November will finish out dry. And, with the extremely dry October we had followed by a rainless November (Correction here on November 25th! Egad. We had a nice rain here on November 9-10th in which we received 0.48 inches, about half of November’s average! Brain fading…. End of correction.)
….you can’t help but start to fret over March, and those great blooms that erupt so quickly in our deserts. From what I have experienced and have learned, fall and early winter rains are critical for bountiful spring blooms; January and February rains, not so much.
Rain is beginning to show up in the first week of December, but, that far in advance, its showing up beyond the model’s credibility horizon of about 6-7 days. Also, the panels below are from the 06 Z (11 PM AST) model run, one that is not plumped up with as much global data at the runs at 12 Z (5 AM AST) and 00 Z (5 PM AST), so even more likely to be faulty.
Still, its the best I can do for finding future rain in Arizona/Catalina. I am posting these maps at full size to make them look more important, have more visual impact, maybe put some pressure on the next model run to come up with something similar.
Will report back when these two rains show up again…or if some interesting clouds float by.
May insert some filler material blogs in the meantime…
The End.
Valid 11 AM AST, December 2nd. Green areas denote where rain has fallen over the prior 12 h (fell the night of the 1st-2nd)Valid 11 AM AST, December 8th.
7:09 AM. Altocumulus, trending toward perlucidus. Height? Aout 13,000 feet above the ground, from reading the TUS sounding. Temperature? -10 C (14 F). No ice trails visible.12:13 PM. Nice, high-based small Cumulus (or Altocumulus castellanus) with snow virga moved over the SE part of the sky in the early afternoon. Bases were around 11, 000 feet above the ground at -5 C (23 F). Sprinkles (very light rain showers-its not drizzle) reached the ground in a few isolated areas.2:02 PM. A somewhat rare example of Cirrocumulus and Altocumulus probably at the same level in proximation with one another. Cirrocumulus (Cc) is defined by a very fine granulation and no shading. The fine granulation gives the impression here that its much higher than it really is. Altocumulus clouds are defined as having much larger elements, shading allowed. Well, even if the Cc was at a slightly higher level, this is a good example of the difference between the two. Tell your friends.5:10 PM. Mind drifted toward road runners for some reason…. This is Cirrus uncinus with long trails of ice crystals streaming back from the little cloudlet that originally formed, like an hour or two prior to the photo. The trails survive because its a bit moist up there below where the cloudlet formed.
The weather ahead
A huge buckle in the jet stream is forecast to form right off the West Coast in about a week, and its a pretty spectacular interruption in the pattern of a jet stream whizzing by far to the north of us that we have had now for sometime. Below is an example of ‘now” in the jet stream winds, and below that, a forecast panel (from IPS Meteostar) showing this striking change a week from now. There’s a big (“high amplitude”) trough in the eastern Pacific, a high amplitude ridge (hump in the jet stream toward the Pole) in the West and another big trough in the East.
Patterns like this are usually associated with extremes in temperatures; warmth in the West; cold in the East. It is certain when this pattern materializes in about a week, some high temperature records will fall somewhere in the West and some low temperature records will fall in the East. In the West, warm air is drawn far northward, aided by low pressure centers spinning around in the eastern Pacific, while in the East, cold air zooms down with high pressure centers from northern Canada.
Why bother talking about a forecast a week in advance?
Because it has a lot of “credibility” in our ensemble (spaghetti) plots. Here is last night’s “ensembles of spaghetti” plot produced by NOAA for one week in advance. Look below at these “ensemble members” the different blue lines, ones that are loaded with slight errors at the beginning of the model run, to see how strong the forecast a week ahead is.
Those bunched blue lines in the eastern Pacific (see arrow) inspired this whole spiel about the coming change because its a nice example of when the plots show something reliable in the way of a longer term forecast, and in this case, a forecast that also shows a big change in the weather patterns over thousands and thousands of miles, from eastern Pacific to the western Atlantic.
If you’re looking around this whole plot, you’ll see the lines are also very bunched in the extreme western Pacific and westward across Asia. Those blue lines are always bunched over there because there is little variance in the flow in that region; its locked into a pattern by the geography, unlike in the central and eastern Pacific and into the US where the jet stream is MUCH more variable. A simile: imagine a fire hose turned on at the hydrant, the part of the hose at the hydrant stays in place while the end of the hose flops wildly around. Its something like that; western Pacific to eastern Pacific.
