Cumulus clouds – Page 15

Icy up top

You won’t find such small Cumulus so full of it as they were yesterday very often. But with cloud bottoms and tops as cold as -15 C (5 F) and -25 C (-13 F), respectively, it was bound to happen. Cloud bottoms were located at 16,000 feet Above Sea Level (ASL), or about 13,000 feet above the ground above Catalina. That was a LONG way for a melted snowflake to fall, though it did appear that some sprinkles may have reached the ground toward Tucson town later yesterday afternoon and during the early evening. I was driving down into Tucson to see friends play in a band¹ at the appropriately named, “Nimbus² Brewery” and saw those clouds up pretty close as I went.

Here’s the late afternoon sounding for yesterday, providing the backdrop for those icy clouds, as rendered by the Cowboys of Wyoming³:

The temperature and dewpoint profile above Tucson, measured between about 3:30 PM and 4 PM AST yesterday afternoon. The balloon making these measurements rises about 1,000 feet a minute.

Here’s your cloud diary for yesterday, starting with a shot of some wildflowers taken while being bored waiting for the icy Cumulus mentioned yesterday to develop:

9:53 AM. By 9:52 AM, boredom had turned to worry, "Where were the Cumulus?!!", until 9:53 AM when I saw this and could relax, have a cup of coffee or something, lay around worry free. — 9:53 AM. By 9:52 AM, boredom had turned to worry; “Where were the Cumulus clouds?!! Was I going to be wrong again?”, until one minute later, 9:53 AM, when I saw this one and could relax, have a cup of coffee or something, lay around pretty worry free. You might need a telescope to see that Cumulus cloud…

11:48 AM. Almost 2 h later, the Cumulus are piling up toward Saddlebrook. Feeling great now, though we don't have any ice showing yet. Recall that even these little guys are about -15 C (5 F) at their bases. maybe a little warmer because the bases get higher (colder) as the afternoon wears on. — 11:48 AM. Almost 2 h later, the Cumulus are really piling up toward Saddlebrook. Feeling great now, though we don’t have any ice showing yet. Recall that even these little guys are about -15 C (5 F) at their bases, maybe a little warmer because the bases get higher (colder) as the afternoon wears on.

3:19 PM. Pretty typical of the afternoon hours; tremendous amounts of ice originating in Cumulus clouds maybe but 2,000 feet thick at this time. — 3:19 PM. Pretty typical of the afternoon hours; tremendous amounts of ice (frizzy areas) originating in Cumulus clouds maybe but 2,000 feet thick at this time.

4:23 PM. Cumulus really piling up over Saddlebrook now, quickly converting from droplet clouds to ice clouds. — 4:23 PM. Cumulus really piling up over Saddlebrook now, the larger ones quickly converting from droplet clouds to ice clouds.

6:18 PM. Looking S along Oracle Road at some pretty heavy virga. A drop or two may gotten to the ground below that one puff (all snow at this point up there). Clouds likely got to 3 or 4 K thick here. From the "Not taken while driving" (because that would be crazy) collection though at first glance it looks like it. — 6:18 PM. Looking S along Oracle Road at some pretty heavy virga. A drop or two may gotten to the ground below that one puff (all snow at this point up there). Clouds likely got to 3 or 4 K thick here. From the “Not taken while driving” (because that would be crazy) collection though at first glance it does look like it.

6:35 PM. That heavy virga made for some nice sunset scenes, though this is not one of them.

The clouds ahead

Not much weather ahead besides excessive warmth, but, a nice surge of middle and high clouds this coming Friday and Saturday (12th and 13th), maybe some sprinkles.

The End.

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¹Randy Prentice Band, perhaps the most eclectic collection of folks that has ever been in a rock band, featuring famous photographer, Randy Prentice on lead guitar and vocals, and African grey parrot and Pima County residential appraising expert, Dr. Diana May, on bass and vocals. Paul Daniels drums away and also sings; probably has a Ph. D., too.

²“Nimbus”, which means rain, is not a cloud of itself but is an appendage applied to clouds, like Cumulonimbus, or Nimbostratus. Why would a weatherman go anywhere else?

³Shouldn’t WE be the “Cowboys”, as in University of Arizona Cowboys? Don’t we have more of them, at least folks who ride horses than Wyoming, a state where hardly anybody lives, but they’re quite happy anyway^a for some reason? And is the moniker we have now, one that refers to feral cats that great?

I can’t believe how many footnotes I’ve put in already and I’m only on the first 10 lines or so! Better slowdown, go easy on the readers, though those many footnotes do give the “piece” an ersatz academic aura.

