Cumulonimbus clouds – Page 4

Some recent clouds I have known; updating “not pubbed” list

7:21 PM, August 13th. A sky so full of portent that evening after a clear day. This our last chance for rain for quite awhile, but Sutherland Heights and Catalina whiffed on this incoming complex of thunderstorms. — 7:21 PM, August 13th.
A sky so full of portent that evening after a clear day. This our last chance for rain for quite awhile, but Sutherland Heights and Catalina whiffed on this incoming complex of thunderstorms. But, we had a fabulous light show from a cell that developed almost overhead, pf Sutherland Heights as dark fell, but a little to the SE, dumping heavy rains in the Romero Canyon/Pusch Ridge area.

7:16 PM. A very dramatic looking shelf cloud spread across and otherwise completely clear sky that evening providing a great sunset photo op. — 7:16 PM., August 13th. A very dramatic looking shelf cloud (Stratocumulus) spread across and otherwise completely clear sky that evening providing a great sunset photo op. Northerly winds of 25-35 mph and a temperature drop of about 10 degrees accompanied this scene.

6:57 PM. The churning, roiling motion of this turret was remarkable, almost like time-lapse there was so much of it. That easily seen churning was evidence of how unstable the atmosphere was this day, unusually cool for summer at 20, 000 feet or so leading to a strong drop in temperature from the 100 F or so here. which results in the warm air that clouds represent being more buoyant than usual, a hotter than usual hot air balloon, if you will, one that goes up faster. — 6:57 PM. The churning, roiling motion of this turret was remarkable, almost like time-lapse there was so much of it. That easily seen churning was evidence of how unstable the atmosphere was on this day. It was unusually cool for summer at 20, 000 feet or so above us. leading to a strong drop in temperature from the 100 F or so at the ground. So, as the warmer air that clouds represent relative to their surroundings, made them more buoyant than usual as they climbed upward; a hotter than usual hot air balloon, if you will, one that goes up faster. Stronger updrafts are thought to lead to more lightning compared with Cumulonimbus clouds having weak updrafts.

3:57 PM, August 13th. Even slender clouds could shoot up and reach the "glaciation level", and sent long plumes of ice out. The long trail of ice shows how much the wind increased with height at the top of this cloud. As that evening's storm approached, all of the anvils from the many Cumulonimbus clouds were mostly kept from view so that you couldn't see them. — 3:57 PM, August 13th. Even slender clouds could shoot up and reach the “glaciation level” where the tops became comprised of only ice crystals, and sent long plumes of ice out from the parent cloud. The long trail of ice shows how much the wind increased with height at the top of this cloud. As that evening’s storm approached, all of the anvils from the many Cumulonimbus clouds that were approaching were mostly kept from view so that you couldn’t see them. This cloud also poses a naming enigma. Its got an ice plume, a very little rain fell out on the left side where Pusch Ridge begins, but no shaft is visible. It can hardly be called just a “Cumulus” cloud, and yet the more accurate label, “Cumulonimbus” with all of its attributes, makes one a little uncomfortable due to the lack of a visible shaft.

The End (of the cloud discussion)

New “not pubbed” item:

I’ve added RViewpoint_10-24-06_submitted date Aug 31, 2006_final, something that’s been sitting around for years! Spent a lot of time writing it, but ultimately deemed it a hopeless task that it would be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteor. Soc. under then current leadership in the weather modification domain of that journal, and ultimately never bothered to submit it. I was sick of the conflict, for one thing. Haven’t read this piece in years, either, but just wanted to do SOMETHING with it so here it is on this blog.

A longer piece, “Cloud Seeding and the Journal Barriers to Faulty Claims: Closing the Gaps“, also worked on again in spare time at home, for about two years, with the final rejection in 1999 under pretty much the same Bulletin editorial leadership. In this MS, I had a chance to get in, but the specific reviewer whose demands the Editor said I had to meet, insisted that I indicate in the manuscript that the lead scientists in the faulty published reports I wrote about “did the best they could under the circumstances” in the two early benchmark experiments, those in Colorado and Israel. I knew from direct personal experience that wasn’t true; I couldn’t write such a bogus statement that might have made the difference in “getting in.” So two years of on and off effort went down the drain. Sometime soon I will add this second futile effort to the “not pubbed” list! I have a number of those….. It didn’t help either that the two leading scientists whose work I questioned were also the two most beloved scientists in this field.

As with all but one of these pubs (Hobbs and Rangno 1978) in the domain of weather modification, they were done at home, outside of grant funding work while I was at the University of Washington in the Cloud and Aerosol Research Group. And, as I sometimes alert audiences to, working at home on stuff year after year. thousands of hours involved, could be considered a “crackpot alert”. Well, I think of myself as a “good crackpot.” haha.

Wipeout! Shaft winds weaken before arriving, aren’t able to push clouds up much

Surfaris. Except it wasn’t funny. This song begins with a mocking laugh. Well, maybe “mocking” is correct.

Used 90 min of video on an “incoming” yesterday, thinking we’d get shafted pretty good as a thin line of heavy Cumulus congestus transitioning to Cumulonimbus passed over, maybe a quarter or more of an inch from both warm rain and ice processes¹ in a line of clouds produced by the winds resulting from a strong fall of rain from a cell just north of Biosphere2. I am sure you were thinking the same thing and are profoundly disappointed today, not only by that one, but also by that Big Bopper that formed in the late afternoon around the same spot to the north-northeast of us.

10:33 AM. Icy topped cell has unloaded N of the Biosphere2 and a line of heavy Cumulus have formed above the outflowing wind boundary, creating a line of rain headed this way!

10:49 AM. Outflow winds pushing nice, fat Cu up, and its getting closer raising hopes.

11:16 AM. Good rain shafting moves into Saddlebrooke. I can feel the huge drops! MIght even be an all warm rain process shower, too, Wind shift almost here, though it is taking its time, I begin to think.

11?39 AM. Shaft thinning by the second! Dammitall. Wind shift, rain drops still not here! This is now looking horrible. Cloud base above wind shift narrowing, falling apart, too. This could be the worst day of my life.

