Review and Enhancement of Chapter 7 of AMS Monograph 58 on 2ndary ice

“Secondary Ice Production:  Current State of the Science and Future Recommendations”

by P. R. Field,a,b
R. P. Lawson,c P. R. A. Brown,a G. Lloyd,d C. Westbrook,e D. Moiseev,f
A. Miltenberger,b A. Nenes,g A. Blyth,b T. Choularton,d P. Connolly,d J. Buehl,h J. Crossier,d
Z. Cui,b C. Dearden,d P. DeMott,i A. Flossman,j A. Heymsfield,k Y. Huang,b H. Kalesse,h
Z. A. Kanji,l A. Korolev,m A. Kirchgaessner,n S. Lasher-Trapp,o T. Leisner, G. McFarquhar,o V. Phillips, p
J. Stith,q and A. Sullivan. l

Note to reader: the many superscripts refer to the institutions that the 29 authors belong to. They are not reported in this review.

The entire unadulterated article with its many illustrious co-authors can be found here:

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/amsm/58/1/amsmonographs-d-16-0014.1.xml

REVIEWER COMMENT on my submission:

“Reviewer #1: I believe the comments made by Art Rangno up through his section 3 should be included as an Appendix to the Monograph as he adds a number of points and references not included in the original monograph that may be of interest to future monograph readers.  I felt that the authors of the monograph adequately responded to the comments made by Art through his section 3.  However, the monograph authors have completely ignored as far as I can tell Rangno’s more specific comments in section 4 of his review.  I would like to see the Monograph authors address these more specific comments in the main body of the Monograph text and would like a response to each comment as in a normal journal paper response to reviewers comments.”
———-
There were no other reviewers. (AR)

Reviewed by (Mr.) Arthur L. Rangno[1]
Retiree, Staff Research Scientist III,
Cloud and Aerosol Group, Atmos. Sci. Dept.,
University of Washington, Seattle.
Currently: Catalina, Arizona 85739

The many authors’ polite response to my novella-sized review is found below. They were very nice considering I was not in a good mood when I reviewed their chapter. Since some of the senior authors of Chapter 7 are friends, I am placing their response before the review and “enhancement” of Chapter 7, American Meteorological Society Monograph 58, that I submitted here:

 

There are two minor editions additions to my review that have been added concerning a research flight by the Cloud and Aerosol Group that adds more information to the problem of “secondary ice” and a further reference to drop freezing experiments by Duncan Blanchard (1957).

About the journal “Reply” to the
“Review and Enhancement” by the 29 authors of Chapter 7

Monograph Editor, G. McFarquhar, had this to say to me and the 29 co-authors of that chapter about my submission:

All:

First, I would like to give some information on the comment/reply process from my perspective as Chief Editor of the AMS Monographs.  It is true that there has never been a comment/reply published on an AMS Monograph article before.“  

Editor McFarquhar went on to mention the “strange” organization of my “review and enhancement.”  (Hah. Hardly surprising).

So, I inadvertently broke some ground in submitting a “review of a review.”  Why I was overlooked as a reviewer of this chapter is still perplexing. The most gratifying thing about this submission was that one of the 29 co-authors of Chapter 7 wrote and said, “I knew it was you who did the heavy lifting for Peter Hobbs.”  Indeed, and was the case for the other outstanding researchers that passed through his group.  But perhaps because it was in doubt that I could contribute, as a mere staff member in Peter’s group, was the reason why I was not asked to review Chapter 7 before it was published.   I coulda helped.

I have attached the current “status quo” situation, if interested in the topic of secondary ice formation in clouds. You will see in my review that the original Chapter 7 had some amusing errors, such as the Beaufort Sea apparently being in the Washington coastal waters.  I think the illustrious co-authors of Chapter 7 were in a hurry…. Also, in a grotesque error, the co-authors referred to me as, “Dr. Rangno,” while my real name is Mr. Art:

=====================================================

Some background on why I decided to review Chapter 7

I discovered the 2017 American Meteorological Society Monograph Number 58 and its Chapter 7 in early 2018.  I had worked on the problem of secondary ice in clouds discussed in this volume for more than 20 years with Professor Peter V. Hobbs, Director of the Cloud and Aerosol Research Group.  I know and consider a number of the senior authors friends.  

Our published work while sampling clouds in different venues and over many years repeatedly concluded that the leading theory to explain “secondary ice” in clouds, came up short.  That mechanism, discovered in careful lab experiments by Hallett and Mossop (1974: Mossop and Hallett 1984),  showed that when graupel (represented by a rod in a cloud chamber) intercepted larger (>23 um diameter) supercooled cloud droplets, some ice splinters were cast off.  However, it was limited to in-cloud conditions when the temperature was between -2.5° and -8°C.  The peak splinter production occurs at a temperature of -4.5°C.  From that peak, the rate of splinter production drops off quickly.

There is no doubt that this process occurs in clouds.  But, is that all there is?

The problem that we encountered was that high ice particle concentrations developed too rapidly in clouds with tops >-10°C to be explained by the Hallett-Mossop riming-splintering mechanism alone,  as it was described in the original lab experiments  and those that followed  (e.g., Mossop 1985).  

We also found high ice particle concentrations in clouds in which the components of this leading theory were not met, or barely so (Rangno and Hobbs 1994).  The discrepancies that we encountered, and those in other publications that reported discrepancies but were not cited in the Chapter 7,  will also be a theme.  It will also give me a chance to present an overview of our extensive findings, especially those that were not cited (Rangno and Hobbs 1991; 1994), and where there were drawbacks in our earlier work on this subject (i.e., Hobbs and Rangno 1985).

Abstract and organization of:

“Review and Enhancement of Chapter 7, AMS Monograph 58

Sections 1-3 below was reviewed and commented by the authors of Chapter 7, but I had not seen those comments as of 19 March 2021. They were not relayed to me by the journal Editor, which is normally done so that errors and misunderstandings in papers can be taken care of behind the scenes before publication. That’s a pretty normal practice, but it hadn’t happened by that date, so read Sections 1-3 with caution since revisions are likely and the authors’ criticisms except as they appeared above.

You can easily skip to the line-by-line critique resembling a “normal” manuscript review that comprise Sections 4 and 5 via “jump” links.

————————————————————————————–The review of Chapter 7 consists of several elements: 1) an introduction section, 2) a review of the Hallett-Mossop process and why it cannot explain, of itself, high ice particle concentrations in Cumulus clouds with slightly supercooled tops; 3) relevant literature that went uncited in Chapter 7 that might have altered, and in some cases, enhanced some of the authors’ conclusions; 4) selected quotes from Chapter 7 followed by my commentary, similar to a formal manuscript review; 5) lesser, picayunish corrections , some involving citation etiquette, all of which should have been caught before Chapter 7 went to press.

Field et al. (2017, hereafter, F2017) have done a remarkable job of summarizing a vast amount of work on the continuing enigma of the origin of ice-in-clouds.  Not surprisingly, considering the abundance of publications in various journals relevant to this mystery, some publications were overlooked that might have helped the reader, and altered some of the conclusions wrought in F2017.  This review is meant to “fill in” those blanks; to be an enhancement of Chapter 7 rather than a series of criticisms.   It is restricted to the cloud microphysical portions of Chapter 7 concerned with ice multiplication in Cumulus clouds, the writer’s specialty.

1. Introduction

The “embarrassment of citation riches” to much of our prior University of Washington work[2], is much appreciated.  Nevertheless, since it is not possible to be cited too many times, only too few, we dredge up even more of our work relevant to the question of secondary ice that went uncited.  The comments contained in this review will range from picayunish errors in F2017 (left until the end) to more significant commentary concerning the workings of the H-M process at the beginning of this review.  This is followed by quotes in F2017 followed by my comments, a style mimicking that of a pre-publication review.

We start with a summary of the Hallett-Mossop riming-splintering process (Hallett and Mossop 1974; Mossop and Hallett 1974, hereafter “H-M”) and why the H-M process cannot, of itself, account for the “rapid” development of ice in clouds that F2017 mentions in their abstract.  In reading Field et al. it was felt that this distinction between clouds that produce ice rapidly and the inability of the H-M process alone to do that in slightly supercooled Cumulus clouds, beginning with primary ice nuclei (IN) was not made clear.

Relevant literature that was not cited or possibly not known about by F2017 is indicated by an “u” after the citation in this review, for “uncited.”   The relevant citations are found at the end of this piece.  (Jump/anchor links will be added when I remember how to do them.)                        ‘

  1. Review of the Hallett-Mossop riming-splintering process

The rapid development of precipitation in Cumulus clouds transitioning to Cumulonimbus clouds, has been noted for many decades via radar (e.g., Battan 1953; Saunders 1965, Zeng et al. 2001) and by aircraft (e.g., Koenig 1963).   A process that can explain such rapid transitions in clouds whose tops reach much above the freezing level must act very quickly (<10min) to enhance concentrations of ice particles in such clouds.  The H-M process is one that is usually cited in conjunction with this rapid formation of ice.  However, of itself, even when the broad droplet spectra is satisfied in a Cumulus turret with a top at -8°C with only primary ice nuclei (IN) as ice initiators, such a cloud can never attain the 10s to 100s of ice particles per liter associated with “ice multiplication”, those in modest Cumulonimbus clouds.   

Why can’t the H-M process alone produce significant ice in Cumulus clouds when its criteria are satisfied? 