Our weather?
Well, after all that gibberish, not much change will occur here; its everywhere but here! Seems we’re doomed to another dry seven to 10 days ahead with occasional periods of high clouds and great sunsets as weak disturbances from the sub-tropics pass by, ones that can only produce Cirrus clouds.
Kind a bored looking at the same model runs for 10-15 days ahead now, ones that close out November with no rain even nearby for Catalina. Doesn’t seem to be even ANY HOPE for rain here, that is, some bizarre model outlier forecast with rain, as we saw a few days ago. But then, I had not had any coffee yet…
Thought I would drink some coffee to see if I’ve missed anything in these latest computer model images. I’d kind of forgotten what Consumer Reports Health Letter had warned about when you’re bored and trying to do stuff. Talked about the effects of caffeine on boredom. I reprise a portion of that CR note here, in case you, too, are looking at repetitious model outputs with no rain in them. Note the part in in this note below about “repetitious images” and “infrequent changes in patterns on a screen”; yep, that’s what we’re dealing with here in these model runs now.
OK, finished second cup, caffeinated coffee, BTW, now going back to look at those model forecast maps to see if I missed anything, subtle or otherwise…. You, too, can look at the 5 PM AST model loop here (from IPS Meteostar), but drink some coffee first.
Prepare to be “re-bored” as I have just been.
Not even the NOAA NCEP’s “ensembles of spaghetti” offer hope; no “outlier” model forecasts with Catalina rain in them anymore (for now, anyway). Bunched blue lines, demarcating jet stream, stay to the north.
But, paraphrasing Scarlet O’Hara, “6 h from now, there is another model run…”
Yesterday’s clouds
Had some great Cirrus spissatus and other varieties/species of Cirrus overspread the sky yesterday, eventually thickening into Altostratus translucidus (sun’s position still visible). Here are a couple of shots, including a sunsetter where you can see just that bit of virga hanging down.
1:19 PM. Cirrus clouds began overspreading sky from the southwest (direction that photo was taken toward).2:16 PM. Cirrus spissatus (the only Cirrus cloud that can have shading) encroaches from the southwest.4:29 PM. The Cirrus clouds have thickened in places, usually downward, to large patches of Altostratus translucidus (thin enough so that the sun’s position is still visible). Its also possible here that the Altostratus clouds were below a higher layer of Cirrostratus.5:26 PM. Under lit Altostratus clouds with likely a separate higher layer of Cirrostratus.
Today’s clouds?
Your call: ________________________________________________________________
These are sad times when you can’t find a model run with at least some AZ rain in it. The last two USA model runs, compiled from global data taken at 00 Z (5 PM AST) and 06 Z (11 PM AST) don’t have ANY rain in Arizona. Prior two runs did, ones that came out during the day yesterday.
The rains in yesterday’s model outputs were late in the month and into early December. I exulted all day yesterday because the “ensembles of spaghetti” were strongly suggesting those rains were associated with “outlier” model runs, more extreme ones that couldn’t be counted on.
But, those rains kept reappearing. I unilaterally decided, i.e., had a “hunch”, that the “ensembles” themselves were, in a sense, “outliers”, lying about no rain in AZ. They were missing something.
Looks like I’ll get burned on that “hunch”, as would be expected by an objective scientist. Now I will talk about something else…
Maybe the costly and more accurate Euro model, which could save thousands of lives by being free and warning poor people of big storms and winter cold way in advance, has rain here in it here, but I am too poor to afford to look at it. The Canadian Environment Canada model1, built on the Euro one, only goes out to 144 hours, not the 5000 hours ahead that we seem to need to see a rain predicted in Arizona someday.
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BTW, as an example of that Euro model’s non-availability, if you go to the University of Washington’s model outputs web page, you will see the daunting words for the Euro-UK MET model, “restricted.” The letters are in RED to make sure you know you can’t get it. Don’t hit the latest run link to the right, you will be asked to enter your ID and password, and because you don’t have one, you are punished by not being able to go back to where you started. Rather, you end up in an endless loop asking for your password and ID to make sure you don’t come back again and mess around thinking you might “get in.” You will have to close your browser. If you have a password and ID, then post that model somewhere, oh, man, you are in for fines and, who knows, maybe some jail time.