11:58 AM. Rain, wind and wind have quit. Shaft is transparent, Code 1 maybe, easily seen through. 0.04 inches registered by Davis Vantage Pro Mark IV super-duper personal weather station.

Wished I’d copied that Wundermap of precip amounts at personal weather stations, but here they are, to reinforce the concept of a “wipeout“:

North of Saddlebrooke: 1.04 inches

Center of Saddlebrooke: 0.53 inches

South Saddlebrooke: 0.24 inches

Sutherland Heights “video station”: 0.04 inches! Ouch.

Wind blast here out of this event? Oh, maybe 12 mph.

What started out as a happy day turned sad in a hurry.

And this wasn’t the only “wipeout“! A worse one happened in the late afternoon that was far more excruciating; pain unbearable. A real explosion into gigantic Cumulonimbus occurred in a broken line, again in the area north of Saddlebrooke. It appeared one had produced a huge outflow for a time–probably was up toward the Biosphere2.

Some background. Here’s how it all started with a gargantuan line of Cumulonimbus and Cumulus congestus clouds in familiar broken line from just north of the Tortolitas to our northwest to north of Oracle to the northeast shown in the photos below, all taken at 3:43 PM. CMP wasn’t looking when this eruption of activity suddenly occurred, and seemed to happen elsewhere as well. May have been that afternoon temperatures just reached that higher point to send these big boys up there.

3:47 PM. Looking toward Tucson as this embarrassing formation arose, Cumulonimbus calvus erectus. This tall, slender cloud was incredible because it showed how great the instability was on this day. Fat clouds we know can rise up to become huge purveyors of rain, but narrow ones like this need a lot instability, lots of humidity around the growing turret so that it doesn't evaporate, and a good updraft so that it doesn't take to long to reach 30-35 kft level, as estimated here. So, it was real demonstration of the type of air mass we had this day. — 3:47 PM. Looking toward Tucson as this embarrassing formation arose, Cumulonimbus calvus erectus. This tall, slender cloud was incredible because it showed how great the instability was on this day. Fat clouds we know can rise up to become huge purveyors of rain, but narrow ones like this need a lot instability, lots of humidity around the growing turret so that it doesn’t evaporate, and a good updraft so that it doesn’t take to long to reach 30-35 kft level, as estimated here. So, it was real demonstration of the type of air mass we had this day.

3:55 PM. Crushing rains are now dropping out of those behemoths to the N-NE. Surely a blast of wind will come shooting south toward us!

After feeding a horse on another property, I am racing back home to experience “The Blast”, and the rain in its full glory. I stopped to grab this photo, heart pounding.

"Holy Criminy!" Look at this thing, and I can just now begin to see the arcus cloud forming on the nose of the winds coming at us! — 4:12 PM. “Holy Criminy!” Look at this thing, and I can just now begin to see the arcus cloud forming (just to left of where dirt road disappears) on the nose of the winds coming at us! This will be incredible!

4:24 PM. There she is! Arcus rolls toward Catalina pumping clouds up above it, though, you know, those clouds above the arcus don't look as big as maybe they should. Some doubt begins to creep in. — 4:24 PM. There she is! Arcus rolls toward Catalina pumping clouds up above it, though, you know, those clouds above the arcus don’t look as big as maybe they should. Some doubt begins to creep in.

The arcus cloud and the once proud Cumulonimbus cloud and its incredible rain shaft wiped out, the bottom of it vaporized if that’s possible by rainout, the wind push out of it unable to reach Catalina, in spite of an auspicious start. I now insert a picture of a horse, Zeus, to keep your interest up, maybe raise your spirits after such a debilitating cloud stories as are found here today. Animals, such as dogs, miniature horses and donkeys, are often used in psycho rehab units, especially for depressed persons, such as you are right now after reading this. So, I am really doing this horse insertion for my reader, whom I have depressed royally today:

Zeus, 16.2 hands, eating. Has a pleasant disposition overall. — Zeus, a Paint breed horse, 16.2 hands tall, eating. Has a pleasant disposition overall.

6:09 PM. Some people no doubt had two or more inches fall on them from those storms north of us, and the day ended cool, humid and overcast, with isolated showers as shown here toward the SSW toward Tucson. It was nice to be outside, swatting gnats and such a minor nuisance. — 6:09 PM. Some people no doubt had two or more inches fall on them from those storms north of us, and the day ended cool, humid and overcast due to multiple layers of clouds from Cu, Ac, and As from anvils, with isolated showers as shown here toward the SSW toward Tucson. It was nice to be outside, swatting gnats and such a minor nuisance.

The End (for August 3rd–falling behind more and more!)

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¹As a cloud maven junior person, of course, you know what I am talkin’ about when I mention “warm rain” and “ice processes.”

Evening thunderstorms roll across Catalina with apocalyptic cloud scenes

Some apocalyptic cloud scenes can be Cumulus that explode suddenly into Cumulonimbus, and Cumulonimbus clouds with their foreboding (unless you live in a desert) rain shafts, and their predecessor shelf clouds like “swirly dark Stratocumulus”, and arcus clouds, the latter, a lower line of clouds just above and a little behind the wind shift at the ground, usually just ahead of the main rain shaft. While we didn’t get to see an arcus cloud yesterday, we had some dramatic swlrly dark Stratocumulus clouds to scare us. I say “swirly” because if you looked up yesterday evening as they passed over, you would have seen rotation in them.

These can combine, as they did yesterday, to make you think someone might drop out of the clouds and fix the world¹. See those scary photos below, way below as it turns out.

This monster collection of Cumulonimbus clouds (“mesoscale convective system” or MCS in weather lingo) with swirly shelf clouds preceding it barged over Catalina later yesterday afternoon after it appeared that not much was going to happen all day. Heck, there wasn’t even a decent Cumulus over the Catalinas until after 2 PM!

The result of this system slamming Catalina was the usual strong preceding winds roaring down from Charouleau Gap way and points north or northeast. The winds were not as damaging as three days earlier.

Then the rain! So nice! Got 0.55 inches of rain here in Sutherland Heights, an inch and half on Samaniego Ridge, and 1.65 inches on Ms. Lemmon.