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^aOBJECTIVE HAPPINESS BY STATE 001 I inserted this once before a long time ago, but thought you should read it again. Folks in WY are happier than folks in AZ, it says. See state listings.

Clouds ‘n’ ice galore, a trace of rain, and thunder, too!

Rained, too, between 3:42 PM and 3:47 PM, actually 273 seconds, if you had your stopwatch out. It was great. I ran around trying to get wet, but couldn’t do it.

3:44 PM. Rain drops, and don't forget to recycle stuff. And, of course, the admonishment that this is NOT drizzle. — 3:44 PM. Proof that rain drops did fall yesterday afternoon. Don’t forget to recycle stuff and also don’t forget that this kind of rain is NOT “drizzle”¹. Drizzle are fine close together drops that almost float in the air. Tough to bicycle in drizzle if you wear glasses, in fact, I would say its impossible even if you’re wearing a baseball cap and helmet on top of it because the drizzle blows underneath the cap and onto your glasses so you can’t see anything right away. Rain drops fall too fast for this to happen. This from personal experience in Seattle. Always wear a helmet when bicycling.

10:23 AM. Altocumulus clouds formed rapidly over and downwind of Mt. Lemmon. — 10:23 AM. After a completely clear morning, Altocumulus clouds formed rapidly over and downwind of Mt. Lemmon. Before long, most were shedding ice.

11:45 AM. Distant Cumulus cloud forms just underneath some Altocumulus clouds. Here's where you KNOW that the day is going to be pretty good as far as convection and virga go because these clouds were so cold, and its late March when the sun is strong. — 11:45 AM. Distant Cumulus cloud forms just underneath some Altocumulus clouds. Here’s where you KNOW that the day is going to be pretty good as far as convection and virga go because these clouds were so cold, and its late March when the sun is strong.

1:51 PM. Two hours later the sky was full of glaciating Cumulus clouds, and isolated heavy virga trails, ones heavy enough to reach the ground with a few drops. Looking SW over Oro Valley and toward Marana.

2:31 PM. Thunder was heard just a minute prior to this photo, The thunderstorm was just to the west of the Tortolita Mountains. — 2:31 PM. Thunder was heard just a minute prior to this photo, The storm was just west of the Tortolita Mountains.

3:29 PM. Part of the cloud mass that brought the sprinkles (coded as RW--) to Catalina. — 3:29 PM. Part of the cloud mass that brought the sprinkles (coded as RW–) to Catalina. Probably measured below that little streamer, dead center. The virga hanging well below solid young cloud bases told you that those bases were far below the freezing level yesterday. How cold? Sounding indicates that the bottoms of the Cumulus clouds were about -12 C (10 F). The higher tops were colder than -30 C (-22 F)

6:36 PM. Residual Altocumulus cumulogentus with a little ice on the side (left). — 6:36 PM. Residual Altocumulus cumulogenitus containing a lot of ice if you look closely..

Today’s clouds

Still enough moisture for very shallow Cu fractus, Cu humilis, hold the ice (tops too warm). Skies will also be overrun with Cirrus, maybe verging on Altostratus, as part of low and trough barging into northern California today.Will get nice and breezy this afternoon, as the low zips on into the Great Basin and makes its presence known here. Instantaneous puffs might reach 40 mph this afternoon. No rain possible with this system, darn.

However, deeper Sc and Cu with ice in them should be visible up toward the NW-NE horizon today since a little rain and snow is expected on the M-Rim today, this from the U of AZ super mod’s 06 Z (11 PM AST) run, here.

The End.

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¹Here’s the interesting story behind getting THREE public service messages in a single caption/photo: I wanted to both better serve my public by getting some public service messages out there while at the SAME time, documenting some weather singularity, in this case, one of the rare rain events in the Catalina winter of 2013-14. Suddenly, in the midst of the rain I was dancing in, I noticed some shiny drops on the lid of the recycle bin, and things just “came together” you might say for a remarkable photo.

Snowy day (overhead)

Cloud tops in those deeper Cu reached -30 C (-22 F) yesterday, plenty cold enough for lots of ice, with a few scattered very light showers reaching the ground, even a few drops here in Sutherland Heights a little before 5 PM, qualifying for a day with a trace of rain. Imagine! Rain! What izzat?

Here is that day below (if you want the short version, go to the U of AZ time lapse film department, online here).