The lifetime of Cumulus turrets is too short, <20 min (e.g., Workman and Reynolds 1949u, Braham 1964u, Saunders 1965u). Its too short for several cycles of splinters to develop, those having to reach fast-falling graupel sizes to be significant splinter producers, starting with ice particles from the very few primary ice nuclei (IN) at -8°C.  Even the H-M droplet spectra itself is doomed within a few minutes in the lives of ordinary Cumulus turrets as they fall back and evaporate[3].  Mason’s (1996) calculations, using reasonable assumptions, required 1 h for ice particle concentrations to reach 100 l-1after starting from primary IN, which Mossop noted was untenable for a Cumulus turret.   Chisnell and Latham (1976) understood this: “Firstly there are some reported multiplication rates, 10 in 8 min (Mossop et al. 1970), 500 in 5 ~ min (Koenig 1973-sic), which are inexplicable in terms of a ‘riming only’ model, but which are consistent with a model containing rain drops.”

Absent larger (>30 µm diameter)  droplets and/or precipitation-sized drops (>100 µm diameter), tens of minutes to an hour or more is required to raise ice particle concentrations from from primary IN concentrations to 100 l-1(e.g., Chisnell and Latham 1976, “Model A”, Mossop 1985a,u, Mason 1996), times that are not tenable considering the short lifetimes of Cumulus turrets.

Moreover, air translates through Cumulus clouds analogous to lenticular clouds though at a far slower pace (e.g., Malkus 1952u, Asplinden et al 1978u).  Thus, while a Cumulus cloud can appear to exist for tens of minutes, its individual turrets cannot.   Any splinters that might be formed by a round of very sparse graupel due to primary IN, should an ice crystal have time to become a graupel particle, will go out the side or evaporate as the top declines and evaporates toward the downwind side as illustrated in Byers (1965u, Figure 7.3).  One of the lessons learned in the HIPLEX seeding experiments when dry ice, dropped like graupel into supercooled Cumulus turrets, was that it produced ice crystals that drifted out the side of decaying cloud portions (Cooper and Lawson 1984u).

Mossop (1985a,u) himself had trouble explaining the rapidity of ice development in his own Cumulus clouds in the Australian Pacific.  Using his measured concentrations of frozen drizzle drops as an accelerator of ice formation, Mossop calculated that it would take about 47 minutes to go from initial ice concentrations due to primary IN (0.01 per liter) at -10°C to 100 ice particles per liter. Mossop knew that this amount of time was untenable for a Cumulus turret.  He then reasoned that IN must be about 10 times higher at -10°C to explain that discrepancy, or about 0.1 per liter, to bring the glaciation time he observed down to about 20 minutes (calculating that the concentrations of ice particles increased 10 fold each 10 min beginning with 0.1 IN per liter active at -10°C).   The concentration of IN surmised by Mossop (1985a, u) is now close to that in updated concentrations of IN by DeMott et al. 2010 of about 0.3 per liter active at -10°C[4]

However, IN need to be about 10-100 times higher than Mossop’s estimate of 0.1 per liter to bring down the time of glaciation to that observed in clouds like his own Australian clouds, namely, ones containing copious droplets >30 um diameter and some precipitation-sized drops.  This was demonstrated by Crawford et al. 2012’s case of 100 times the DeMott et al. primary IN with a model cloud top at -10°C, a case study that best mimicked the near-spontaneous glaciation of real clouds having modestly supercooled tops and containing drops >30 µm diameter (often with drizzle or raindrops). 

In sum, if the droplet spectra does not broaden considerably farther so that droplets larger than 30-40 µm in diameter are in plentiful concentrations (past the Hocking and Jonas 1971; Jonas 1972) thresholds for collisions with coalescence to begin,  there will be no “rapid” glaciation in slightly to modestly supercooled clouds that only meet the H-M droplet spectra criteria.  

  1. Discussion of ice multiplication in literature that went uncited by F2017

Our follow up studies of ice development in Cumulus and small Cumulonimbus clouds after HR85 and HR90 went uncited in F2017. Those were Rangno and Hobbs 1991u and 1994u, hereafter RH91u and RH94u.  We offer a brief summary of our findings before moving on to other relevant uncited findings.  We believe that these uncited papers, en toto, cast additional light the nature of the problem posed by ice multiplication.Discussion of RH91u with some background on HR85

In our prior study of ice-in-clouds, HR85, only a 6 s time resolution was available for data during most of the sampling period  (1978-1984). Therefore, we sampled rather wide cloud complexes to get meaningful statistics.   In addition, our 2-DC probe was only operated sporadically, not continuously in cloud.  

In RH91u data resolution was 1 s or less, and there was continuous 2-DC coverage of cloud penetrations.   Moreover, we carried a vertically-pointable (up or down), mm-wavelength radar, perhaps the first cloud research aircraft to do so. 

We often sampled much smaller clouds than in HR85 and we found that maritime, short-lived (<1 km wide) “chimney” Cumulus clouds whose tops fell back into warmer air and evaporated, did not produce much detectableice even if they reached close to -10°C.  This was true even as their wider, nearby brethren with the same cloud top temperature produced “anvils of ice”, replicating the findings in HR85 (see RH91u, Figure 1). The low ice concentrations found in chimney Cumulus clouds could also have been due to not being able to sample very small ice crystals, those below about 100 µm in maximum dimension.  It forced us to reconsider the role of evaporation that we posited was important in the production of ice in HR85.

The finding in RH91u that wider clouds had considerably more ice corroborated Mossop et al.’s 1970 and Schemenauer and Isaac’s (1984u) earlier findings that cloud width had a profound effect on the development of ice in clouds.  These findings implicitly address the importance of the duration of cloud and precipitation-sized drops, if any of the latter, at lower temperatures. 

Of note  is that the maritime Cumulus clouds in Washington State coastal waters during onshore flow are virtually identical to those studied by Mossop and his colleagues in the Australian Pacific in terms of cloud base temperatures, droplet concentrations, ice particle concentrations and in the minimum cloud top temperatures at which most sampling took place  (e.g., Mossop et al 1968u, Mossop and Ono 1969u).   Our studies were, thus, an attempt at replicating the findings of Mossop and his colleagues without going to Australia.  

In RH91u, we found again, as noted in F2017, that Mossop’s (1985a, u) report that ice concentrations required 20 min to rise from 0.1 per liter to 100 per liter, was still too great an amount of time to account for the rapidity of the glaciation that we observed in our Washington clouds.  Lawson et al. (2015) have arrived at a similar conclusion recently though in a different way.

 In RH91u we also compared the explosive formation of ice in our maritime Cumulus to our prior dry ice cloud seeding experiments (Hobbs 1981u) and again in RH94u. The imagery is remarkably similar as a demonstration of the rapidity, the virtually spontaneous formation of ice[5].  We thought that an important comparison.

We also investigated the ocean’s influence on ice formation by sampling small to medium Cumulus clouds that developed out of clear air in an extremely cold[6], offshore flowing air mass over the Washington State coastal waters. Cloud bases were -18°C and cloud tops of the deepest Cumulus, -26°C.   The sea surface was roiled by estimated 25-40 kt winds with widespread whitecaps. Mixing from the sea surface, about 13°C, to cloud bases was extreme, as marked by the heavy turbulence on that flight and vomting.  We sampled those cumuliform clouds as they deepened downwind as far as 100 km offshore that day. 

That day stood out in our studies.  We measured the lowest ice particle concentrations in all our sampling of cumuliform clouds with top temperatures -24°C to -26°C by measuring maximum concentration of only 7 l-1in clouds up to about 1 km in depth.  This day forced us to conclude that the coastal waters of Washington State, anyway, were not a source of high temperature ice nuclei, counter to some more recent work (DeMott et al. 2016).  However, we did not measure concentrations of ice particles that were < 100 µm in maximum dimension.

The droplet spectra in those offshore flowing clouds was narrow, as would be expected with such low base temperatures, and again the idea that droplet sizes control ice formation was once again realized by these low concentrations of ice.

In sum, from our attempts at replicating Mossop’s results in clouds identical to his over many years, we found several departures in ice formation from the operation of the H-M process as it was being described.  These discrepancies are somewhat different than those quoted for our research in F2017, hence we reprise them here: 

The focus of RH94u was to remove the effects of the H-M process by studying ice development continental and semi-continental clouds found mostly east of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, clouds that did not meet the H-M criteria. We believed that this was an important next step.  The clouds we sampled almost always had base temperatures of 0°C or lower.  Droplet concentrations were semi-continental to “continental” ranging from 300 cm-3to 1500 cm-3, many times higher than droplet concentrations in the Washington coastal waters in onshore flow that averaged but ~50 cm-3.    Thus, the droplet spectra in the eastern Washington and other cold clouds we sampled were considerably narrower than in our coastal clouds, and due to those cold bases, contained few if any drops meeting the large droplet size (>23 µm) in the H-M temperature zone.  We again carried our vertically-pointable, mm-radar to help elucidate cloud structures below or above the aircraft.

Our findings for the eastern Washington State clouds, simply explained, were that the higher the cloud base temperature, the greater the ice at in a Cumulus cloud, holding cloud top temperature constant. Thus, a cloud with a base of -15°C and a top of -20°C had far lessice than a cloud with a base of 0°C and a top at -20°C with no contribution from H-M.  This finding spoke to, as we believed then and continue to believe, the largest droplet sizes of the spectra as being a critical parameter in the production of ice.   We continued to find that a measure of the broadness of the FSSP-100-measured droplet spectrum (our “threshold diameter”, or large end “tail” of the droplet spectrum, e.g., HR85) in newly risen turrets lacking much ice (<1 l-1) continued to be strongly predictive of later maximum ice particle concentrations.