Worth watching is the U of AZ weather departments time lapse video, especially beginning at 2 min 50 s into it. That’s when the big group of Cbs begins to make its presence known from the east. What is interesting, and what I have not seen before, is that you will see the tops of a thunderhead farther west, that icy part up around 30,000 to 40,000 feet, shoved backwards (back toward the west) by outflow at the tops of the huge incoming system. Very dramatic.

Yesterday’s clouds

1:30 PM. Yawn. Its 103 F, dewpoint 60 F. Baby Cu begin dotting the Catalina Mountains.

2:14 PM. Cumulus congestus finally arises within the local cloudscape. Looks like the top is high enough to convert to ice.

Detour: detecting ice in clouds….some practice shots

As the burgeoning cloud maven junior person you, of course, know how important the appearance of ice in our clouds is. You got ice; you got precipitation, which is snow up there, soft hail, hail, frozen drops.

2:19 PM. The declining right side of this cloud has ice in it, but its hard to detect for most observers. Only the BEST of the cloud-mavens could scream out, “there it is!”, before its more obvious to the less gifted CMJPs.

2:22 PM. Well, too easy now to see that there's ice in those little fingers extruding out from the body of the cloud; evaporation of the cloud drops has left the slower evaporating ice "naked" so-to-speak. It also in the higher turret, and would be termed a "calvus" topped Cu, properly, Cumulonimbus calvus, though not much fell out of it. — 2:22 PM. Well, too easy now to see that there’s ice in those little fingers extruding out from the body of the cloud; evaporation of the cloud drops has left the slower evaporating ice “naked” so-to-speak. It also in the higher turret, and would be termed a “calvus” topped Cu, properly, Cumulonimbus calvus, though not much fell out of this one, close to Saddlebrooke.

3:31 PM. In the meantime while I wasn't looking, Mt. Lemmon erupted sending a plume of cloud droplets which converted to ice skyward to at least 35,000 feet ASL. — 3:31 PM. In the meantime while I wasn’t looking, Mt. Lemmon erupted sending a plume of cloud droplets, higher up, ice, skyward to at least 35,000 feet ASL. Indicated a phenomenal amount of instability afternoon, instability that was about to be realized in a line of mammoth Cumulonimbi.

3:49 PM. "Eruption" just about over. Notice how skinny the root is now, AND that the top of the stem of convection is now only about half as high as in the first shot. Like a wild fire plume that has cooled off, the plume height goes down. Still formed ice on the right side, as you SHOULD be able to see. You should also be guessing that those were likely warmer habit crystals, like needles and sheaths. I did, if that's any help. — 3:49 PM. “Eruption” just about over. Notice how skinny the root is now, AND that the top of the stem of convection is now only about half as high as in the first shot. Like a wild fire plume that has cooled off, the plume height goes down. Still formed ice on the right side, as you SHOULD be able to see. You should also be guessing that those were likely warmer habit crystals, like needles and sheaths. I did, if that’s any help.

4:38 PM. Another cloud jack (Cumulonimbus eruption indicating a whole lotta instability), tops probably far above 40,000 feet. A lower portin of the anvil drifts southward toward Catalina. This one was dumping somewhere near the Biosphere 2 landmark. Note that anvil, lower right. That was our incoming major complex of Cum

5:17 PM. WOW! This was magnificent, and just one of the many large Cumulonimbus clouds racing toward the Catalina Mountains. This is the one that in the video, the crown of it can be seen forcing the air over us in the opposite direction. Still, it was not certain at this time these storms would make it here. And, this is looking ESE, while the storm movement was from the ENE.

5:25 PM. The "Menace of Charouleau Gap". Many of our worst storms roll in from the ENE, toward Charouleau Gap, and many who have lived here will tell you and this is the archetypical seen for those storms. A sudden blackening of the sky beyond Charouleau Gap. These darker clouds are rarely the ons producing the storms, but are riding a strong NE wind surging toward Catalina, about to produce some mayhem. The winds always arrive before the rain. And, as a few days ago, there are times when ONLY the wind arrives, there is not enough instability aloft to allow the storms to drift past higher terrain without falling apart. — 5:25 PM. The “Menace of Charouleau Gap”. Many of our worst storms roll in from the ENE, toward Charouleau Gap, and many who have lived here will tell you and this is the archetypical seen for those storms. A sudden blackening of the sky beyond Charouleau Gap. These darker clouds are rarely the ons producing the storms, but are riding a strong NE wind surging toward Catalina, about to produce some mayhem. The winds always arrive before the rain. And, as a few days ago, there are times when ONLY the wind arrives, there is not enough instability aloft to allow the storms to drift past higher terrain without falling apart. On this day, they will make it.

5:48 PM. I am going to work this scene over because it is associated with one of the more spectacular storm sequences here in Catalina, one that comes up usually a few times every summer. The anvil outflow aloft is thickening and lowering, and the outrider shallow Stratocumulus are racing out and along the Catalina Mountains. Things are changing incredibly fast and the NE wind is about to hit.

6:05 PM. Walking the dogs to beat the rain, The NE wind has hit, the power line wires are howling. The sky continues to darken and look ominous, but....no rain shafts have come over the mountains, a cause for concern. — 6:05 PM. Walking the dogs to beat the rain, The NE wind has hit, the power line wires are howling. The sky continues to darken and look ominous, but….no rain shafts have come over the mountains, a cause for concern.

6:21 PM. The shallow clouds ahead of the rain area continue to spread down and out from the Catalinas. A small opening in the clouds allows this dramatic highlight. I like highlights.

6:22 PM. Let's look a little closer at this spectacular highlight. — 6:22 PM. Let’s look a little closer at this spectacular highlight. Wow! This is just as good as a bolt of lightning.