Day Summary: Sunny with Altocumulus castellanus/floccus virgae in the early morning, then in the late morning, Cumulus humilis and mediocris, the latter with virga; Cu grew into shallow, but very cold Cumulonimbus capillatus (lots of “hair”-ice), with virga and RWU (rain showers of unknown intensity) in a couple of spots. Sunny again in mid-afternoon, but Cumulus re-developed in mid-late afternoon with more virga and some Cu reaching the shallow Cb stage with sprinkles here and there.

That’s it, in kind of a jumbled form. Hope you logged all these clouds and changes yesterday.

9:55 AM. Altocumulus castellanus/floccus virgae

11:06 AM. Cu developed rapidly over and downwind of the Catalinas. Lots of ice at far left, indicating how cold those clouds were, likely around -20 C (-4 F) at cloud top by this time. Bases, too, below freezing by this time.

11:10 AM. A classic, gorgeous example of Ac castellanus and floccus (the latter has no base, just a turret). No ice visible here.

2:07 PM. Cold Cumulus and Stratocumulus filled in as trough apex was about to pass overhead (wind shift line, one you can see in the movie linked to above).

2:08 PM. Rain showers reach the ground toward Marana whose city limit is pretty much everything you see in this photo I think…

4:00 PM. Clearing developed for awhile in the mid-afternoon, but then Cu were quickly reforming. Lots of ice again in this one at left, the oldest portion of the cloud where droplets are evaporating, but the ice becomes visible because it doesn’t evaporate as fast as the droplets do. BTW, air flows THROUGH the cloud, youngest portions on the upwind side, oldest portions downwind. You want to know that if you’re flying around with a research aircraft because if you’re only targeting the young portions, you’re not going to find the “correct” amount of ice that developed in that cloud. Some researchers apparently did this and reported in journals anomalously low ice particle concentrations for the cloud top temperatures that they sampled. For the sake of courtesy, I will not mention their names. But this is why at Washington, we always found a LOT of ice because C-M /we knew where to go!¹

4:31 PM. This was probably the deepest cloud of the day, and there is some suggestion of soft hail (“graupel”) falling out as would be an indicator of some higher liquid water contents before it converted completely to ice. Graupel comes from ice crystals or snowflakes that have bumped into a lot of supercooled cloud droplets that then freeze instantly on the crystal, helping it fall faster and collide with more droplets on the way down, a process called “”riming.” Pilots know full well about riming.

6:24 PM. Nice sunset color in clouds and on the mountains.

Don’t see any weather ahead that I like, and so not talkin’ about that today.

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¹One of the many pioneering innovations here at “cloud-maven” is the novella-sized figure caption.

Cumulus and ice

Today:

Virga here and there, chance of sprinkles through early afternoon, then blammo, clearing as wind shift aloft makes it way across Oro Valley/Catalina. CLouds will consist of Cumulus mediocris virgae, small Cumulonimbus capillatus virgae. Cloud bases will be below freezing and higher than Ms. Mt. Lemmon, so will be tough to get rain down to the lower elevations, though a virga trail may hit The Lemmon. Tops of Cu, -15 C to -25 C, i.e., cold enough for ice formation, of course. Crystals will be mostly stellars and dendrites with some clustering into aggregates we would normally call “snowflakes.” Some of the very coldest tops will contain some solid columns, maybe some prisms and hexagonal plates.

If you’re having trouble here because you’ve forgotten a few things, you might well want to get your Magono and Lee (1996) ice crystal “bible” and review crystals types and the temperatures they form at. Heck, maybe I’ll just put the first couple pages here for you…Magono and Lee (1966). Everybody had one back then. Very important to have that with you. As a further challenge, I have not rotated two pages to the upright position to make it too easy for you.

I suppose, too, that you COULD hire an small aircraft to go up there and check on these predicted types using the old “black glove” technique of the early 1960s, where a scientist would stick out a black-gloved hand from the passenger side of the aircraft and then report/log the ice crystals he found. Not making this up.

Yesterday’s clouds (something’s “wrong”)

Day started out dusty; ended up dusty.

8:16 AM. Dirt roads 'n' dust, that's who we are. Got some Altocumulus, but they are so high and cold (-30 C) that they transformed into patches of Cirrus clouds almost immediately. Pretty normal, even at temperatures that low for a liquid drop to form first, followed by freezing. Weird. — 8:16 AM. Dirt roads ‘n’ dust; that’s who we are. Got some Altocumulus, but they are so high and cold (-30 C) that they transformed into patches of Cirrus (ice) clouds almost immediately. Pretty normal, even at temperatures that low, for a liquid drop to form first, followed by freezing. Weird.