Its a sad forecasting world out there.
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Here are the sad (lotta “sad” today) conflicting rain/no rain model outputs for the SAME time and day, the first panel from yesterday morning when I was happy, and the second panel below, from the very latest run:
Rainy AZ prediction for November 28th based on yesterday’s (11-19) 5 AM AST global data. See green pixelation in Arizona; that’s model predicted rain. Was happy to see this late yesterday morning.18 h later, the model run from last night’s data at 11 PM AST also valid for November 28th. Look at that huge dry region in the whole West that has replaced a substantial storm! Unbelievable. There a friggin’ high pressure center almost exactly where there was a big low pressure center! We call this, “Forecasting hell.”
Today….
On to happier things, should have some gorgeous clouds and skies today as a tropical system skirts SE AZ. Virga likely. Keep cameras ready for a great sunset.
The End.
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Why would they name their organisation, “Environment Canada” when you already have to go to a Canadian site to look at it?
Here’s is the latest model run from our USA WRF-GFS (aka, “goofus”, as the Europeans might call it, looking down their noses at our inferior weather predicting model compared with their “ECMWF” model as described (here) in the November 9th issue of Science.
It was an upsetting read, BTW. Seems the Euros use bigger, faster computers than we do, ones that they were able to afford by charging a lot of money to see the results. Very bad.
In case you want the meat of that Science article: “From the BEGINNING (this writer’s emphasis) ECMWF has been the world champ in medium range forecasting. Today ECMWF forecasts remain useful into the next week, out to 8.5 days. That leaves the rest of the forecasting world, inculding the U. S. National Weather Service with its less powerful computer, in the dust by a day or more.”
What have our guys (includes women) been doing all these years? (Just kidding, maybe.)
OK, onward with what we have to work with…..
This WRF-GFS run is just from last nights 11 PM global data crunch, the VERY latest as of this writing. I picked it out from earlier runs to show because this run latest has a lot of rain in Arizona. Namely, it was a subjective call to display a few snapshots from it. Displaying the results of this run has nothing to do with scientific objectivity. Enjoy; it might not be real rain that falls to the ground, only real in the model’s calculations. Still, its great to see and think about.
Instead of showing the full size of these model outputs as I normally would do, I thought I would size them in proportion to their credibility based on the Science article. We can’t see the better ECMWF-British model results unless we pay a lot of money, so this will have to do. Unless you click on these below, you’ll have to use a microscope…
Valid for November 29th, 11 PM AST, only 264 hours away!Valid for 11 AM AST, November 30th, 12 h laterValid for 11 PM AST, November 30th–off and on rains now for TWENTY-FOUR hours!Valid for 11 AM AST, December 1st. Still raining around here.Valid for 11 PM AST, December 1st. Rain still falling in the 12 h ending at this time.
So, once again, our late November-early December storm has returned to the model fold. Its been coming and going. For example, the 5 PM AST global model run had NO RAIN in AZ, so I didn’t want to show those results.
But just ahead….this
In the nearer future….. Seems the Environment Canada computer model, built around the SUPERIOR ECMWF model, has rain here in about 48 h from now resulting from a tiny, weak low that ejects from the deep tropics right over us. Cool, though the air itself would be warmer and more moist than we usually see at this time of year in a rain situation (higher dewpoints). Must regard this as a serious rain threat now. Here’s a snapshot of that rain day from Enviro Can (see lower right panel for 12 h rain totals and areas covered–would fallen overnight tomorrow night into Wednesday morning. The whole better than the US model runs is here.
Yesterday’s clouds
Another fabulous early winter day in Arizona. Out of state license plates picking up in number. Can’t blame ’em. Here’s a sample of yesterday’s skies and another great sunset:
2:06 PM. Cumulus humilis and fractus (shred clouds).5:23 PM. Small Cumulus and distant Cirrus add highlights to an Arizona sunset.5:25 PM, looking south.
