier benchmark randomized experiments in Colorado, at one time also claimed to have proved cloud seeding by the National Academy of Sciences (Malone et al 1973), were the primary reasons for composing the piece being posted today. You may also know that your very own Catalina “cloud-maven” was in Israel in 1986 for 11 weeks, in doubt of those “hard-to-rain” clouds that were being described by the leader of those experiments, resulting in “Rain from Clouds with Tops Warmer than -10° C in Israel”, (1988, Quart J. Roy. Meteor. Soc.). This was to some degree the first crack in those experiments. (Of course, I would say that!)
How could such glowing, but ultimately critically flawed journal papers appear ultimately involving hundreds of journal pages? What went wrong with peer reviews?
I attempt in this piece to describe in this piece how science is supposed to work, and these pretty amazing chapters of science in cloud seeding, and offered some possible solutions.
At one time, Prof. Peter V. Hobbs, named to write up a status piece on Clouds-Climate for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 2003 or so, was going to use the “rise and fall” of the Colorado and Israeli experiments in this piece I have just posted. He was going to demonstrate how we scientists can think we have proved something, but upon closer inspection, find that we have not proved at all!
Peter Hobbs was concerned that the then many unknowns about clouds were not being treated properly in climate models (being parameterized too crudely), and therefore those parameterizations of clouds in climate models could lead to erroneous conclusions concerning the amount of global warming that might be ahead.
In his take on this MS, and that “rise and fall” section in particular, Peter, who was not one to dole out compliments very often said of it, “This is pretty good.” Peter had not reviewed it beforehand.
Ultimately, Peter contracted pancreatic cancer and was unable to submit his status summary to the WMO.
As well as some shots of that violent blast that hit the CDO HS and the area around Concordia Ave. One ALERT gauge reported 1.34 inches! Nice. The uprooting of trees wasn’t so nice, however.
Sutherland Heights whiffed again on rain, except for that little sprinkle just after 8 PM, sad to say.
4:37 PM. What a great looking pileus of Cumulus congestus with a little pileus veil at the very tippy top. This is heading toward being a Cumulonimbus calvus (remember, “calvus” means “bald”), the most ephemeral stage of Cumulonimbus. This stage doesn’t last long since its when the cloud droplets are disappearing because of the rapid formation of high ice particle concentrations inside the turret. Remember, ice and water don’t stay together long; water disappears, evaporates due to mixing of environment air around the turret, all that ice sucking the life out of those poor droplets since water vapor molecules love ice more than being inside a droplet when ice is around and they escape to the nearest ice particle, which then gets fatter and fatter, cannibalizing those droplets in a sense.
4:52 PM. Jumbo Cumulus congestus has congealed into a complex of Cumulonimbus clouds, riding the north wind that was about to sweep into the Sutherland Heights later in the evening.6:32 PM. WIth the gush of north winds, Stratocumulus and Cumulus bases quickly covered the sky, some piling higher into Cumulonimbus clouds.6:55 PM. Northerly wind and associated line of Cumulus above it grow into Cumulonimbus clouds. Very pretty scene. But tops not doing much here, so big dump not likely without something changing, which did! The older wispy turret above the larger rain shaft is already sinking back. The new shaft is coming out of the youngest, firmest looking turret.6:55 PM. Zoomed view of the top of turret where the new rain shaft is coming out. That bubble on the right side is just starting to show its ice externally, though grauple (soft hail) and/or hail were already hidden inside it as evidenced by that new thin rain shaft. Notice the younger turret behind it is higher, and therefore colder, and must also be full of precip. Watch out below! It doesn’t show the “softness” as the droplets evaporate in the presence of ice likely because its still on its way up, and condensation onto drops is faster than removal of vapor by ice. Watch out below, #2.6:57 PM. In the meantime, the Catalinas reap a nice sunset shower.7:08 PM. That new turret is now unloading around Ina and Oracle. Very exciting and a pretty scene, too, with the glow of the sunset. This storm was to go on for another hour.7:23 PM. Slightly out of focus, but you can see one of the MANY strokes of lightning that accompanied this tremendous downpour.
AZ mod (from 5 PM data last evening) thinks we have a chance for an afternoon dump today, Thursday.