8:23 AM. Here, a real bird, not a fake one, begins to notice something extraordinary; the virga trails from the parent cloud are going the "wrong way", toward the northeast! — 8:23 AM. Here, a real bird, not a fake one, begins to notice something extraordinary; the virga trails from the parent cloud are going the “wrong way”, toward the northeast!

8:35 AM. "What's going on here?", the photo asks. Well, the virga trail is going FASTER and leading the head or "generating cell" from which it issued, meaning the wind increases with velocity going down, not UP, as usual! Incredible, really! Hardly ever see this. Is it due to global warming, the polar vortex has maybe turned upside down? I think so. — 8:35 AM. “What’s going on here?”, the photo asks. Well, the virga trail is going FASTER and leading the head or “generating cell” from which it issued, meaning the wind increases with velocity going down, not UP, as usual! Incredible, really! Hardly ever see this. Is it due to global warming/climate change, the polar vortex has maybe turned upside down? I think so. Has annotations on it.

12:07 PM. Then I saw this, a cloud with no name, but could be the silhouette of a polar bear, eyes and head at lower left. Can't be Cu fractus, but a thermal has pushed a damp layer up here, causing a concave shape. You don't want to fly that small plane in or below this cloud, looking for ice. It would be real bumpy. — 12:07 PM. Then I saw this, a cloud with no name above the Catalinas. Could be the silhouette of a polar bear, eyes and head at lower left looking downard, asking what have we done to it? Its white, too. Can’t be Cu fractus, though a thermal has pushed a damp layer up here, causing the concave shape. You don’t want to fly that small plane in or below this cloud, looking for ice. It would be real bumpy.

Above, through the dust, for some perspective of our ghost “bear.” Pretty cool, huh? I hope there are some left by the time I get done with this blog! Maybe I should check….let’s see what the Canadians (well, one Canadian at U of Victoria) has to say about this dire sitiuation, get informed about stuff. Here’s a link provided by the climate provocateur, and former WA State Climatologist, Mark Albright, who forwarded it to me for my own illumination. I found that post interesting, unexpected…maybe you will, too.

12:39 PM. Iridescence in Cirrocumulus patch. Very pretty for a minute or two, then gone.

3:24 PM. Day ended up cloudy and dusty with some areas looking like sprinkles could have fallen out and reached the ground, but nothing here, and echoes on radar were awful weak when present.

Rain continues to show up on the forecast horizon, which is about 8 days

Best chance of rain, 21st-23rd, mods fuzzy on which day has the best chance. If you love spaghetti, you’ll love this one below. The vast change in the pattern, indicated for almost two weeks now, is just about here. Some mod runs have rain as this “trough bowl” develops, and a strong trough passes through from the west. Seems more likely than not from here that rain will fall as that happens.

The End. (Nice sunrise, lots of Ac cas, Sc, virga around!)

Dusty Sunset..

..will be playing your favorite western tunes in the inimitable style of Johnny Cash at the Whistling Cactus Bar and Hitching Post this Friday and Saturday… :} (Hahahaha; “inimitable style of Johnny Cash”; that means Cash’s style can’t be imitated!)¹

6:37 AM: I see now that there’s a lot more dust than last evening! Wow. Dusty Sunrise!

4:13 PM. Cumulus fractus. Dust is visible if you look hard on the horizon. The back scattering of sun light from dust aerosols makes them hard to detect looking away from the sun. But looking toward the sun, the sky has a whitish, gritty look as we had yesterday. When smoke aerosols are present, the sun can appear very orange or reddish, not white in the mid-day-afternoon hours. See the photo below, taken in the forward scattering direction, that whitish look near the sun. For those who want to go deeper, this. Images here.

DSC_0026-1 — 4:12 PM. Whitish, gritty dust exits Tucson and envelopes Mark Albright’s house in Marana/Continental Ranch, carried on a SE blast of wind from Texas and NM.

6:11 PM. Same view as above but most of the sun's white light has been scattered out leaving the longer yellow and orange wavelengths to carry on. — 6:11 PM. Same view as above but most of the sun’s white light has been scattered out leaving the longer yellow and orange wavelengths to carry on.

6:20 PM. Classic appearance of a dusty sunset.

Satellite image of aerosol content as seen from above (:}. Green area is the dust plume that appeared to originate in SW Texas and southern NM, then blew into Tucson town yesterday afternoon. Looks like its still here this morning. Go here to see more jpegs of aerosols.

Today’s mix of clouds and dust

Cloud action today, likely some small Cu and Ac later today as a weak upper level trough approaches and passes over us. Should be enough clouds around to pose a sprinkle threat. Imagine.