Once again we were treated to a spectacular sunset, another one in a long series of occasional sunset spectacles, ones that probably go back before the 1900s. We didin’t have color film in the 1800s, so we can’t be for sure if there were spectacular sunsets here except via artist’s renderings, of necessity, of course, analog ones comprised of subjective estimates of sunset colors being seen, not the real ones. I you would like to read about clouds in paintings over the centuries, go here and here. In this second link, you will find that Leonardo da Vinci was quite interested in Cumulonimbus downbursts gave painting them a shot. Its not that great, to be honest.
We meteorologists often sadly ruminate on the career of Leonardo, thinking that had he only turned his attention away from art, sculpting and the like, and instead turned to the problem of weather forecasting, how much farther ahead we would be today. A real shame. Maybe we wouldn’t be relying on spaghetti plots so much.
Also got a trace of rain here in Catalina–you could sure get that smell of rain as soon as you went outside this morning.
5:25 PM. Altocumulus opacus under lit by the setting sun. Altostratus clouds were above that layer.
We also had some real interesting mottled-looking skies yesterday due to Altocumulus underneath a layer of Altostratus translucidus. Those underlying Altocumulus clouds were in a layer with a lot of instability (temperature dropped rapidly with height in it) and so there were many little spires (castellanus and floccus varieties). This happens because a little bit of warmth is added to the air when moisture condenses in it, and that bit of warmth was able to drift upward. As that happens the air around those little cells of updrafts settles downward gently to take the place of the rising air creating voids. So, you get clear air spaces between the little cloudlets. I think that’s what happened here.
3:10 PM. Altocumulus castellanus and floccus invade sky under Altostratus translucidus (thinner version).
Let see, what else is going on…. Most of that plume of moisture from the tropics is gone, and so only expect a few Cumulus today. Oh, yeah, big storm about to slam northern Cal and Oregon. Take a look at this map series from the Washington Huskies to get an idea of how its growing in size before hitting the coast.
No rain predicted here in past two model runs (last evening and last night, 06 Z) for the next 15 days, but we are quite sure that’s wrong. Will be looking for that end November early December rain to reappear because I have a subjective hunch it will. If it doesn’t reappear, I will likely pretend I never said anything about it, in keeping with long tradition in public weather forecasting.
BTW, and belaboring the point a bit, here’s an example of how errors in public forecasting SHOULD be handled; “right up front”, in this case, an anonymous Seattle forecaster addresses the terrible temperature forecast he made the previous day following day:
12:18 PM. Altostratus translucidus (sun’s position is visible).2:34 PM. More Altocumulus opacus with virga. Large clearing approaches from the west.3:46 PM. Patch of Altocumulus translucidus perlucidus (thin, with a honey-combed pattern)
Today? More pretty clouds.
The weather way ahead, like on November 29th
Just after I was asserting from this typewriter that the big storm, the Great Wet Hope in late November, was surely bogus, out popped another wet forecast for AZ n the model run crunching global data from 11 AM AST yesterday. Here it is below, first panel. You MAY remember that the nice early rains that we had in November last year were associated with a similar pattern of an upper low center near San Diego.
What to think of this “outlier” forecast, one NOT supported in the ensemble of spaghetti plots (model runs where small errors are deliberately input to see how those runs change from the ones based on the actual data). There very little support for panel 1 in those “perturbed” runs, but there it was again, a big AZ rain!
Well, its still unlikely, but the chance of it actually happening are now much improved. Something out there is causing the model to come up with a good rain in AZ at the end of the month. I did not think I would see any rain again in AZ in any more model runs.
And, sure enough, the model run based on data just 6 h later than the one shown in the first panel, took it away again! See the second map below and look at the astonishing differences over Arizona and the Southwest overall!
I won’t show it, but the “perturbed with errors” model runs that we look for to discern credibility in the longer term forecasts like these, STILL does not support much of a chance for a rain to be realized on the 29th.
But, that second appearance of an “outlier” in another model run….hmmmmmmm. Will be watching for a return; you start to get a feeling that it might well be seen again.
As I finish this blog blurb, the 11 PM global data should have been crunched by now, and will look to see if there is yet another huge change (well, there are always large changes, but here, I’m talkin’ for us!) Will let you know in about 2 minutes…. Stand by, generating new web window now…..