6:33 PM. Maybe time to get the Good Book out, cram for the finals.... This was really quite the sight, considering it had been so sunny just a couple of hours before. Again, these are fairly shallow clouds riding the outflow winds, now gusting 35-45 mph in Sutherland Heights. The mottled bases here indicate that there is no organized wide updraft to launch them into deep Cumulonimbus clouds at this moment, anyway. — 6:33 PM. Maybe time to get the Good Book out, cram for the finals…. This was really quite the sight, considering it had been so sunny just a couple of hours before. Again, these are fairly shallow clouds riding the outflow winds, now gusting 35-45 mph in Sutherland Heights. The mottled bases here indicate that there is no organized wide updraft to launch them into deep Cumulonimbus clouds at this moment, anyway.

6:34 PM. Finally, a major new rain shaft emerges over Samaniego Ridge, upstream of Catalina!

6:35 PM. Looks like more and more people are dropping off Word Press as these files are going in pretty easy now. Here, the apocalyptic cloud formation rolls down and out across Oro Valley, with heavy rain just to the left. — 6:35 PM. Looks like more and more people are dropping off Word Press as these files are going in pretty easy now.Here, the apocalyptic cloud formation rolls down and out across Oro Valley, with heavy rain just to the left.

6:43 PM. A rare sight, wind driven rain streaming off the tops of the foothills of the Catalinas. The winds were likely hurricane force (>64 mph) to do this. — 6:43 PM. A rare sight, wind driven rain streaming off the tops of the foothills of the Catalinas. The winds were likely hurricane force (>64 knots, 74 mph) to do this. Samaniego Peak received 1.50 inches during this storm.

7:21 PM. Sunset in Catalina, July 29th. The sun does not have a sharp disk because the light is being scattered by large particles like rain drops. When its smog, the particles are of the order of micrometers and a sharp disk will be seen. — 7:21 PM. Sunset in Catalina, July 29th. The sun does not have a sharp disk, is rather blurry, because the light from the sun is being scattered by large particles like rain drops which bend the light so that we can’t see the disk’s outline. When its smog, the particles are of the order of micrometers and a sharp disk will be seen because the sunlight is not bent around large particles. I think Einstein said that…

7:21 PM. Orange and rainy as sunset procedes as usual.

Only the largest hailstones up there can make it to the ground as such here in Arizona due to our high summertime freezing levels. The rest melt into raindrops, some of which are large enough to reach the ground. Those downpours that suddenly emit from cloud bases were always hail or graupel (soft hail) aloft.

Sometimes in deep stratiform clouds attached to clusters of Cumulonimbus clouds, and with especially moist air from the base of the stratiform layer to the ground, clusters of ice crystals we call snowflakes make it to the ground without evaporating as steady light or very light rain.

Last night as our storm was coming to an end, it is likely that THOSE drops were once snowflakes rather than soft hail or graupel.

The End (finally)

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¹Huh. Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I am very concerned about microplastics (particles 5 millimeters and smaller) in our oceans, resulting from the breakup of larger plastic items we’ve been throwing in the oceans for decades. Seems those tiny particles are getting into everything, including the fish out there! It would be great if someone could get rid of them.

Quarter incher (updated; then updated some more with clickable images! You can read stuff now!)

Its not a McDonald’s product, but rather a reference to yesterday’s rain total here in the Sutherland Heights, but maybe there will be some extra blog “drive bys” of people looking to order a small meal…

Yesterday’s 0.26 inches was only the second day in 39 years that measurable rain has fallen on June 10th (normally reported the following day, today, at 7 AM ^{1 novella-sized}). Rain mainly fell in Sutherland Heights and to the north in this first episode, and later to the southwest through west of us as a big cell came in after 4 PM from the south sporting a huge anvil.

Measurable rain of at least a mm (0.04 inches), enough to trip the ALERT gauge bucket, did not even fall on the CDO Bridge at Lago, while 1.02 inches fell 1.5 mi west of Charouleau Gap (Cherry Spring ALERT gauge) yesterday. Nice.

Continuing with interesting information….

The day of this blog was Saturday, June 11th.

In the past 39 Junes, it has not rained in Catalina on this day. Check it out with this updated rain occurrences chart with generalities on it, ones that don’t always apply:

The Banner University of Arizona's Weather Department computer model foretells rain in Catlaina beginning just after noon today. If that happens, and I think it will, we will all experience a very rare event! I am really happy for you! — The Banner University of Arizona’s Weather Department computer model foretells rain in Catalina beginning just after noon today. If that happens, and I think it will, we will all experience a very rare event! I am really happy for you!

Yesterday’s clouds (which is now a few days ago, June 10th actually)

12:00 PM. This was an exciting shot for us since it shows that the mid-and upper portions of the Cumulonimbus clouds that are going to form over the Catalinas a bit later, are going to eject out rapidly toward Catalina. Some good rains here can happen in this situation, though not the heaviest ones since those have to fall through the whole body of the cloud rather than from well above the base since evaporation will take a toll on those falling drops once outside the cloud.

12:24 PM. Another cloud builds explosively upward from Mt. Lemmon. Will this one rain?

12:23 PM. Top of a weak Cumulonimbus passes directly over Sutherland Heights. A light rain shower is falling from the most distant part where ice formed. The ice was forming as the top went over us, and so the precip fell out after it had gone by, pretty unusual. This was partly because this top had not gotten as high as the one forming over us and downstream from Mt. Lemmon as this photo was taken. Sometimes we get pretty good rain in Catalina from clouds whose mid and upper portions eject out over us from Mt. Lemmon.

12:24 PM. A glaciated portion of the Cumulonimbus top peaks out. No rain was evident from this cloud on top of Mt. Lemmon and whose top passed right over Sutherland Heights. Can you find it? If not, see zoom of this view next.

12:24 PM. An clearly glaciated portion of the top of the Cumulonimbus cloud sitting on Ms. Mt. Sara Lemmon. Pretty exciting to see for us since no shaft was visible at this time, and only the tiniest radar echo was present since the radar was in between sweeps of our area.

1:05 PM. Rain spreads downwind from Samaniego Ridge and is now falling in Sutherland Heights.

12:34 PM. Shaft emerges from Cumulonimbus base onto Samaniego Ridge. Ice aloft was seen before this happened.

7:28 PM. Sun elongates toward the horizon as it sets.

7:50 PM. Looked promising as this TSTM moved toward Catalinaland but faded before it got here.