Should be an especially interesting day for cloud watchers since the dust aerosol should get into the small Cu. Sometimes that can lead to much larger cloud droplets in them because the dust particles are so much larger than the usual aerosol stuff that gets into our clouds.

What does that mean?

Will help those lower Cumulus clouds to form raindrops, since the larger the cloud droplet, the higher the temperatures at which ice forms. Sometimes, even drizzle drops, formed from just droplet collisions can result in Cu mediocris clouds with large dust particles in them (no ice involved). Would sure like to have an instrumented aircraft in the clouds of today!

Normally, ice would be expected to form at temperatures below about -10 to -12 C here in AZ. Today, it might be higher with virga falling from shallower clouds than usual.

The weather ahead

Found some rain for ya… March 21st. See those green areas in SE AZ? Been quiet on rain lately. Don’t like to talk about rain when there’s none indicated for two weeks at a time. The rain shown for us on the map above has been coming and going around this date in the model runs, mostly going, actually, but scored one here based on yesterday’s 5 PM AST global data and that has allowed me to take the rain muzzle off.

So….in sum, we can look forward to another chance of rain in March, one just ahead, and, of course, more of “Dusty Sunset” in the meantime leading up to this chance.

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¹Saw a vinyl record album with those EXACT words on it in the Durango Market on Main Street, Durango, back in the ’70s when I lived there. Pretty funny, because you KNEW that imitating Johnny Cash was exactly what that singer was going to do!

High cold ones

Web crawlers: This is not about Rocky Mountain Silver Bullet Beer¹.

Lotta wind last night. Gusts to 50 mph here in Sutherland Heights, stuff all over the yard. I didn’t mention anything about excessive wind coming last night, and so there’s no point in mentioning it now. I’m a cloud-maven, not a wind-maven….

Here’s yesterday afternoon’s sounding from Tucson, around the time we had all that ice pouring out of just about every Cumulus humilis and mediocris around:

The TUS vskkppm sounding, launched around 3:30 PM AST. A quite fascinating finding just now, is that when you type letters on the keyboard, and miss by only letter, you get a quite different word. Above, the Polish word, " — The TUS vskkppm sounding, launched around 3:30 PM AST. A quite fascinating finding just now, is that when you type letters on the keyboard when you’re not looking at it, and miss by only ONE letter to the one you are targetting, you get a quite different word. Above, the Polish word, “vskkppm”, which was meant to be “balloon” in English². The arrows denote bottoms and tops of those small Cumulus yesterday, -17 C and the deeper ones (a km or 3 Kft thick), tops maybe around -25 C,respectively; the bottom temperature exceptionally low for Arizona.

The high cold ones of yesterday afternoon

9:53 AM. Reminescent of a summer's day, Cumulus begin taking shape over the Catalinas. — 9:53 AM. Reminiscent of a summer’s day, Cumulus begin taking shape over the Catalinas. At this time, tops are near freezing, too warm for ice. As the day worn on, the bases and tops of the Cumulus clouds both rose, a pretty normal sequence.

1:47 PM. Not much happening yet, though Cu are now reaching "mediocris" in size. — 1:47 PM. Not much happening yet, though Cu are now reaching “mediocris” in size. Nice lighting on mountains, though.

1:46 PM. Even flatter Cu to the NW-N at that time. I’m thinking, by this time “Where’s is the ice?”

2:40 PM, about an hour later, ice began appearing in just about every Cumulus. Here in the distance (just above home), some sprinkles likely reached the ground. — 2:40 PM, about an hour later, ice began to appear in several Cumulus clouds. Here in the distance (just above the house), some sprinkles likely reached the ground.

3:52 PM. Hardly a cloud around without a veil of ice crystals around it. Its likely that cloud tops (and bases) rose to temperature below -15 C during the mid-afternoon hours. Here, even Cu humilis are emitting little, hazy-looking ice plumes!

5:25 PM. A snow flurry even touched the Catalinas.

5:32 PM. Iced out! The little cloud that gave out the flurry on the Catalinas in its dying phase, no more liquid water in it, and so all of the ice crystals and snowflakes in it fall out or evaporate and in 20 min, it was gone.

6:23 PM. Its not windy at this time. Wind hits just before 9 PM. Here tiny shred clouds, remnants of somewhat larger clouds, show their ice. — 6:23 PM. Its not windy at this time. Wind hits just before 9 PM. Here tiny shred clouds, remnants of somewhat larger clouds, show their ice (veil on the right). BTW, its still windy this morning. Should die out during the morning.