Oh, my gosh! Its changed again (3rd panel) to a huge West Coast troughy situation, completely different than the run at 5 PM AST last evening with the big ridge over us (bulge to the north). I have to post this latest map, again for late on November 29th. The situation you see in the third panel leads to another big rain forecast in AZ, though a couple of days later, early December! This is so great! Compare the second and third maps.
Now, you can really start to put some credibility in the supposed “outlier” forecast and, as a discerning meteorologist, say to the spaghetti plots with their little deliberate errors, “Go to HELL! You’re missing something big out there with those puny errors you start with.”
Calming down now, well, you can’t cast the thought of warm dry weather (seond panel) for late November out yet, but something IS being missed out there, which makes this an exciting period–just to see what happens. Though an admitted precipofile, at least here in AZ, not so much in SEA, I am putting my mental marbles on the trough in the West depictions now. Just a hunch.
Let’s check, could be goofy, but its all we’ve got right now for a rain, the map below valid for Thursday, November 29th, 5PM AST. The whole series is here.
Of course, the weather sophisticate would want to see what’s “up top” at the same time; see where the jet stream is (brown areas on the map below). Seeing that the J-Stream is right over us, and also being an Arizona precipophile, he might opine, “I find this quite credible.” It also shows massive cold in the West, Rockies, and northern Plains States.
“Who you gonna call”, to establish credibility? Storm Busters! (Or not) Yeah.
Here is the NCEP “ensemble of spaghetti” for this same time, from the SAME model runs, showing the huge system in the West:
Summary of spaghetti: There is no indication of a major cold trough/storm in the West, as would be indicated by a bunch of blue lines dipping down to AZ. Ain’t there.
In fact, its kind of shocking to me that there isn’t the slightest indication of a major trough in this region. So, the actual model run shown in the first two maps turns out to be an extraordinary outllier; some goofy measurements somewhere out there on our globe, got into the model and produced a spurious huge trough, cold and storm.
Amazing isn’t it, that there can be little tipping points due to slight errors in measurements somewhere that can wreck the whole thing, make giant changes from what really is going to happen? And to detect them, that’s why we do the “ensembles of spaghetti.”
What will happen in the next model runs? That trough on November 29th will almost certainly go away. So, the rain in AZ is “real” in the model run, but not real in life. And as we say here, “dang!”
After viewing this spaghetti plot, our AZ precipofile would now look back at those awesome maps for November 29th, and dejectedly, or even with model rage, and say, “Those maps from last night are full of….oops…. have no credibility whatsoever. What is the matter with this model it could even begin to calculate such a ludicrous pattern. Who’s the goofus out there that reported some bad data?” He would not mention a chance of rain late in the month to his neighbors.
This was meant as a “learn you and me up on spaghetti plots” module.
Yesterday’s clouds
Mostly very thick Altostratus clouds with lots of embedded droplet clouds, ones like layers of Altocumulus clouds inside them. Made for a very dull afternoon. Here are a couple of shots:
3:42 PM. Mostly Altocumulus here, some slight virga.3:52 PM. Same view, 10 min later. Can you see what’s jetting at you?
Well, when there’s no rain in the model predictions for 15 days, you have to get excited about something….
Like a solar flare, there has been another massive ejection of high clouds from the equatorial region and its heading toward Catalina, AZ. Here, from the Washington Huskies Weather Department1, is a 24 h loop of the event. Hope our cell phones still work. Here’s the latest still image:
Satellite image for 3:30 AM AST supplemented with various interesting annotations, some of which are correct.
What are the ramifications of ejected Cirrus coming all the way from the Equator to Catalina? Pretty skies, sunsets and sunrises, which is quite important to us humans. Also, when it starts arriving today, we’ll have milder nighttime temperatures. Yes, even Cirrus clouds cut down the outgoing longwave radiation leaving the earth’s surface at night, and of course, moderates the incoming visible (shortwave) radiation (sometimes called “sunlight”). We don’t want to dumb this down too much.
After 9-11, when all the aircraft stopped flying for a week some guys at a small university, one so small I don’t think it even had a football team, found that the daytime and nightime temperatures were affected by the lack of contrails. Daytime temperatures were a spec higher and nighttime temperatures a tiny bit lower, suggesting that even CONTRAILS have an effect on the weather and climate. It was an important finding. Of course, without a football team I am clueless, as are you are, concerning what university those findings came from.