We also found that for very cold based clouds (<-8°C) that Fletcher’s (1962u) summary ice nucleus curve predicted ice concentrations associated with a range of cloud top temperatures extremely well (r=0.89).  This probably indicated that we had little contribution from probe shattering artifacts after accounting for them (see RH91u).   The crystal types in those clouds were almost all delicate stellar and dendritic forms where shattering artifacts would be expected to be rampant[9]

Too, ice formation in the eastern Washington State clouds, as it was in our maritime clouds, was extremely rapid, explosive, in turrets with larger droplets (>~25 µm in diameter) as they reached their peak heights with no contribution from H-M.  As with our maritime clouds, the scenario of a few much larger particles (graupel) appeared to be coincident with wholesale formation of high ice concentrations. 

This did not happen, however, in very cold-based (<-8°C), shallow clouds with small (~<20 µm diameter) droplets and tops down to -27°C where ice appeared to form from a “trickle” process likely due to ambient IN concentrations rather than aided by other factors.  

  • The formation of ice was far more rapid in clouds with tops between -5°C and -12°C than could be accounted for by H-M, requiring <10 min, as judged from the small size of the ice particles in high concentrations, ones that had not yet had time to begin forming aggregates; moreover, they were usually coincident with relatively high LWC that had not had time to be depleted (e.g., HR90, RH91u). Newly risen turrets full of LWC could be seen to transition to an icy, fraying, soft, cotton-candy appearance in less than 10 min.   What cloud observer hasn’t seen this behavior?
  • Our maritime clouds had very low concentrations of small (<13 µm diameter) droplets once appreciably above cloud base and into the H-M temperature zone. Low concentrations of small droplets were once thought to be an impediment to riming and splintering (e.g., Mossop 1978u; Hallett et al. 1980u), though later studies deemed them to have only a “secondary role” (Mossop 1985b).
  • Measured graupel concentrations, despite our “optimizations” (using high concentrations over a few meters rather than turret-averaged) to try to make H-M work in RH91u were still not high enough to account for the high concentrations of ice particles that developed so quickly.
  • Our fast-glaciating, modest Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds with tops between -5°C >-12°C did not contain mm-sized raindrops, thought to be critical for rapid glaciation as asserted by F2017. However, copious large droplets (>30 µm diameter) and drizzle-sized drops up to about 500 µm diameter were always found, though the latter in relatively low concentrations[7],[8].  Drop sizes between 30 µm and 60 µm diameter, deemed an important player in ice multiplication by Ono (1972u), were always copious.

 

  • Discussion of Rangno and Hobbs (1994u)

Too, our evaluation of the H-M process could not explain the ice multiplication that occurred in those few eastern Washington clouds that did meet the H-M criteria.  In our calculations we used a “relaxed” FSSP-100 spectra (as lately invoked by Crawford et al. 2012) that resulted in more >23 µm diameter droplets than were actually observed in our calculations to no avail in an attempt to “break” our conclusions (as good scientists do).                 

Two very short but illuminating papers were published in 1998 that discussed two viewpoints concerning the H-M process.  Blyth and Latham (1998u) “Commented” on the University of Washington findings2as completely explicable due to the H-M process, counter to the conclusions stated in our papers in which we felt that H-M might be playing a lesser role.   We defended our findings in our reply (Hobbs and Rangno 1998u)[10]

Following Mossop’s (1978) nomogram for ice development and ice multiplication boundaries given cloud base temperatures[11], we evaluated the onset of ice based on cloud depth and temperature of the onset of ice in Cumulus clouds using cloud base temperatures for continental clouds in Rangno and Hobbs (1988u), updated with many more data points from various locations around the world in Rangno and Hobbs 1995u (Figure 12). These data, for non-severe convection, point to a critical role of droplet sizes as proxied by cloud depth for the onset of ice in clouds (as Ludlam 1952) first noted), and, thus when ice multiplication can be expected.

  • Other uncited findings that impact F2017

Perhaps the most remarkable instance of “secondary” ice formation was left out of the field studies described by F2017:  that of Stith et al 2004u in clean tropical updrafts.  Stith et al. reported tens of thousands per liter of spherical ice particles in tropical updrafts that led to nearly complete glaciation by -12°C and total glaciation by -17°C.   As Stith et al.  pointed out, and was obvious, there is no mechanism presently known that can explain those observations.  The remarkable findings of Stith et al. should have been “front and center” in F2017. (Or, it should have been called out as bogus in a footnote.)

Another finding, one that resembles the findings of Stith et al. 2004u, and is also inexplicable by H-M, is that of Paluch and Breed (1984u).   High ice particle concentrations (100 l-1) formed in a Cumulus cloud updraft at a moderate supercooling.

Other examples of H-M “exceptionalism” that went uncited in F2017: Cooper and Saunders 1980u, Cooper and Vali 1981u, Gayet and Soulage 1982u, Waldvogel et al 1987u.

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  1. A tedious line-by-line critique of F2017, analogous to a pre-publication manuscript review, one that should have taken place before publication.

P7.1:  F2017, their introduction:  “Airborne observations of ice crystal concentrations are often found to exceed the concentration of ice nucleating particles (INPs) by many orders of magnitude (see, e.g., Mossop 1985; Hobbs and Rangno 1985; Beard 1992; Pruppacher and Klett 1997; Hobbs and Rangno 1998; Cantrell and Heymsfield 2005; DeMott et al. 2016). In the 1970s (Mossop et al. 1970; Hallett and Mossop 1974) the discrepancy between expected ice particle concentrations formedthrough primary ice nucleation and observed ice particle concentration motivated the search for mechanisms thatcould amplify primary nucleation pathways.”

Comment:  While it was gratifying to have our work cited in the Introduction of F2017, the observations of unexpectedly high ice particle concentrations at slight supercoolings (>-10°C), goes no farther back than Mossop et al. 1970. One wishes some the earlier workers who reported ice at unexpectedly high cloud top temperatures would have been cited in this first grouping[12], such as Coons and Gunn 1951u; Ludlam 1955u; Murgatroyd and Garrod 1960u; Borovikov et al. 1961u; Koenig 1963; Hobbs 1969u; Auer et al 1969u.

P 7.2, Section 2, F2017:  “The consensus is that H-M occurs within a temperature range of approximately -3°C to -8°C, in the presence of liquid cloud droplets smaller than ~13µm and liquid drops larger than ~25µm in diameter that can freeze when they are collected by large ice particles (rimed aggregates, graupel, or large frozen drops).”

Comment:  It is now believed that the small droplets play a far less important role than once envisioned.  Goldsmith et al. (1976), later confirmed by Mossop (1978) appeared to find strong evidence that droplets <13µm diameter played a critical role in ice multiplication.  In fact, it was thought for a time that very low concentrations of those small drops would lead to clouds absent in ice multiplication in clean locations (e.g., Hallett et al. 1980u).   However, Mossop 1985a, u himself, in later laboratory experiments determined that small drops played a much-reduced role in H-M.   Cloud studies in pristine environments where ice multiplication was rampant (RH91u in the Washington State coastal waters in onshore flow, HR98 in the Arctic, Rangno and Hobbs (2005) in the Marshall Islands, and Connolly et al. (2006a) in England, would seem to have confirmed the minor role of droplets <13 µm diameter in riming and splintering in clean conditions.

Section 2, p7.3-7.4:  The F2017 Table 1 and the discussion of laboratory and field observations of secondary ice particles.

Comment:  While Section 2 was remarkably thorough, some important findings were not cited, or listed in Table 7.1 of the many studies of secondary ice particles.  Ono (1971u, 1972u) should have been included in Table 7-1 and in the accompanying F2017 discussions; he appears to have preceded Hallett and Mossop (1974) concerning the importance of larger cloud droplets coincident with graupel in ice multiplication[13].  Two elucidating quotes from Ono: 

Ono (1971u), his abstract:

“(Ice crystal) sizes, concentrations and microphysical conditions of occurrence support the hypothesis that they were formed when ice fragments were thrown off from water drops freezing after accreting on ice crystals.”

Ono (1972u):

“However, from our present observations, it has been found that in the clouds where moderately large drops of 30 to 60 µm in diameter and graupel-like rimed ice particles occurred simultaneously, we have a high concentration of secondary ice crystals. The presence of drops with some hundreds of microns in diameter is not a crucial factor for crystal multiplication.”

Moreover, Ono’s (1972u) findings above would appear to square better with our own findings (e.g., HR90, RH91u) for maritime clouds in the Washington coastal waters concerning high ice particle concentrations since our cumuliform clouds in onshore flow always had plenty of supercooled droplets >30 µm diameter in their middle and upper portions, sizes that Ono implicated in ice multiplication.  Also, our Washington maritime clouds have virtually no mm-sized drops as F2017 erroneously conclude are necessary for the “rapid” ice formation.

At the top of p 7.4: “…and observations are compromised by the potential of ice to break on contact with the aircraft or instruments (e.g., Field et al. 2006).”

Comment:  A single reference to Field et al (2006) regarding probe-related ice artifacts could lead the reader to believe that shattering on probe tips was a very recently discovered problem.   Shattering on probe tips has been a well-known problem and was obvious in the imagery as soon as 2D probes began to be used in the late 1970s.   Those of us in airborne research have been addressing this problem for more than 30 years to minimize the contribution of artifacts to ice particle concentrations (e.g., Harris-Hobbs and Cooper 1987). 

Many of reports of ice multiplication have originated at ground sites (e.g., Hobbs 1969u, Auer 1969u, Burrows and Robertson 1969u, Ono 1971u, 1972u, Vardiman 1978).  Citing these reports and emphasizing that they were ground sites would have made it clear to the reader that airborne artifacts have not reduced this enigma very much.