There are really no good names for the clouds we saw yesterday. Maybe Cumulus humilis virgae? Cumulus mediocris virgae praecipitatio (to keep the Latin discriminators)? They have all the ingredients of miniature Cumulonimbus clouds, some vertical development, fall streaks and little shafts at times. So, these kinds of clouds, that are COMMON in the interior of the West during the cooler half of the year, really don’t have a good place in our cloud atlases. In fact, you won’t even find one in any cloud atlas! (Tell your friends how special yesterday was…)

The End.

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¹ In fact, a legendary beer from Colorado, sung about below by no less than John Denver, or someone who sounds an awful like him, while also describing some football coaching history at the University of Washington Huskies.

²You should try this and see what other languages might be recovered from your keyboard by making just the slightest of errors.

Cumulus humilis and distant icy tops

3:05 PM. Classic Cumulus humilis (aka, “pancakeus”). Its not a bad thing to be humilis.

4:03 PM. Here you got yer corral, yer horse poop and pee (dark area of soil in foreground), and off on the NW-N horizon, glaciating Cumulus tops; shallow Cbs most likely. Some rain up that way, of course. Don’t needa radar once you detect that ice. You did detect it didn’t you?

In case you don’t believe me again, see below! You can also find a few small amounts here in the USGS network.

24 h radar-derived precip totals for AZy. — 24 h radar-derived precip totals for AZy (from WSI Intellicast) denoted by bluish regions. Not much more than a tenth was reported in USGS gauges, which is what’s indicated here by radar.

Today

More bigger Cu, likely some ice/virga visible. U of AZ mod thinks rain will be to the east and south of us. Darn. But, if you’re horny for rain, might be worth a family trip to, say, Douglas, take in a few drops. Nice town, Douglas.

WAY ahead

Big changes still ahead, though lately mod runs haven’t had as big of a wet change here as I would like to see, so not reporting on that.

The End.

The cloud streets of Oro Valley

3:53 PM. Three little rows of clouds are emitted from the Tortolita Mountains to the west, drift over Oro Valley. These kinds of “streets” are there, and usually emit form the same spots, every time we have a moist, but shallow layer of air, and there’s a bit of wind. We met men would call this situation a “cloud-capped boundary layer” where air rising to form these clouds doesn’t get any higher, usually due to a stable layer like an inversion. The visual divergence, where one of the streets looks to be going to the left, and the one on the right going to the right, is due to perspective. Cloud streets are virtually parallel to one another. The flow at cloud level was toward the photographer, me. You got Cirrostratus on top of these Cumulus/Stratocumulus clouds. (Where clouds like these are more isolated, we call them, Cumulus, when the same clouds group together into masses, we start calling them Stratocumulus. Its kind of a fuzzy area in our fuzzy classification system (see Catalina cloud maven’s cloud classification article in the Encyclopedia of the Atmospheric Sciences, 6 vols., yours for $2258.20, “only one left in stock”, Amazon says, and the great Judy Curry, is Ed.–better get it before its gone!

5:03 PM. That little zone on the Tortolitas is still pumping out the clouds. Compare the back edge of this larger mass (which now would be Stratocumulus) with the origin point of the previous photo. The cloud street is the one on the left that goes off the screen. — 5:03 PM. That little zone (center, here) on the Tortolitas is still pumping out the clouds. Compare the back edge of this larger mass (which now would be Stratocumulus) with the origin point of the previous photo. The cloud street is the one on the left that goes off the screen.

5:32 PM. That Cirrostratus steadily thickened as the afternoon wore on, almost making it look like another storm was moving in. Cumulus filled in, too, becoming large areas of Stratocumulus, adding to the anticipation of a rain. — 5:32 PM. That high Cirrostratus layer steadily thickened, becoming Altostratus here, as the afternoon wore on. Seemed like another storm was moving in. Those isolated Cumulus clouds and their “streets” filled in, too, becoming large, dark areas of Stratocumulus, adding to the false anticipation of a rain as a storm skirted Arizona.

The weather way ahead after the upcoming heat wave

I have been staring at this weather Rorschach test for a few hours now, and there’s not much to say about it, except that there seems to be two eyeballs near the North Pole, and maybe one of the yellow lines forming a jaw down there toward Greenland, possibly a tilted drivers cap toward Russia.

Clearly the global patterns are “unsettled”, to use one of our favorite forecasting words. (“We will have ‘unsettled’ weather over the next few days”, as one might say in Seattle most of the year.)

Below, “troughing” is suggested in the SW, but not much. The Asian trough, anchored along the coast of Asia, is shown moving offshore here as it should during the spring, and that in turns helps form a trough downwind in the SW US, as we see happen in the spring over the long term (in climatology). So we can only hang our hat on climo, that these uncertain times shown below in the plot below will resolve into something better than more drought.