You know what gets a lot of us scientists about that contrail study after 9-11, is that something simple and important was done that I (we) could have done had only we thought of it. We’re kind of bitter about it. Might have got a raise, too, got the name out there. Citation index fluffed up some. We’re dealing with a lot of loss here. Heck, you probably could have done this, too, it was that easy.
The study of contrails is a pretty big topic these days, though the effects are deemed small for the present. Here’s a short article for you. Here’s an unrelated one, one about smog’s effects on clouds, but one you should read, anyway. Might be true. Reading the second one is like doing an extra pushup. Its good for you. And me since one of the authors of the second article (Danny Rosenfeld) criticized me (and Pete Hobbs) royally in print in the late 90s only because we said his work was invalid. Show’s I’m magnanimous, following the ideals of science meaning that as scientists we have no personal feelings about our detractors.
Yeah right. Check the climate blogs and those ones who refuse to allow other scientists to even comment on their work! Its a hideous situation out there now, far from the ideals of science where one WELCOMES criticism. But, I diverge….getting worked up when I should be concentrating on clouds.
BTW, that little blob of clouds north of the ice cloud mass coming at us, is due to a little disturbance that will hit the coast of Cal in a few days. With it, the clouds here will get pretty thick, probably as will happen later today or tomorrow with the ice clouds, causing the optical depth to exceed 4.00000000000 (4).
What does an optical depth of four mean?
That means that the sun’s position is not discernable. (Also, can’t be a Cirrus cloud, BTW, but rather Altostratus if its an all ice cloud). Optical depth is usually something used by the smog folks. A really clean sky has an optical depth of 0.05 or even less. Smog laden skies, such is the coastal areas of southern California, or back East on humid days in the summer, have optical depths of 0.2-0.5 at times, horizontal visibility might only be a mile or three; the leaves are gray and the sky is brown, as the song says. Aren’t we happy we don’t have that kind of smog?
Looking way out, just now, I saw this in the ensemble of spaghetti, thought you should see it, too.
While no weather beyond warm breezes and high clouds is portended here, where would you really like to be in the West in two weeks or so for some really heavy rains? Can you tell? What’s a place I mention too many times when comes to Cal rains? Yes, the King Range around Shelter Cove, between Frisco and Eureka. This plot gives high confidence to major flooding in northern California in the 10-15 day window. Why? Because so many of the blue lines (564 dm height contours) dip down toward the tropics in the eastern Pacific in support of the actual forecast from last night (represented by the yellow lines). Remember that the blue lines result from small errors put into the model runs at the beginning to see how robust a forecast is. The wilder the spread of the lines, the less reliable a forecast is. The more they group together, the more robust, more reliable a forecast is. They look fairly bunched up in the eastern Pacific, and this is the reason for having this plot here today. I suspect we’ll be reading about heavy rains in Cal during that 10-15 day window. It will be fun to see if we can make such a call so far in advance!
The End.
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1Nobody knows your university by its scientific accomplishments, but only by its athletic accomplishments. Its been written up. I certainly wouldn’t. If online universities could have football teams, it might be the end of “brick and mortar” universities.
More of those high clouds, and we hope with some Altocumulus, will be dropping by from the deep tropics over the next week or so.
Camera alert: Sunsets and sunrises will be spectacular at times over this period and with more than one layer, there is more than one dominant color.
The saddest headline ever read re the coming winter? From the Climate Prediction Center here:
“El Nino watch discontinued”
They’d been talkin’ up an El Nino this winter and spring for months! And, as you know, El Nino occurrences tend to cause wetter winters here. Doesn’t mean we still can’t have some good storms, but the odds are lower.
Yesterday’s clouds
3:38 PM: Pretty Cirrus/Cirrostratus from near the Equator.4:37 PM. Cirrostratus thickening toward the horizon more than due to perspective. Where the shading begins, it is too thick be Cirrostratus (Cs), and is then classified as Altostratus (As) even though both are ice clouds. Typically As, from ground radar measurements, is more than 2 km (6,600 feet) thick. When flying up through As, the upper portion is exactly like thin CIrrostratus and haloes usually occur before exiting the top. Been there. The bottom ice crystals? Bullet rosettes. Top, little itty bitty prisms, plates and stubby solid columns.