In fact, in view of the complexity of aircraft measurements of ice particles, MORE ground observations are critical, particularly at sites where the H-M process should be frequently active in clouds at the ground as in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State (e.g., Paradise Ranger Station).  Such ground measurements are vitally needed as well in the Middle East at sites where there has been a dearth of ice-in-cloud measurements[14].  Some authors now claiming that even modern outfitted research cannot derive accurate concentrations of ice particles (i.e., Freud et al. 2015).   Hence, the need for more ground work if, in fact, the assertion in Freud et al. 2015 is true..

Section 2, last paragraph on p7.4: “Splinter production following the freezing of a large millimeter size droplet that subsequently shatters (droplet shattering; e.g., Mason and Maybank 1960..”

Comment:   The authors in citing Mason and Maybank (1960) several times are apparently unaware that Mason and Maybank’s results were compromised by CO2, as discovered by Dye and Hobbs 1966u.  CO2is a gas that promoted the shattering of drops that Mason and Maybank observed. Later, however, Hobbs and Alkesweeny 1968u, did find that a fewsplinters were shed by drops that rotated in free fall as they froze, far fewer than reported by Mason and Maybank.  Hobbs and Alkesweeny’s work should have been cited along with that of Brownscombe and Thorndike (1968).                                                                                                                                            

P7.2, Section 2, laboratory evidence for secondary ice formation:

Comment:  The role of water supersaturation in ice formation was ignored as a possible source of secondary ice.  Gagin and Nozyce 1984u reported the appearance of ice crystals in the environment of freezing mm-sized drops in lab experiments.  They attributed the formation of the new ice crystals to a pulse of high supersaturation with respect to water as the freezing drop warmed to 0°C in their chamber.  This could be an important secondary ice-forming mechanism, similar in effect to that used by Chisnell and Latham (1976), who incorporated splinters derived from freezing drops.   This process might explain the simultaneous appearance of ice splinters that appear so quickly, side-by-side, with frozen precipitation-sized drops.

P7.4, Section 3.  In situ observations of SIP and the discussion of the role of IN.

Comment:  The work of Rosinski (1991u) goes uncited.  Rosinski did a lot of work on maritime IN, ones that he claimed were active at slightly supercooled temperatures in concentrations of tens per liter.  His work should have been mentioned, even if it’s only to state that his measurements are not generally accepted.  However, if he was even partially correct, his findings would go a long way to explaining the rapidity of ice development in maritime clouds.

P7.5, “In addition, the measurements may be affected by the possibility that ice particles generated by the passage of the aircraft through the cloud (Woodley et al. 2003) from previous cloud passes could have mixed into the measured samples.” 

Comment:  The authors only cite Woodley et al. (2003) regarding aircraft-produced ice due to the passage of an aircraft.  This unexpected phenomenon was first reported 20 years prior to Woodley et al.  by Rangno and Hobbs (1983u, 1984u)[15].  Scientific etiquette requires that those who went first be cited.  Not citing benchmark papers that roiled the airborne research community due to the temperatures at which ice was produced (>-10°C) is remarkable. John Hallett (2008) termed this finding, “an embarrassment to the airborne research community.”

Too, not being cited when you should be inflicts material damage since one’s impact in one’s field, likelihood of promotions, awards, etc, is measured by citation metrics.

P7.6 “Lawson et al. (2015) suggest that the rapid glaciation in these strong updraft cores (~10ms-1) occurs at temperatures too cold and a rate too fast to be attributable to the H-M process.

Comment:  Citing the report of Stith et al. (2004u) would have been perfect here, as would have been Paluch and Breed (1984u).

P7.7, discussion of Heymsfield and Willis (2014):  “Heymsfield and Willis (2014)found that SIP evidenced by observations of needles–columns throughout the range -3°C to -14°C was observed predominantly where the vertical velocities were in the range from -1 to +1 ms-1.   The LWCs in the regions where SIP are observed are dominantly below 0.10 gm-3.  Median LWCs in these regions were only about 0.03 gm-3 with no obvious dependence on the temperature.”

Comment:  The Heymsfield and Willis (2014) finding is not only counter to most of the Washington experience but also that of other workers (e.g., Mossop et al. 1968u, Figure 4[16]; Mossop et al. (1972u. Figure 2; Mossop 1985u, Figure 1), Paluch and Breed 1984u; Lawson et al 2015’s “first ice”).  Why?   The initiation and observation of small ice particles in high concentrations usually occurs in the higher (short-lived) LWC zones (>0.5 g m-3).   These contrary findings are not mentioned by F2017, ones that would have presented a different picture of the origin of the high concentrations of ice.  Perhaps Heymsfield and Willis (2014) encountered their high ice particles in cloud “death throes”; evaporating anvil shelving, rather having encountered them close to where they formed? 

P7.7, discussion of Taylor et al. (2016):  “Taylor et al. (2016)analyzed aircraft measurements in maritime cumulus with colder (11°C) cloud-base temperatures that formed over the southwest peninsula of the United Kingdom. They found that almost all of the initial ice particles were frozen drizzle drops [;(0.5–1) mm], whereas vapor-grown ice crystals were dominant in the later stages. Their observations indicate that the freezing of drizzle–raindrops is an important process that dominates the formation of large ice in the intermediate stages of cloud development. In the more mature stage of cloud development the study found high concentrations of small ice within the H-M temperature range.”

Comment:  Virtually identical findings to Taylor et al.’s was reported for even cooler based clouds a quarter of a century earlier by RH91u which should have been cited along with Taylor et al.’s.

P7.7, 2nd: “It has been speculated that graupel does not need to play the rimer role. In situ observations from frontal cloud systems suggest that riming snowflakes may be able to mediate the SIP (Crosier et al. 2011; Hogan et al. 2002.).

Comment:  The 2002 and 2011 references to non-graupel ice particles shedding splinters seem out of place since this was considered so many years prior to these references.  For example, riming by other than graupel particles was part of the “potential” H-M scheme of Harris-Hobbs and Cooper in 1987, in Mason 1998, and by Mossop 1985b.

We should cite those who tread the ground before we did.

P7.8. last three lines:   “Finally, it should be noted that conditions where cloud tops are -12ºC and drizzle-sized supercooled droplets are present do not always result in the production of large numbers of ice crystals. Bernstein et al. (2007) and Rasmussen et al. (1995)identified these conditions as long-lived clouds and hazardous for aircraft.” 

Some elaboration on the interesting and important findings of Bernstein et al. (2007) and Rasmussen et al. (1995):

The University of Washington aircraft observed drizzle drops aloft in orographic clouds in the Oregon Cascade Mountains during IMPROVE 2 (Stoelinga et al. 2003); we had not observed them in the more aerosol-impacted clouds of the Washington Cascades in many years of sampling them, though we did not fly in the kind of strong synoptic situations encountered in IMPROVE 2. 

However, those Oregon drizzle drops that we encountered in IMPROVE 2, as usually happens, didn’t make it to the ground as liquid drops.   IMPROVE 2 had ground measurements in support of airborne work; no freezing rain or drizzle events were reported, a finding compatible with long term records in the Sierras, and Cascades with precipitation at below freezing temperatures under westerly flow situations and when the temperature decreases with height (unpublished data).   There is a duration-below-freezing-temperature factor, as well as the temperature itself, that together control the freezing of precipitation-sized drops.  The deeper the sub-freezing layer at temperatures below about -4°C, the more likely drops will freeze on the way down becoming sleet/ice pellets.

Supercooled layered cloud tops, sometimes colder than -30°C, are common and persistent, and they have been known about since 1957 (Cunningham 1957u, Hall 1957u; this situation is shown in Byers 1965u), and were described later by HR85, HR98, and explained by Rauber and Tokay 1991u. Supercooled tops, usually ones having a broad droplet spectrum if they are shedding ice (RH85), persist because the ice that forms within them falls out, as do precipitation-sized drops, if any, and those drops freeze on the way down.  Altocumulus clouds sporting virga is a common example of this phenomenon.  In this “upside down” storm situation, ice particle concentrations have been observed to increase downward (e.g., HR85; Rasmussen et al. 1995) likely due to the breakup of fragile crystals.  This phenomenon can mislead researchers solely using satellite data to infer the phase of entire cloud systems below those tops.

p7.15, Section 6, discussion and conclusions section, second bulleted item:  “The onset of the rapid glaciation of convective clouds is observed to occur shortly after millimeter-size drops freeze.”

Comment:  If Ono’s 1972u findings are correct the glaciation process is also triggered by drops smaller than even drizzle drops (0.2 to 0.5 mm diameter).  In our cool-based, modest-sized Washington State maritime clouds (bases rarely >6°C) with mm-sized drops were rarely encountered; nevertheless, ice formation was usually rapid and prolific. 

P7.15, Section 6, 2ndparagraph, last sentence: “It has been suggested by, for example, Koenig (1963)and Lawson et al. (2015)that supercooled raindrops play an important role in the initiation of the glaciation process and there is evidence that this can occur at temperatures greater than -10°C.”

Comment:  The phrasing that “there is evidence”, which was likely unintentional, makes it sound like the appearance of ice in clouds with tops >-10°C is a rare phenomenon which the authors know is hardly rare!  It happens globally over the oceans in clean conditions, and in continental convective clouds with warm bases.

  1. Minor comments and corrections

P7.6 “Figure 7-6shows aircraft observations taken within a few hundred meters of cloud top by repeatedly penetrating a rapidly growing convective plume”    

Comment:  Can the authors rule out aircraft production of ice?

P7.7: “They found that almost all of the initial ice particles were frozen drizzle drops ~ (0.5–1) mm], whereas vapor-grown ice crystals were dominant in the later stages.”