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¹Mr. Cloud Maven Person was so excited he forgot that the rain that fell on June 10th will be reported on June 11th. By convention, the 0.26 inches which fell on the 10th, will be reported as though it had fallen on the 11th. That’s because it will be the 24 h total ENDING at 7 AM local standard time, the time when most obs are recorded these days.

“These days”?

Yep. It used to be the most stations, except those having recording gauges as here, as here, which can partition the rain by the exact 24 h it fell in, reported their precip in the late afternoon, 4-6 PM local standard time. The shift requested shift for cooperative observers like me occurred in I don’t when, maybe 20 years ago.

This shift had an important impact on climate since reading your thermometer, say, at 5 PM in a heat wave, might mean the highest temperature for the following 24 h was almost the same temperature as you had on your prior observational day even if a cold front came through a few hours later on that day and the high temperature on the following day was cold as heck, the high temperature actually 30 degrees lower. But the thermometer you reset at 5 PM the prior day will be immersed in those higher temperatures right after you made that ob. So, when a crazy thing could happen. The actual high temperature the following day could be 52 F, but the reset thermometer might have 81 F as the high for the whole 24 h following the official ob time. Got it? It is confusing, and something that causes headaches in climate studies.

Now, it is thought that the shift to 7 AM obs could lead to a slight amount of cooling since that same effect could happen during a cold spell. The low temperature of a cold, cold morning might carry over as the coldest temperature for the next 24 h day even if that next day was far warmer. Glad I’m not too interested in temperature, but rather clouds! Temperature is too hard, as Homer Simpson might say.

As you can deduce or not, the problem is that cooperative observers only read their instruments once a day as a rule, and the high and low temperatures for a day are averaged to get the average temperature for the whole day. Its the best we can do since cooperative observers for the National Weather Service are unpaid volunteers, which is redundant.

However, the cooperative observer network for climate data in the US is in collapse these days; not enough money to keep it up and so if you were to check the government publication, “Climatological Data”, mostly comprised of cooperative observations with a sprinkling of official National Weather Service ones, you would find lots and lots of missing reports. No one seems to care a lot about climate obs these days, though there is a mighty interest in climate models!

Well, we’ve gotten off into quite an informative harangue here…..

Passages: an upper low one on the 18th disappoints; today is the 20th

I got behind….

Lot of great scenes on the 18th, but, ultimately with hopes raised for appreciable measurable rain in Catalina, it was a disappointing day. Nice temperatures, though, for May if you’re a temperature person. Only a sprinkle fell (4:15 PM), and if you weren’t outside walking the dogs you would NEVER have noticed it.

Here is your full cloud day¹, as presented by the University of Arizona Weather Department. Its pretty dramatic; lot of crossing winds, as you will see, and an almost volcanic eruption in the first Cumulonimbus cloud that developed near the Catalina Mountains.

That blow up was indicative of an remarkable amount of instability over us yesterday morning, one that allowed really thin and narrow clouds to climb thousands of feet upward without evaporating. Usually the air is dry enough above and around skinny clouds that even when its pretty moist, they can’t go very far without the drier air getting in and wrecking them (a process called, “entrainment”). Here are a few scenes from your cloud day yesterday.

5:45 AM. Gorgeous grouping of Altocumulus castellanus and floccus. They’re coming at you. (If you thinking of soft orchestral music here, you may be remembering well-known orchestra leader, Andre Castellanus.

7:37 AM. Here a castellanus turret rises five to six thousand feet above its base. Had never seen one this skinny and THAT tall before. Was really pumped about the mid-level instability at this time. It wouldn’t last. The great height is indicated by the luminosity of the top,

Also at 7:37 AM, another amazinging tall turret rises up from quiescent bases, ones not connected to ground currents. The bouoyancy in these clouds is due to the heat released when moist air condenses (latent heat of condensation). When the temperature drops rapidly with increasing height, that bit of heat released is enough to allow weak updrafts to rise great distances, sometimes becoming Cumulonimbus clouds and thunderstorms. These clouds, due to their size, would no longer be considered just Altocumulus andre castellanus, but rather Cumulus congestus. Here’s where our cloud naming system falters some. Later, a couple of these grouping did become small Cumulonimbus clouds with RW- (light rain showers).

7:11 AM. The great height of these tops was also indicated by the formation of ice, that faint veil around the edges. Stood outside for a few minutes, thinking I might experience some drops, but didn’t.

7:38 AM. The top of this Cumulus congestus has just reached the level where ice will form in the top.

10:22 AM. Cumulus congestus clouds began their transitions to Cumulonimbus clouds early and often over and downwind from the Catalinas. Can you spot the glaciating turret in the middle, background? Pretty good skill level if you can.

10:23 AM. Here’s a close up of that turret in rapid transition to ice. It was this kind of phenomenon that led Hobbs and Rangno and Rangno and Hobbs to reject the Hallett-Mossop theory of riming-splintering as THE major factor in ice production in Cumulus to Cumulonimbus transitions like these. The high concentrations of ice particles happened faster than could be explained by riming and splintering, or so it was thought. Still think that, but am in the minority, though there have been reports of inexplicable, fast ice development like that Stith et al paper (with Heysmfield!) in 2004 that for a time appeared to put the “icing on the career cake.” Incredible ice concentrations were found in updrafts of tropical Cu for which there was no explanation! That finding hasn’t been replicated by others, casting doubt on the whole damn paper! “Dammitall”, to cuss that bit.

11:04 AM. Nice Cumulonimbus capillatus incus (has anvil) pounds up toward Oracle way. Tops are not that high, maybe less than 25 kft.

3:41 PM. The air aloft began to warm and an inversion capped most of the convection causing the tops of Cumulus clouds to spread out and create a cloudy mid to late afternoon. Nice, if you’re working outside in mid-May. Since the tops were colder than -10 °C (14 °F) the ice-forming levels, some slight amounts of ice virga and sprinkles came out of these splotches of Stratocumulus clouds. One passed through the Sutherland Heights, but if you weren’t outside you would never have known it!