We can also ponder the larger question of, “How’s come we can put a man on the moon and various space junk on Mars and can’t forecast the weather beyond about a week?” Its crazy.

Or even the vastly larger question concerning chaos theory, a theory that rests on the phenomenon that small perturbations in the initial state of unstable systems are able to make huge changes over time, thus:

“Will a space probe, going off into deep space, as is happening now, an artifact that’s not supposed to be there, unsettle the unstable Universe?”

Pretty thoughtful blog today, I thought. Usually don’t go this deep, but it just kind of happened.

The End, or is it?

While waiting for the rain….

Started to rain here in at 3:45 AM…have 0.01 inches so far. :{

So far in AZ, Flagstaff area leading the way Statewide with about 0.90 inches. You can check out those amounts in real time here from the USGS, and here for Pima County. Also you can look at those amounts reported in real time at PWSs (personal weather stations) throughout Arizona on the Weather Underground “Wundermaps” as this exciting, much awaited day develops.

Point forecasts from the U of AZ “Beowulf “for today, based on 11 PM AST data, here. (Graphical version not yet completed.) You’ll see that a mighty amount of over 4 inches of water content is forecast for the top of the Lemmon (Summerhaven) from this storm. These calcs are usually a little high, but even 2 inches would be fabulous up there. Catalina, per se, does not appear in the point location list, but Oro Valley is expected to get around half an inch. We should do better than that here in Catalina/Sutherland Heights.

———-SC rain doings———

Forecast “10 in 24” at Opids Camp; got about 8, same for favored locations in Ventura County. Working on 10 for storm there as I write; another round of pounding rain moving into the LA Basin now. NWS tornado warning for east central LA expires at 4 AM today. (They saw rotation in a severe thunderstorm around Covina earlier this morning.)

BTW, go here to see how excited the Los Angeles branch of the NWS is today. You’ll see that their domain is a kaleidoscope of colors for warnings and advisories of all kinds! Ninety five percent of the time, they really don’t have that much to forecast in southern California, pretty boring really, so this is a great time for them to show their stuff, be excited, “show the colors.” (Me, too!)

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Some of yesterday’s cloud scenes

6:46 AM. Sunrise on the Gap. — 6:46 AM. Sunrise on the C-Gap.

6:57 AM. Two levels of ice clouds, an rare site. The darker on just above the mountains is some icy remnant of an Altocumulus cloud that converted to ice. The whiter clouds are at Cirrus levels, likely some spot of droplets before almost instantly glaciating. The different colors give away the different heights, and also the difference in movement; one level moving relative to the other tells you this, too.

8:37 AM. Micro-versions of Cirrus uncinus suddenly blossomed overhead; almost missed 'em. What was unusual was how tall the vertical parts were with tiny hooks at the bottom. That vertical part indicates a layer of air with no wind shear, a phenomenon almost always observed at cloud tops. The wind shear may have been "mixed out" by the up and down motions associated with cloud formation and dissipation. — 8:37 AM. Microversions of Cirrus uncinus suddenly blossomed overhead; almost missed ’em. What was unusual was how tall the vertical parts were with tiny hooks at the bottom. That vertical part indicates a layer of air with no wind shear, a phenomenon almost always observed at cloud tops. The wind shear may have been “mixed out” by the up and down motions associated with cloud formation and dissipation.

8:37 AM. Close up view of those tiny Ci unc.

9:12 AM. Webby Cirrus. Has no official name that I know of. — 9:12 AM. “Webby” Cirrus. Has no official name that I know of.

9:35 AM. Though the natural sky is slightly marred by a contrail, in general it was a thing of beauty all morning in particular with the high visibility, complex goings on in the cloud structure, deep blue sky with moderate breezes and temperatures in the 70s. Here, more of that "webby" Cirrus, and on the horizon, the rarely seen Cirrus castellanus which I report seeing almost every week here in AZ. — 9:35 AM. Though the natural sky is slightly marred by a contrail, in general it was a thing of beauty all morning in particular with the high visibility, complex goings on in the cloud structure, deep blue sky, moderate breezes and temperatures in the 70s. This view, toward the Charouleau Gap, shows more of that “webby” Cirrus, and on the horizon, left of center, the rarely seen Cirrus castellanus which I report seeing almost every week here in AZ.

10:37 AM. Less complicated Cirrus fibratus patches moved in, followed by the development of small Cumulus clouds. Still very pretty though. — 10:37 AM. Less complicated Cirrus fibratus/uncinus patches moved in, followed by the development of small Cumulus clouds. Still very pretty though.