Comment: Drizzle drops are defined by the AMS and WMO as close togetherdrops between 0.2 mm and 0.5 mm diameter.  They virtually float in the air. The 0.5 to 1 mm diameter drops that F2017 refer to are raindrops, not drizzle ones.

P7.2, Section 2, Laboratory Studies:

Comment:  Amid citations of laboratory experiments that “have produced secondary ice”, we point out that Choularton et al (1980) only produced protuberances and spicules, not actual ice particles.  Later, F2017 again cite Choularton et al. a bit incorrectly by suggesting the drop sizes for spicule production he studied was “>~25 µm”.  Choularton et al. reported the main increase in protuberances was for droplets >20 µm diameter.

P 7.4, Section 3, In Situ Cloud Studies, first paragraph, 2ndline:  “Ice particles are often observed in abundance in convective clouds that are colder than 0°C but with cloud-top temperatures warmer than about -12°C…”

Comment:   Slightly more accurately: “… clouds whose tops have ascended past -4°C but have not been colder than about -12°C…”

P7.5, Section 3, last paragraph:   “Hobbs and Rangno (1985, 1990, 1998), in a series of aircraft investigations of maritime cumulus off the coast of Washington…” 

Comment:  F2017 indicates that HR98 concerned Washington State coastal clouds.  It concerned Arctic stratiform clouds.  This seems like a remarkable error for 29 authors to make.  Moreover, in HR98 we discussed ice multiplication in pristine, slightly supercooled Arctic Stratus clouds with extremely low (<20 cm-3) droplet concentrations.  We found little correlation between droplets <13µm diameter droplets and small (<300 diameter) ice particles as some have reported (Harris-Hobbs and Cooper 1987) in support of their importance in riming and splintering process.  Yet ice was plentiful (10s per liter) regardless of the concentrations of those small droplets in boundary-layer Stratocumulus clouds with tops of just -4° to -6° C.

P7.5, Section 3, the discussion of Harris-Hobbs and Cooper 1987:  “Harris-Hobbs and Cooper (1987)used airborne observations from cumulus clouds in three different geographic regions to estimate secondary ice production rates.” 

Comment:  The California clouds that HHC87 examined were not Cumulus but were long stretches of orographic stratiform, banded cloud systems rather than Cumulus clouds.

Editorial note concerning the popular phrasing, “warm or “cold” temperatures in numerous places.

A quote from Peter Hobbs on this common error; “A cup of coffee can be warm or cold, but not a temperature.”  A temperature is a number and can have no physical state itself, but rather refers to the state of a tangible object.

Acknowledgements:  This review is dedicated to the memory of Peter V. Hobbs, Director of the Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, Atmospheric Sciences Department, University of Washington, Seattle.  He allowed me to become the most I could be in my field.  This is also dedicated to our “can do” pilots;  the many members of our flight crews; and our software engineers, whose dedication to their jobs over the years in the adverse conditions that we often flew in, made our findings possible.

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Ono, A., 1971:  Some aspects of the natural glaciation process in relatively warm maritime clouds.  Memorial Volume of the late Prof. Syono.  A special issue of the J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 49, 845-858.  No doi.

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Paluch, I. M., and D. W. Breed, 1984: A continental storm with a steady state adiabatic updraft and high concentrations of small ice particles: 6 July 1976 case study.J. Atmos. Sci., 41, 1008-1024.  doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1984)041%3C1008:ACSWAS%3E2.0.CO;2

Pruppacher, H. R., and J. D. Klett, 1997: Microphysics of Clouds and Precipitation. 2nd ed. Kluwer Academic, 954 pp.

Rangno, A. L., 2008: Fragmentation of Freezing Drops in Shallow Maritime Frontal Clouds.  J. Atmos. Sci. 65, 1455-1466.  doi.org/10.1175/2007JAS2295.1 

___________, and P. V. Hobbs, 1983: Production of ice particles in clouds due to aircraft penetrations. J. Climate Appl. Meteor.,22, 214-232. doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1983)022%3C0214:POIPIC%3E2.0.CO;2

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___________, and __________, 1994:  Ice particle concentrations and precipitation development in small continental cumuliform clouds. Quart. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc.,120, 573-601. doi-org/10.1002/qj.49712051705

___________, and __________, 1995:  A new look at the Israeli cloud seeding experiments.  J. Appl. Meteor., 34, 1169-1193.doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1995)034%3C1169:ANLATI%3E2.0.CO;2

___________, and __________, 2001: Ice particles in stratiform clouds in the Arctic and possible mechanisms for the production of high ice concentrations. J. Geophys. Res., 106, 15 065–15 075.   doi:10.1029/2000JD900286.

___________, and __________, 2005: Microstructures and precipitation development in cumulus and small cumulonimbus clouds over the warm pool of the tropical Pacific Ocean.Quart. J. Roy. Meteor.Soc., 131, 639–673.   doi:10.1256/qj.04.13.

Rasmussen, R. M., B. C. Bernstein, M. Murakami, G. Stossmeister, J. Reisner, and B. Stankov, 1995: The 1990 Valentine’s Day Arctic outbreak. Part I: Mesoscale structure and evolution of a Colorado Front Range shallow upslope cloud. J. Appl. Meteor., 34, 1481–1511.    doi:10.1175/1520-0450-34.7.1481.

Rauber, R. M. and Tokay, A.1991: An explanation for the existence of supercooled liquid water at the top of cold clouds. J. Atmos. Sci., 48, 1005-1023. doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1991)048%3C1005:AEFTEO%3E2.0.CO;2

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Schemenauer, R. S., and G. A. Isaac, 1984:  The importance of cloud top lifetime in the description of natural cloud characteristics.  J. Climate Appl. Meteor., 23,267-279. doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1984)023%3C0267:TIOCTL%3E2.0.CO;2

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======================================================

FOOTNOTES

[1]Retiree, Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, Atmos. Sci. Dept., University of Washington, Seattle.

[2]Hobbs and Rangno 1985, 1990, and 1998, hereafter HR85, HR90, and HR98, and Rangno and Hobbs 2001 and 2005, hereafter RH2001 and RH2005.

[3]Exceptions might be those situations where fresh turrets rise up through remains of turrets in calm or nearly calm situations.

[4]It is interesting to note that aufm Kampe and Weickmann (1951) produced virtually the same ice nuclei activity graph as found in DeMott et al. 2010. Blanchard (1957) froze freely suspended giant drops at -5° to -8°C using out door air, as did aufm Kampe and Weickmann.

[5]We also found it difficult to arrive at that moment of “explosive” ice development with our aircraft.

[6]The Quillayute, WA, rawinsonde 500 mb temperature was -45°C the morning of our flight!

[7]We note that in the cloud studied by Mossop (1985u) a drop of 1.5 mm diameter was encountered.

[8]If Ono (1972u) was correct about the importance of drops between 30 µm and 60 µm diameter, then we may have been barking up the wrong “ice tree” by concentrating on drizzle and raindrop sizes.

[9]While tedious, we inspected all our 2-D imagery in our Cumulus studies for artifact problems; we didn’t just crunch numbers without looking at every 2-D strip!

[10]This colloquy also emphasized an extremely important point in science; we should speak out on findings that we question instead of remaining on the sidelines.  We admired Blyth and Latham for questioning our work. After all, we could be wrong!

[11]Isaac and Schemenauer (1979), however, criticized Mossop’s 1978 nomogram; Mossop (1979) responded politely with more supportive data.

[12]It has been said that references to ground breaking early work is disappearing in publications due to the presence of younger authors.

[13]Ono worked with Mossop (e.g., Mossop and Ono 1969u), perhaps there was some “cross-pollination” of ideas…

[14]Sites to consider might be at Mt. Hermon, Israel, or at ski resorts in Lebanon. In-cloud situations with snow and graupel precipitation would be common at these sites.

[15]Our first two submitted manuscripts, ones that preceded RH83u, were rejected. The editor wrote, concerning the 2ndmanuscript, “The reviewers are still unconvinced by these controversial claims”, B. Silverman, Ed., personal correspondence.

[16]Mossop et al. 1968u also found columnar ice particles in dissipating, anvil-like regions as well as in high LWC zones.

Frosty the Cumulus cloud

No NWS sounding from the U of AZ Weather Department yesterday afternoon, so’s we can’t really tell with solid data what the temperatures of yesterday’s frosty clouds were.

However, with a max here in the Heights of Sutherland of 71°F, and with a dry adiabatic lapse rate to the bottoms of the clouds (as is always the case on sunny afternoons with Cu), if we estimate how high the bottoms were with any accuracy we can get that bottom temperature.

You already know as a well-developed cloud maven person that they were WELL below freezing which could see by noticing how far the snow virga extended below the bases of the Cumulus, at least 3,000 feet.  and more from the larger clouds later on.   So we have something,

Let’s say bases were at 14,000 feet above the ground over Catalinaland–they were way above Ms. Mt. Lemmon at 9,000 feet which you could probably tell.  That would make the bases at about 16,000 to 17,000 feet above sea level in the free air, pretty darn high above us.

From a ground level of 3,000 feet, and with the dry adiabatic lapse rate of 5.4°F per 1000 feet, that would make the cloud bottoms a cold, cold, -2°F, or about -17° to -18°C!  COLD!  Then, tops, of  clouds only 3,000 feet thick (about 1 km), would be -28° to -30°C (assuming a mix of the dry adiabatic rate with the “moist adiabatic” rate, given yesterday’s conditions, or about 4° per 1000 feet, “plus or minus.”