4:38 PM. Isolated rain shafts indicate some top bulges are reached well beyond the ice-forming level. Note grass fire in the distance.

7:22 PM. Pretty nice sunset due to multi-level clouds, some Stratocumulus, Altocumulus, and a distant Cumulonimbus anvil.

More troughiness and winds ahead during the next week as has been foretold in our models, and reinforced by weather “spaghetti” plots, after our brief warm up today. No rain here, though. Seems now like rain can only occur at the very end of the month where weaker upper troughs coming out of the Pac appear to be able to reach down and fetch some tropical air.

The End

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¹Its gone now because I couldn’t finish yesterday. Went off to Benson for horse training with Zeus.

“The Magnificent Seven” (minute storm); 0.13 inches!

A reference to yesterday’s seven minutes of mayhem here in Catalina/Sutherland Heights; alludes to but an old 1980s song by the English punk band, The Clash about really bad weathermen:

“one says sun, one says sleet¹.”

Back to weather and yesterday’s microburst with three minutes of sheets of unbelievably heavy rain with rice-sized hail, 50-60 mph gusts, blazed across Sutherland Heights between 4:06 PM and 4:13 PM. It was a memorably violent storm, comparable in those worst 2 minutes or so to anything we see in the summer, and it was completely un-predicted for Catalina the day before (0% chance of rain here) though showers WERE predicted for the higher terrain of eastern AZ yesterday). For the full story, see Bob M’s excellent discussion. For just clouds and stuff, here is OK.

Looks like the Sutherland Heights got the most of anyone anywhere near here. No reporting station in the Pima County ALERT system in Catalina or in the Catalina Mountains got measurable rain, that’s how local our storm was. Rarely if ever do you see that happen.

Stuff blew everywhere and I felt lucky not to lose some branches of trees in the yard. Here’s yesterday’s cloud diary. First the background about what was happening, the TUS balloon sounding of the atmosphere:

The TUS sounding at 5 PM AST (launched around 3:30 PM). Classic inverted sounding associated with downbursts. Cloud bases are at 0 °C (32 °F) at 14 kft above sea level, or about 11,000 feet above us in Catalinaland. Lots of turning of the wind, too, helpful for stronger storms. So, rain and hail had a long ways to fall, cool the air, drag it down and blast the surface.

9:43 AM. Castellanus of the morning. Patch Cirrus on top. Recall that in my cloud chart it says when you see this cloud, it might rain within 6 to 196 h. Pretty accurate yesterday since it rained about 7 h later here.

2:11 PM. Cumulus were reaching mediocris stage around here while off to the horizon, Cumulonimbus tops could be seen over the higher terrain of the Mogollon Rim.

2:11 PM. However, a single Cumulus congestus just past the Tortolita Mountains was transitioning into a little Cumulonimbus. Precip is fall out of that lofted flat side of the cloud to the left of the main base. What a surprise to see that! But it was clearly too small to do anything.

3:00 PM. However, those cloud over there kept shooting up turrets, becoming larger and larger until we had us a full blowed Cumulonimbus and something in the way of a rain shaft (Code 2, transparent, except for that one strand–almost certainly a hail or graupel shaft).

3:54 PM. While CMP had to be inside for an hour, this surprise happened just to our SW, with rain falling on this side of Pusch Ridge! Wow, WHAT an interesting day this is turning out to be! Not only was there rain, but thunder! Didn’t think it would get here, well, maybe a sprinkle is all.

4:02 PM. The rain shaft had gotten denser, and there are tendrils of heavier precip. Thunder is a remarkable every minute. Didn’t look vigorous enough for that kind of electrication rate. What’s really promising now is that darker round blob in the upper right hand corner of the photo indicating new cloud growth. That raining part of the cloud would hardly make it here even if it came right at us, given the light winds up there; needs to be replaced by new cloud growth. Was thinking now, “Gee, it might measure!” No thought of wind yet since that shaft looked kind of weak..

4:04 PM. Looked down on Catalina to see this remarkable site, a surface dust plume racing through town, rain just behind it! At this point you could see that it was going to blast the Sutherland Heights, so was a pretty exciting moment, and the rain was certainly going to be measurable if the gauge didn’t blow over!

4:04 PM. Another view of this shaft just before the wind came roaring over the hill in the foreground. From the incredible but very short-lived torrential rain, Sutherland Heights must have gotten one of those narrow strands, but again it would not be one of those you see there, but something dropping out almost on top of us.

4:06 PM. Here it comes, just over the hill. You can see the surface dust plume advancing north into Catalina where no rain fell!

4:06 PM. Here’s something you rarely see, dust blowing off the little hills above the Sutherland Wash, Baby Jesus Trail area. Rain was just starting here.

4:09 PM. Just about the peak of the rain shaft. Horsey retiree Jake shows that the wind si blowing away from the corral. The visibility is relatively high in this extremely heavy rain because the shaft was so tiny.

4:09 PM. Just seconds later the shaft had moved a few blocks away and down the hill (whitish area running from left to right). Note expanse of blue sky in the background, too.

4:13 PM. Storm is virtually over and here you can see the amount of water that came of the roof, and some wind damage (cushion out of place). Some cushions went down the hill.

4:43 PM. The day ended peacefully enough with more Cumulus and distant Cumulonimbus clouds around. Great sunset scene of clouds over the Catalinas, but was enjoying live classic rock music at a friend’s house with some 50 others; no camera.

Too dry today for rain. Next chance for rain around the 17-19th as that bigger (but maybe drier) cold trough settles in. Temps will be nice, though. Lots of intermittent trough action indicated in 06 Z mod run through the rest of May, so May should continue to be pretty interesting and likely devoid of never-ending heat month as sometimes happens here. This scenario pretty well supported in those crazy NOAA spaghetti (or Lorenz) plots.

The End

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Photos not loading in WordPress now, so quiting here, dammitall! Must go on to other chores now. Not happy!

OK, photos finally went in. Happy now, though too many photos as usual.

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¹I doubt that happened…. Really, this was a song about people who don’t like to go to work, kind of anti-capitalist which is ironic because it was that system that allowed the boys to make their millions (billions if they had invested wisely into Microsoft in the early 1980s) and gone on to help the world with their billions like Bill and Melinda.