2:50 PM. Your afternoon. The Cirrus thickened into a solid layer with gray, transitioning to Altostratus with these small Cumulus ("humilis") below. — 2:50 PM. Your afternoon. The Cirrus thickened into a solid layer with gray, transitioning to Altostratus with these small Cumulus (“humilis”) below. TYpically thickening is due to the bottoms of clouds lowering (in this case, where the ice crystals falling out evaporate is perceived as cloud base) while the top stays about the same height. As the air moistens during the approach of a storm, the crystals fall farther toward the ground and the cloud thickens downward.

The End.

On the Catalina trails with lenticularis

First, Cal drought bustin’ rain update:

As much as 1-2 inches as far south as Ventura County so far, 3-4 inches in the coastal mountains of central Cal as of just now (4 AM AST). Rolling 24 h Cal State archive here. LA area rain here; keep an eye on Opids Camp and Crystal Lake FC. Totals in NW LA County just now going over an inch. Following this drought bustin’ sequence, while just a” two shot wonder”, will be like watching….I don’t know..something really exciting, a weather kind of Olympics, where the favored team “drought” is taken down unexpectedly by some upstart storm. Yes, I will play the Olympics card.

And remember, this is just the lightweight division today; up next, beginning Friday in southern Cal: “Sumo wrestling”, as a 400-lb storm moves in next to push aside “Team Drought” at least for the moment. (Is Sumo wrestling an Olympic sport?) Still expecting some jumbo rain totals in the mountains of southern Cal, such as more than 10 inches at places like Opids Camp in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Speaking of jumbo totals, a friend and expert weather forecaster (and big atmos sci faculty member at Colorado State who now lives part time in Catalina), sent a stunning e-mail to me yesterday expressing his opinion that Catalina will get “1.5 to 2 inches of rain” from the second “Sumo” storm, the one that eases into Arizona late Friday and arrives here by dawn on Saturday, and then continues for around 24 h. Cloud maven here can’t go that high in his guess, doesn’t have the “testicularis” you might say, to go that high; 1 inch max is all I can come up with, but would be ecstatic if in error!

Still, this is going to be FANTASTIC! Saw some perennial wildflower blooms on the trails yesterday (see below), ones in need of a little pick-me-up–actually a big one, and this will be great for them. Fauna, too, will be happy! It may be too late for the annuals…not sure. Poppies are few, and awfully stunted this year, as many of you know.

Don’t forget, too, before our storm; those gorgeous skies! Have camera and pen ready to document and make notes about them in your weather diaries Those skies we’ll be fantastic, too, like yesterday, which was a great day to be on a horse, watching the sky.

Even when its raining the skies will be fantastic!

How many of us, even if we’re from Seattle, are STARVED for low gray, dank and dark daytime rainy skies, clouds chopping off the Catalinas a thousand feet above us, listening to rain pounding on our roofs, then running off roof making puddles, those richer shades of desert green after the rain ends, the glistening, water-covered rocks on the Catalinas in the morning sun after the storm? Its a real treasure when rain falls here.

Yesterday’s clouds

12:23 PM. You got yer Cis spis (Cirrus spissatus) topping a few Cu fractus and humilis, if I may. It was so great to see those Cumulus clouds, reminding us that July and huge clouds are only about 125 days away!

12:23 PM. You got yer Cirrus uncinus. Note fine strands hanging down. Amazing they can be so perfect, not erratic, when the wind up there is about 100 mph! — 12:23 PM. You got yer Cirrus uncinus. Note fine strands hanging down. Amazing they can be so perfect, not erratic (see arrow), when the wind up there is about 100 mph!

3:54 PM. A great line of a Ac lenticular advanced over Oro Valley. This shot was about the best I got and its not that great.

3:55 PM. Not all about clouds.... Here, a wild onion bloom maybe. — 3:55 PM. Not all about clouds..wanted to show you that I have more than one dimension. Here, a wild onion bloom maybe, slightly out of focus. Prickly pear is in focus, though.

3:55 PM. Very nice Altocumulus lenticularis formed later downwind from the Catalinas. — 3:55 PM. Very nice Altocumulus lenticularis formed later in the afternoon downwind from the Catalinas.

6:25 PM. Another very nice sunset due to some Cirrus spissatus and a few lower Altocumulus clouds.

On the weather horizon

Mods still have unusually warm weather here in the storm after life, 8-12 days out (cold in the East continues, too). But, then some Catalina rains continue to show up after that hot spell when you think May is already here.

The End.