Addendum–corrections, hope nobody see’s ’em:

Later analysis and the next morning’s NWS sounding from the U of AZ suggests that bases were closer to -10°C because they were not as high as CMP estimated.  Rather they were closer to 12,000 feet ASL.  Tops would not be quite as cold, too, more like -25° C and colder in the deeper clouds, plenty cold enough for ice in even the small clouds, and for the long snow virga trails.

Below, some samples of Frosty the Cumulus (Cumuli, plural):

1:22 PM. Small Cumulus (humilis and fractus) begin to form.

 

3:40 PM. By mid-afternoon, the slightly fatter Cumulus clouds (mediocris) start showing ice crystals coming out the downwind side, which is what that bit of haze is above the cloud outline.

3:41 PM. An ice haze is seen here, too, in the dissipating remnant of a humilis-sized Cu on the left edge, center.

4:10 PM.  Ice is appearing just about everywhere now as the air aloft cools a little more, and the Cumulus deepen upward some.  The clouds are likely no deeper than about 3,000 feet or about 1 km.  Tops, using the in-cloud lapse rate, typically a little less than the dry adiabatic rate, would be a frigid -27° C (-17°F) or so, which readily explains the ice-behaving nature of yesterday’s shallow Cumulus.  Even deeper clouds formed later in the afternoon and evening hours.  This image not left “blank” but has explanatory writing on it.

5:23 PM. Raindrops from heavy virga were beginning to reach the ground in several areas as evening approached. Overnight, a few fell on Catalina! These Cumulus complexes were likely more than 2 km thick, 6600 feet) topping out at temperatures well below -30°C (-22° F)

 

Not much ahead now.  Maybe a few more frosty Cu will form today… before things dry out and heat up.

The End.

Drizzle and Stratocumulus bonanza

No, this is not about Bonanza, the TEEVEE show, “Hoss”, or any of those ranching people, though that might be more interesting than a blog about clouds, gray ones.  First of all, the word, “bonanza” would be capitalized (its not on my view of this edit, FYI)  if this was a blog about it.  Second, there was no “Bonanza” episode about Stratocumulus and drizzle, another clue.

Your cloud diary, for those of you still reading this blog:

8:34 AM. An orographic layer of Stratocumulus tops Sam Ridge while a separate higher layer covering the whole sky sits on top of it. Neither one seem to be able to produce precip, ice or “warm rain”–precip without ice.

8:34 AM. Stratocumulus. Light rain is falling from them on the horizon. What does it mean? Those clouds over there are just that bit thicker, tops higher and colder. Could be a warm rain (no ice involved) or a case of “ice multiplication”, a still continuing mystery in the cloud and precip domain where more ice forms in clouds than we can explain. Mostly occurs when the cloud top temperatures are higher than -14°C to about -4°C. Ice crystals can be in tremendous concentrations in such clouds but we don’t know quite why yet. So, models that forecast rain and snow, as good as they are today, could be that bit better if they could accurately the ice in clouds in that cloud top temperature range I just mentioned a few paragraphs ago. That’s probably the biggest payoff for really understanding how ice forms in clouds. At the University of Washington, me and Peter Hobbs were reporting that the consensus theory on how ice formed in clouds was not capable of explaining what we were finding in the clouds we sampled with our aircraft. There was too much ice in clouds, and it appeared too fast. We were on the outside looking in and our whole body of work was criticized as being wrong by two of the great professors of ice-formation in clouds, Alan Blyth and John Latham in 1998. They used our names in the title of the article, too, “the glaciation papers of Hobbs and Rangno.”  I sent a copy to mom.  This is what happens when you’re not part of a consensus, you eventually get criticized royally because no one believes you, they think without commenting about it that your work is bogus. At the same time, it was truly GREAT that Blyth and Latham took time to look into all of our work since we scientists don’t do enough of that kind of thing, look into the work of others we suspect might be wrong. But over the years, the concensus about how ice forms in clouds has weakened and new factors are being touted as important players like drizzle drops that fragment or explode when they freeze because at certain temperatures an ice shell develops on the outside of a freezing drop, and then when the water farther in freezes and tries to get out because it wants to expand, it breaks the ice shell, and maybe spicule or ice splinter comes out helping to produce extra ice we call secondary ice particles since they didn’t form on an “ice nuclei”, something we have a though time measuring anyway. Fragmenting drops as they freeze has been known about for decades, but now its being thought that maybe a lot fragments result, not just a few as was thought before.  So those extra ice crystals end up creating concentrations of  ice crystals  we can’t quite explain in clouds here even in 2018,  such as those ones over there that were raining north of Saddlebrooke to bring us full round in this photo.  Caption too long?  Let us not forget that this site originated the practice of novella-sized captions.  I think many of you forget that a picture is worth a thousand words of caption, too.  Here, we’ve only managed a few hundred.

10:13 AM. Still raining way over there NE of Saddlebrooke and Bio2 if you look carefully, lower right. Can there be a better “classic” photo of Stratocumulus? I don’t think so. Cloud bases still running about the level of Sam Ridge, or about 3,500 to 4,000 feet above the ground.

10:05 AM, maybe. Stratocumulus clouds spewing drizzle precip roared out of the west in a band, now enveloping the Catalinas toward Pusch Ridge. Drizzle is pretty rare in Arizona, so I hope you noted it in your diaries yesterday. Means the clouds overhead have low droplet concentrations, and the larger drops are greater than about 30 microns in diameter, which are those sizes that when they bump together they can coalesce into a much larger drop that collides with more and more drops to form ones that can fall out of the cloud instead of just hanging around up there not doing much. We call that process the “collision-coalesce” process of rain formation, or “warm rain” process, one that doesn’t involve ice. The formation of ice almost never results in drizzle, hence (is that still a word?), why CMP thinks it was a warm-rain process yesterday over there. Also, drizzle is often think enough to make it look like its a snow shaft, which is what we see over there, too. But we know the freezing level was really high yesterday, so it can’t be snow over there. Nor are the clouds Cumulonimbus ones that CAN produce dense shafts.

Well, let’s move ahead to sunnier conditions, those pretty scenes we see on the mountains when a storm begins to clear out.

12:27 PM. As the Stratocumulus broke up, you got a glimpse of the deeper clouds north of Oracle that had been, and likely were still raining. Estimating depth here at about 2 km, or 6600 feet. With bases at 4,000 feet above ground, that would put the tops at only around 11,000 feet, too warm for ice since it would barely be below freezing at that height. Will check now to see if that statement is true.  Actually, the soundings from the U of AZ make it a little more ambiguous than what I was thinking about too warm for ice formation, and so there’s no point in showing those soundings where people might question what you just said.

1:19 PM. So pretty. I am a lucky man to see scenes like this so often.

1:29 PM. A cloud street with this fat boy formed off the Tortolita Mountains and it passed overhead of Catalina! I wondered if some big drops might fall out since it would be a Cumulus congestus if you could see it from the side, and with “warm rain” having fallen earlier, there was still a chance that the drops in this guy, toward the tops, would reach sizes where they coalesced into drops.

1:29 PM. Nice. One of our photo niches is cloud bases, and here’s one of the best. Am waiting outside for big drops, not Godot. Can’t go inside because they might only fall for a few seconds or minutes, it surely won’t be shaft.  And what if no rain had fallen earlier?  I might need to report a trace.

1:41 PM. It wasn’t too much longer the drops began to fall, finally thinking to get a photo in case no one believed me that rain had fallen from that cloud.

2:11 PM. Cumulus humilis and Cu fractus are all that remain of the gray skies of morning.

3:59 PM. Just enjoy.

6:37 PM. The sun, completing its weary journey around the earth, finally goes down.

 

The End

PS:  The agonizing delay from typing then seeing words appear 5-10 s after you stopped typing, disappeared when I jettisoned Firefox for Safari.  So, all these months of agony, were due to a Firefox bug, not a WordPress or GoDaddy hosting service problem.  Unbelievable.  This problem I think began when I downloaded the latest version of Firefox, which also came loaded with pop up ads and web site diversions it previously was free of.  Dummy me never connected it to the venerable Firefox web browser.   So, Firefox has been trashed from this computer!

Last of the Cumulonimbus

DSC_8114
10:56 AM. Things looked promising except clouds like this over the Catalinas moved away from us. And no Cumulonimbus clouds formed over them, but rather downwind toward and beyond the town of Oracle late in the afternoon.

Ann DSC_8118
3:30 PM. Not much going on; a very thin veil of ice was dropping out of these clouds, once the tops of the Cumulus cloud to the right and out of view. Hope you caught it. There weren’t very many ice displays until later.

DSC_8134
5:31 PM. That blasted haze/smoke layer is still evident! at the center is a glaciating turret, giving hope this whole cloud cluster could erupt into something. The model from the overnight run suggested just such an event!

DSC_8145
6:09 PM. Hah! A shower at last! And the movement is in the general direction of Catalina!

DSC_8150
6:36 PM. Stupendous sunset view, and this cluster is getting closer!

DSC_8157
6:42 PM. Zoomed view near last light. Portions of this complex consisting of a weak thunderstorm  did pass over, but no shafts, just a few drops for a “trace” of rain.  By this time bases had risen to about 14,000 feet above sea level, or about 11,000 above Catalina and near the freezing level, so a lot of evaporation on the way down for those poor droppies.

Last call for Cumulus clouds today, maybe a distant Cumulonimbus top off to the north.  Then one of those long clear and dry spells of fall gets underway….

 

The End

Wintertime cold Cumulonimbus clouds erupt with sprinkles and snow flurries; no damage reported

One passed over at 9:19 AM with a hard multi-second, surprise rain shower.  One person reported a couple of graupel, or soft hail particles. Tipped the bucket, too; 0.01 added to our Sutherland Heights storm total.  Its now at 0.23 inches.  Of course, there was no damage, but putting that word in a title might draw “damage trollers”, increase blog hits….