Rain follows the jet

0.02 inches of it, anyway, as the core of the jet stream at 18,000 feet or so passed by Catalina yesterday afternoon. Keep your eye on the orange and reddish streak in these progs from IPS MeteoStar yesterday morning beginning at 5 AM AST and how it slides over us as the clouds began to ice up: 2016042812_CON_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_000 5 AM yesterday. Jet at this level races across central AZ.
11 AM yesterday. Maximum winds getting closer! Tiny Cumulus clouds begin to appear over the Catalinas and on the west to north horizon.

The jet separates deep cold air on the left side, looking downwind, and deep warm air on the south side. The deep warm air prevents Cumulus clouds from getting very deep due to inversions and stable layers where the temperature does not change much with increasing height, or even rises. The temperature at 500 millibars or 18,000 feet above sea level dropped from -17.7 °C to -21.1° C over TUS yesterday between 5 AM and 5 PM, while the temperature about which ice begins to form in our clouds dropped about 400 meters during that time. With the temperatures at the ground rising into the mid-70s as the colder air moved over us, Cumulus clouds deepened, reaching the ice-forming level between 1 and 2 PM.

Also with patterns like this, the cyclonic rotation (vorticity) in the air above us is increasing like mad, and that leads to a gentle upglide motion in the atmosphere, one that also helps cool the air aloft and usually produces sheets of clouds like Cirrus, Altostratus, Altocumulus and NImbostratus. But yesterday the air was too dry for sheet clouds to form.

First ice was noted just after 1 PM. Can you find it?

1:11 PM. Looking N toward the Charouleau Gap. Tiny puff of ice ejects from a Cumulus humilis cloud based at about 8 thousand feet above ground level. Bases were running about -5 °C

Keep you eye on the brown and yellow streak.

2:31 PM. Cumulus and Stratocumulus clouds launched off Pusch Ridge and the Tucson Mountains stream toward Catalina. The sky begins to fill in rapidly.

3:57 PM. A horse eating as it clouds up.

5:09 PM. Light rain falls in Catalina/Sutherland Heights.

6:04 PM. RW- (light rain showers) continue in Oro Valley.

5 PM yesterday. Just passed! B y this time, Sutherland Heights had 0.02 inches as the tops of Cumulus and Stratocumulus complexes continued to cool and ascend. The sounding from TUS at 5 PM AST (launched about 3:30 PM AST) indicated the coldest tops had reached -20 °C or so, plenty cold enough for ice, virga, and light rain showers. Too bad the bases were so high since we could have had some real rain if they had been lower.

But, we were “lucky” to get that. Even the great U of AZ model had no rain anywhere near us late yesterday afternoon when it fell! THAT does not happen very often.

Looking ahead….today:

Nice Cu, ice, too.

Farther out:

Substantial rains, maybe half an inch or so, still on tap between May 6th-8th as previously foretold here. Yay! May averages 0.38 inches here in Catalina. More rain likely after that episode, too. So an above normal May in rain is pretty much in the bag now. Could be an especially great May, too.

The End.

Western drought status: before and after the Big Niño erupted

“BN”, sometimes referred to in the media as the, “Godzilla Niño” of 15-16.

Before, one year ago, the drought status as presented by the National Drought Monitor folks there in Cornhuskerland, Lincoln, NE:

First, a legend, no, not a story, though we could write one, “The Legend of the Ghost Niño of 2015-16“, but rather a guide to the colorful drought intensities on the maps below:

Drought intensity legend

One year ago

Western drought status as of April 7th, 2015.

Now let us look closely below–you’ll have to–to see what the Big Niño has done to ameliorate drought so far THIS water year (since Oct 1):

Western drought status as of April 5th, 2016!

Of course, the giant low centers spinning around in the central Pacific sent a stream of large waves over and over again that blasted the Cal coast. That was expected, and verified. But not much else did. Drought should have increased in the Pac NW–recall it was forecast to be drier and warmer due to Niño conditions. Instead, the Pac NW had record amounts of winter rain!

Cal, especially, central and southern were to be slammed. Southern Cal residents were advised to consider purchasing sandbags in one media story last fall. And, of course, we here in AZ are profoundly disappointed; conditions have only improved some in the north part of the State.

Well, of course, there’s not one dry meteorological eye in the house after a bust of this magnitude. And when our best models predicted giant West Coast storms that looked like the kind we were expecting due to the Niño, even though they were 10-15 days out, they seemed sure to happen. CMP, bloated with confirmation bias, was sucked in several times this past winter.

Sure, we knew that Niño correlations with weather are not 1.00, that is, perfect, still, the “signal”, the size of the Niño, was so huge we figured it had to come through with those mighty storms striking the lower West Coast as happened in 1982-83 and 1997-98. Those correlations, as strong as they were, of course, were limited in number since these large events are rare. Those correlations will, let us say in place of cuss words, “degrade.”

Oh, me, what will we say when the next Big Niño appears?

The weather ahead

You’re probably pretty excited about the wind and very cold air just ahead. CMP is. And, with the jet stream at 500 mb (18, 000 feet or so–5.5 km above sea level) eventually circumscribing us with its charateristic moist lower region of air, we should just enough moisture for some isolated very light showers, probably just in the Catalinas, during the period of low freezing levels that hits late Friday and continues through Sunday. Low freezing levels mean even moderate Cumulus clouds could form ice, leading to virga.

Amounts could, at the most, only be a few hundredths here, and most likely we will be missed; precip just limited to snow flurries on Ms. Mt. Lemmon and thereabouts. The U of AZ mod sees the cold blast arriving late Friday after dark.

On the other hand, Saturday and maybe Sunday as well, will be good days for you to practice your ice in clouds detection skills in smallish Cumulus clouds.

The weather way ahead

Still looking to see at least two more troughs and chances of rain during the last two weeks of the month. NOAA ensembles suggest so. Best chances, 23rd-25th, and again around the 28th or so.

Some cloud shots from our little 0.01 inch rain day on Tuesday:

6:02 AM, Tuesday. A summer-like scene, complete with thunder frames the post dawn hours.

10:35 AM. After the morning excitement cleared off, a pretty Cumulus congestus erupted north of Saddlebrooke town. There’s a hawk in the photo.

12:12 PM. That Cumulus congestus and its sisters, were able to reach the level of glaciation, and wind shear, send a plume of ice downstream toward the east, and rain below that overshooting turret.

2:36 PM. Pretty much the perfect cloud for ice in cloud studies. As the air warmed aloft and capped the Cumulus clouds, this one just poked up high enough to form some ice. It would have been a great sample to determine the temperatures and cloud conditions at which ice onset in clouds on Tuesday.

4:16 PM, Tuesday. Those shadow and sun highlights that make our mountains so darned pretty. I just never will be tired of these views!

The End

“Tweener” era begins today after pre-dawn sprinkles; one photo has birds in it

We’ll have to suffer through a few days for the next storm, i. e., experience sunny weather with pleasant temperatures. Its amazing that people all over America come to Tucson to experience sunny days with pleasant temperatures!

0.45 inches total in The Heights of Catalina in this latest round of rain, sounds of rain. Actually, there was also some tiny graupel/soft hail in the rain yesterday, too.

Graupel indicates a lot of cloud droplet water overhead, and that ice crystals were colliding with them until they lost their identity and became little snowballs. In regions where there are very few ice crystals, graupel and the harder version, hail often form. Its likely that nearly all those rain drops that came down with the little baby graupel were melted graupels.

Graupels….. Makes me think of that rock group, Led Graupelin, didn’t have the impact of Led Zepelin. But I have LG’s one and only album entitled, “Compare to Led Zepelin.” Was only $2.99, too! Where’s my guitar? I think I will play, “Stairwell to Heaven” now…

When graupel or hail occur, there’s a pretty good electric charge up there in those Cumulonimbus clouds. Its best to be indoors when its hailing until you know if a strike might occur (if there hasn’t been one already). Besides, its not comfortable being out in hail. And if you were listening to the rain, you heard a few blasts of thunder toward Lemmon around 2 PM that came out of one of the more enthusiastic Cumulonimbus clouds that went by. Got 0.12 inches total to add to the night before’s rain of 0.33 inches.

Yesterday in clouds; a sojourn in clouds from morning to evening, in that order with no times noted

I know how much you like to see pictures of rain, so here’s one. You’re not like the “others” are you those people around you every day?

Then the piston of atmospheric subsidence slammed down to squash our Cumulus cloud tops to levels and temperatures where ice could not form….

Two picures in a row of a NWS-style rain gauge. Probably has never been done before. Has been getting a workout lately. Everyone should have one.

The weather ahead

Kind of funny to see the Canadian GEM model internally plagiarize itself. Compare last night’s panel at 500 millibars (below) with that same level’s panel foretold for six days from now.

Yep, its the same thing over again in six days, though with less rain IMO:

ann 6 days from now — Valid on Tuesday, November 10th at 5 PM AST. From the Canadians.

In another interesting model development, the best USA model, the WRF-GFS is having an internal CONFLICT of major proportions. Check these progs out generated by data only six hours apart. The first one, showing a big trough coming into Cal, was generated by global data taken at 5 PM AST last evening. The panel below it was generated by the same model based on global data taken just six hours later, at 11 PM AST (so it the most recent WRF output available) and has a big ridge along the California coast.

2015110500_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_384 — Valid at 5 PM AST November 20th.

“Which one will the fountain choose?”, to quote old song lyrics¹:

2015110506_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_384 — Valid at 11 PM AST November 20th. From IPS MeteoStar.

Of course, spaghetti tells us which one is right, mostly.

The End

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¹Except that here we present only two “coins” not three.

Raining in puddle just ahead, but not on car; also, a horse picture

This was amazing. I approach one of the puddles on Equestrian Trail. I see that its raining HARD in the puddle. I am only 20 feet from it, but its not raining on my car! Here’s what that scene looked like:

3:26 PM. Equestrian Trail road puddle outbound from Sutherland Heights.

How could this be? Of course, we’ve all seen heavy rain on the road and drove into it. But the illusion here that was so striking is that it only SEEMED to be raining in the puddle, not around it since the drop splashes were not obvious as I drove up to it.

The rest of yesterday was pretty great, too, lots of rainbows, brilliant clouds and skies, too photogenic for a neurotic-compulsive photographer. However, one of 221 photos was of a human, a neighbor, not of clouds and rain shafts.

Here are a few too many cloud photos; excess is kind of a specialty of mine:

11:58 AM. Cumulonimbus cloud boils upward upwind of Catalina.

12:25 PM. Getting closer.... — 12:25 PM. Getting closer….

12:51 PM. Lightning strikes not that close... — 12:51 PM. Lightning strikes not that close…Hail up to pea size, though.

1:10 PM. Backside of storm looked pretty good, too, quite firm and protuberant. Note whitish fallstreak, likely graupel and or hail. — 1:10 PM. Backside of storm looked pretty good, too, quite firm and protuberant, indicating updraft still intact. Note whitish fallstreak, likely graupel and or hail.

1:43 PM. Crepuscular rays due to rain, not haze. A pretty scene sez me.

2:36 PM. Biosphere 2 hit by light rainbow.

2:42 PM. For the sharp-eyed, bit of arcus cloud below Cumulus bases shows the northwest wind and cold front about to hit Catalina. Hit over there by Marana first. Was minutes away here.

2:46 PM. Something akin to an arcus cloud is just about on Catalina. Remember, the shift of the wind precedes the cloud, and lifts the air above it. Did you notice how the whole sky began to fill in with clouds as the windshift hit and for the hours after that? Pretty cool, huh?

3:56 PM. Awful dark out for this time of day. And yet another rainbow! Is this Hawaii, or WHAT? Rainbow colors end where snow is falling, not rain.

4:05 PM. Day closes with more storms drifting toward Catalina.

Lightly looking ahead

Still a lot of “troughy” weather ahead, and chance for decent November rains in the first half of the month after cold one goes by, followed by a short dry spell.

The End.