The rest of the day was clouds withering, getting mashed down on tops as bases rose and tops settled back, then suddenly, about 3:30 PM, small areas of ice crystals began to show up in a couple of spots, and, boy, did things take off after that.  Tops were lifting to higher temperatures, likely due to an approaching trough, one that otherwise is too dry to do much else.

Honest to goodness cold, wintertime Cumulonimbus clouds formed, though not very deep ones.  Probably of the order of 2-3 km thick is all (eyeball estimate).

But with our cold air aloft, tops were well below -20° C (4° F), lots of ice formed in them and produced streamers of ice and virga across the sky, and in tiny areas, the precip got to the ground.

And with “partly cloudy” conditions, there were lots of gorgeous, highlighted scenes around the mountains.

Let us review yesterday’s clouds and weather and not think about the future too much, starting with an afternoon balloon sounding temperature and dew point profile from IPS MeteoStar:

The Tucson balloon sounding ("rawinsonde" in weatherspeak) launched about 3:30 PM yesterday. Takes about an hour to reach 60,000 feet, but goes higher. Cloud bases were just about at the top of Ms. Mt. Lemmon. Tops were only around 18,000 feet above sea level, but were extremely cold for such small clouds.
The Tucson balloon sounding (“rawinsonde” in weatherspeak) launched about 3:30 PM yesterday. Takes about an hour to reach 60,000 feet, but goes higher. Cloud bases were just about at the top of Ms. Mt. Lemmon. Tops were only around 18,000 feet above sea level, but were extremely cold for such small clouds.  Hence, they were only about 9,000 feet thick at their maximum.

So what do clouds look like when they have tops as cold as -28°Ç?

Well, I really didn’t get a good profile shot of those clouds, they were either too close, obscured by other clouds, or too faraway, so instead let us look at two dogs looking at something as a distraction:

4:11 PM. Dogs observing a plethora of glaciating Cumulus clouds, transitioning to Cumulonimbus.
4:11 PM. Dogs observing a plethora of glaciating Cumulus clouds, transitioning to Cumulonimbus.

Well, let’s start this when the ice first appeared in a cloud, much later in time than what was thought here yesterday morning.  If you logged this “first ice” you are worthy of a merit, a star on your baseball cap:

3:24 PM. FIrst ice of the day, finally, spotted on the SW horizon. The file size is huge so that you can see it for yourself. I had just about given up on ice in clouds, Notice, too, how small the clouds are at this time.
3:24 PM. FIrst ice of the day, finally, spotted on the SW  and WSW horizon in two little areas. The file size is huge so that you can see it for yourself. I had just about given up on ice in clouds, Notice, too, how small the clouds are at this time.

Well, while flawed from a cloud profile sense, here’s what they were looking at, it was the best I could do:

4:19 PM. Note sunlit shower reaching the ground.
4:19 PM. Note sunlit shower reaching the ground.  The hazy stuff is ice crystals, a lot of them all over the place.

4:22 PM. A close up in case you don't believe me that the rain was reaching the ground.
4:22 PM. A close up in case you don’t believe me that the rain was reaching the ground.  I sometimes find that credibility is lacking here.

4:39 PM. Eventually a cluster of precipitating clouds developed near the Catalina Mountains and here are dropping snow and graupel trails.
4:39 PM. Eventually a cluster of precipitating clouds developed near the Catalina Mountains and here are dropping snow and graupel trails.

Let us go zooming:

4:39 PM. Shaft up close. That dark, narrow line in the middle is without doubt a soft hail (graupel) strand. THere might be others, but this one is obvious. The verticality is due to faster falling particles, which graupel are because they are ultimately snowflakes that have captured cloud droplets on the way down, making them much heavier than just a snowflake.
4:39 PM. Shaft up close. That dark, narrow line in the middle is without doubt a soft hail (graupel) strand. THere might be others, but this one is obvious. The “verticality” is due to faster falling particles comprising that strand, which graupel are because they are ultimately snowflakes that have captured cloud droplets on the way down, making them much heavier than just a snowflake.

4:48 PM. Just snow falling out, no real "verticality", a sign of graupel falling out.
4:45 PM. Just light snow falling out here on the Catalinas, no real “verticality” in this shaft, which would be a sign of graupel falling out.

4:46 PM. An opening allowed this distance cross section of a cold, wintertime Cumulonimbus (capillatus) cloud streaming a shield of ice and virga downwind.
4:46 PM. An opening allowed this zoomed cross section of a cold, wintertime Cumulonimbus (capillatus) cloud streaming a shield of ice and virga downwind.  On the left sloping-upward part, the Cumulus turrets still contain liquid droplets (have that ruffled, hard look associated with the higher concentrations that go with droplet clouds compared to all ice clouds).  Sometimes, in spite of the low temperature, here, from the sounding the top is likely approaching the minimum temperature of -28°C, droplets can still survive for a short time before freezing, giving way to lower concentrations of ice crystals.   That appears to be the case here at the tippy top. of the cloud in the back  What is interesting here, an enigma, is that the foreground cloud in front of the cloud I was just discussing,  is clearly all ice from the smallest element to its top and mimics the cross section of the background cloud.  Could it be that its simply older and ice generated in the colder regions has permeated the whole cloud?

Below, diagrammed:

Same photo with writing on it since the written explanation didn't seem very satisfactory.
Same photo with writing on it since the written explanation didn’t seem very satisfactory.

5:07 PM. Graupel in the Gap (the Charouleau one). Well, maybe its a little beyond the gap.
5:07 PM. Graupel in the Gap (the Charouleau one). Well, maybe its a little beyond the Gap, but it sounded good to write that..  This started to fall out of a Cumulus congestus transitioning to a Cumulonimbus.  The first particles out the bottom are always the heaviest, hence, graupel or hail.

Looking elsewhere, there are snow showers everywhere!

5:08 PM. Nice shafting over there near Romero Canyon. Pretty straight up and down, so likely has a lot of small graupel in it.
5:08 PM. Nice shafting over there near Romero Canyon. Pretty straight up and down, so likely has a lot of small graupel in it.

5:08 PM. Looking down Tucson way, this is NOT a graupel shaft. Sure the particles are large, but look at how they're just kind of hanging, getting mixed around by a little turbulence. Guess aggregates of dendrites, ice crystals that grow like mad around -15° C, and because of being complex, often lock together when they collide. Its not unusual to have 20 or more single stellar. dendritic fern like crystals locked into a single snowflake and that would be a good guess about what this is. Where the bottom disappears, likely around 3000 feet above sea level, is where those big aggregates are melting into rain drops
5:08 PM. Looking down Tucson way, this is NOT a graupel shaft, but rather gently falling large snowflakes.. Sure the particles are large, but look at how they’re just kind of hanging there getting mixed around by a little turbulence, almost forming a mammatus look. There are likely aggregates of dendrites, fern-like ice crystals that grow like mad around -15° C, and because of being complex forms, often lock together when they collide. Its not unusual to have 20 or more single stellar. dendritic crystals locked into a single snowflake. Where the bottom disappears, likely around 3000 feet above sea level, is where those big aggregates are melting into rain drops.

5:10 PM. Interrupting the tedium with a nice neighborhood lighting scene as a sun poked between clouds.
5:10 PM. Interrupting the tedium with a nice neighborhood lighting scene as a sun poked between clouds.  We’re not completely cloud-centric here, but close.

5:26 PM. This strange scene of a very shallow snow cloud, completely composed of ice and snow, obscuring the tops of the Catalinas, but being very shallow, hardly above them may explain the cross section enigma. The snow cloud here is all that remains of a much deeper cloud that converted to all ice, then those crystals just settling out, the whole cloud dropping down as a snow flurry. It may well have been as deep as the cloud top on the left or higher before converting to ice and just falling to the ground en masse. Or is it, en toto?
5:26 PM. This strange scene of a very shallow snow cloud, completely composed of ice and snow, obscuring the tops of the Catalinas, but being very shallow, hardly above them may explain the cross section enigma. The snow cloud here is all that remains of a much deeper cloud that converted to all ice, then those crystals just settling out, the whole cloud dropping down as a snow flurry. It may well have been as deep as the cloud top on the left or higher before converting to ice and just falling to the ground “en masse.” Or is it, “en toto“?  What makes this odd is that there is usually some “cloud ice” (ice particles too small to have much fall velocity) at the level from which the precip fell from. You don’t see that here; just a belt of light snow.   Maybe this is why there was that shallow, glaciated cloud  in the Cumulonimbus cross section shot…..  That shalllow cloud was not a new portion, but rather a tail dragger like this stuff, once having been much higher and was actually ice settling out, not new rising, glaciated cloud.  From the back side, you can see that this ice cloud would appear to slope up  if viewed from the east instead of the west like our cross section iced out cloud.  Setting a record for hand waving today.  IS anybody still out there?  I don’t think so.  Maybe I need another dog picture….

5:34 PM. Here's the last of that unsual snow cloud as its last flakes settled to the ground.
5:34 PM. Here’s the last of that unsual snow cloud as its last flakes settled to the ground.

The day concluded with a very nice sunset:

5:53 PM. Sunset color with shafts of snow down Tucson way.
5:53 PM. Sunset color with shafts of snow turning to rain down Tucson way.

 

Now, the long dry spell…  Break through flow from the Pacific under the “blocking high”  eventually happens about a week away now, but more and more looks like that flow might stay too far to the north of us, rather blast northern Cal some more,  and not bring precip this far south.  The blocking high needs to be in the Gulf of AK, but now is being foretold to be much farther north…

The End, gasping for air here.  More like a treatise than a quick read!

Sutherland Heights storm total now 0.71 inches as of 7 AM; soil turning green as moss look alike growth reminding one of Seattle spurts from bare ground!

First, in blogging for dollars, this:

3:55 PM. Rainbow fragment and solar home. Yesterday's visual highlight. Yours for $1995.95. If you call now, we'll throw in a exact same photo FREE!
3:55 PM. Rainbow fragment and solar home, an extraordinary combination.. It was yesterday’s visual highlight. Yours for $1995.95. And, if you order now, we’ll throw in a second,  exact copy of this extraordinary, magical scene FREE!

Here’s a nice one from the day before as the clouds rolled in, starting with Cirrus and Altocumulus, lowering to Stratocumulus later in the afternoon.

5:04 PM, 30 Dec.
5:04 PM, 30 Dec.  Sun break amid Stratocumulus.  Stratus fractus topping mountains.

Yesterday’s clouds; an extraordinary day with a little drizzle amid light showers

Hope you noticed the true drizzle that occurred yesterday, namely, fine (larger than 200 microns, smaller than 500 microns in diameter), close TOGETHER (critical to the definition of “drizzle”) drops that nearly float in the air. They may make the least impression, or none, when landing in a puddle.

When you see drizzle, you have the opportunity of chatting up your neighbor by educating them informally to what drizzle really is (many, maybe most,  TEEVEE weatherfolk do NOT know what “drizzle” is, btw), and 2) by telling your neighbor, if he/she is still listening to you, that the droplets in the clouds overhead must be larger than 30 microns in diameter, or better yet, “larger than the Hocking-Jonas diameter of 38 microns, at which point collisions with coalescence begins to occur” and  “drizzle is not produced by ice crystals in the clouds overhead; they’re not enough of them to produce ‘fine, close together drops.'” Your neighbor has likely left the building at this point, but, oh, well, you tried.

Here, in Arizona, shallow clouds, such as we had yesterday, hardly ever can produce the broad droplet spectrum in which clouds have droplets larger than 30 microns in diameter.  Its because this far inland from the ocean, where the air is very clean,  the air has picked up natural and anthro aerosol particles that can function as “cloud condensation nuclei” (CCN).   As a result of ingesting dirt and stuff, clouds have too many droplets here as a rule for the droplets in them to grow to larger sizes.   They’re all mostly less than 20-25 microns, sizes in which even if they collide, they can’t coalesce.

In “pristine” areas, if you go to one, such as on a cruise out in  the oceans, droplet concentrations in clouds are much lower, and even a little water that might be condensed in a shallow cloud can produce a broad spectrum, one that extends to droplet larger than 30 microns.

So even little or shallow layer clouds can precip over the oceans, produce drizzle or light rain showers (in which the larger drops are bigger than 500 microns in diameter).  Of course, here we recall that the (whom some consider “villainous”) geoengineers want to stop drizzle out over the oceans so that clouds have longer lifetimes, are darker on the bottom, and reflect more sunlight back into space.

Those guys can be lumped into the same ilk as those who want to change the color of the sky from blue to whitish or yellowish by adding gigantic amounts of tiny particles in the stratosphere, again for the purpose of cooling the planet!  Unbelievable.  Please ask before doing this!!!

A Pinatubo sampler for what “geoengineering” would do to our skies,  say, sunsets in particular.  I took this photo from the University of Washington’s research aircraft in 1992 off the Washington coast in onshore flow.  But we saw these same sunsets, sunrises, yellowed by the Pinatubo eruption of June 1991 everywhere we went, including in the Azores in June 1992.

AB469_mf9193_1517_ontop Sc_Pinatubo above

OK, pretty boring, whiney, really, so inserting picture of a nice horse here to make people feel better if you’ve been depressed about what our scientists have been pondering to do about global warming other than controlling emissions:

8:57 AM. Zeus. Led cloistered life for 13 years; likes to bolt now that he's getting out.
8:57 AM. Zeus. Led cloistered life for 13 years; likes to bolt,  now that he’s getting out on the trails.

7:40 AM, yesterday, Dec. 31st.
7:40 AM, yesterday, Dec. 31st.  The low hanging Stratocumulus clouds, about 1500 feet above Catalina, and the mountains had a bit of an orange tinge.  It was probably due to sunrise color on a separate much higher layer.

Later….drizzling Stratocumulus, same view:

10:30 AM. Stratocumulus praecipitatio, if you want to go "deep" into cloud naming. "Stratiformis", too, covers a lot of the sky.
10:30 AM. Stratocumulus praecipitatio, if you want to go “deep” into cloud naming. “Stratiformis”, too, covers a lot of the sky. Note misty-like view, lack of shafting.

12:48 PM. More Stratocu P., an example of those clouds in the distance that kept dropping little and light rain showers on Catalina.
12:48 PM. More Stratocu P., an example of those clouds in the distance that kept dropping little and light rain showers on Catalina.

1:01 PM. Highlighting amid the RW-- , (weather text for "very light rain showers").
1:01 PM. Highlighting amid the RW– , (weather text for “very light rain showers”).  Stratcu P., with maybe Stratus fractus or Cumulus fractus below.  The shadowed,  dark shred clouds  in the mddle would be Stratus fractus IMO.

3:55 PM. Zooming in on that pretty rainbow. You know, this is a cloud heaven here. I hope you all appreciate it!
3:55 PM. Zooming in on that pretty rainbow. You know, this is a cloud heaven here. I hope you all appreciate it!  Maybe that’s why I get upset over “geoengineering” and changing the sky anywhere.

3:57 PM. Between showers, but new ones erupted upwind. This one have a shaft, implying a higher cloud top than the prior, non-shafting clouds that brought us semi-steady RW--.
3:57 PM. Between showers, but new ones erupted upwind. This one have a shaft, implying a higher cloud top than the prior, non-shafting clouds that brought us semi-steady RW–.

The second extraordinary thing about yesterday was that the top temperatures of these clouds was around -10° C (14° F), temperatures that ice does not form act as a rule in Arizona.  To get ice at temperatures that high, you also need larger cloud droplets, and they have to occur in the -2.5° C to -8° C range.  In this range, it was discovered that falling ice crystals, mostly faster falling ones like “graupel” (aka, soft hail) when colliding with larger drops, ice splinters are produced.  The cloud droplets must be larger than 23 microns in diameter in THAT particular temperature zone, something that would occur more often in our warm,  summer clouds, but would rarely be expected in our winter ones.

Why?

Again,  it goes back to clouds in inland regions ingesting lots of natural and anthro aerosols that cut down on droplet sizes in clouds (by raising droplet concentrations in them).  Our recent rains have helped cut down on that process on ingesting dirt, for sure, and was a likely player yesterday.  Furthermore, our winter clouds are moisture challenged relative to the summer ones with their tropical origins and high cloud base temperatures, a second reason not to expect larger droplets in our winter clouds.

Here  is the TUS sounding with some writing on it for yesterday afternoon from IPS MeteoStar.  (Satellite imagery was also  indicating warmer than usual tops for precipitating clouds yesterday.):

The TUS balloon sounding ("rawinsonde" in techno speak) launched at about 3:30 PM yesterday afternoon. Balloon rises at about 1,000 feet a minute, FYI. Typically they pop up around 100,000-120,000 feet! Instruments are parachuted down. Sometimes they are found and returned to the NWS and re-used! How great is that?
The TUS balloon sounding (“rawinsonde” in techno speak) launched at about 3:30 PM yesterday afternoon. Balloon rises at about 1,000 feet a minute, FYI. Typically they pop up around 100,000-120,000 feet! Instrument package is parachuted down so it doesn’t conk somebody on the head. Sometimes they are found and returned to the NWS and re-used! How great is that?

Here’s the punchline:  If clouds are drizzling, then they are ripe, if the tops get to lower temperatures than about -4° C for what we’ve termed “ice multiplication” or “ice enhancement”.  A very few natural ice nuclei at temperatures between -4° and -10° C, say, starts the process, those forming “soft hail” which then leads to ice splinters.  This is the leading theory of this anomaly of ice in clouds at temperatures only a little below freezing, if you think 23° to 14° F fits that definition.

There are exceptions where this process did not explain the ice that formed at such high temperatures, so standby for further elucidation about how in the HECK ice forms in clouds at some point in the future.

As usual, no time to proof, so good luck in comprehending what’s been written.

The weather just ahead:

The second main rainband is just about here at 9:25 AM.  Cloud tops will be deeper and colder than in the prior rains, raising the possibility of some thunder today, and maybe another third of an inch of rain.  Watch for an windshift line cloud (“arcus” cloud) might well be seen today.  That’s always dramatic and exciting here in Catalina cloud heaven.

The End at last!

And a happy, weatherful year to all!

An unbelievably long blog about a surprise afternoon sprinkle of rain

A very few small, isolated drops fell between 4:50 and 5 PM here in Sutherland Heights from what appeared to be nothing overhead. You’d have to be really good to have not been driving, and to have anticipated the possibility (by recognizing ice in upwind clouds) and then having observed it.  You would be recognized, given some extra adulation,  at the next cloud maven junior meeting if you did observe it, that’s for sure.

So, a long blog about anticipating and observing a sprinkle of rain (RW—, “RW triple minus” in casual weatherspeak or text).

We start with some nice, but inapplicable to our main story photos from yesterday.

3:14 PM. Another one of those, to me, memorable, dramatic shots just because of cloud shadows on our pretty mountains caused by Cumulus humilis and mediocris clouds; Cirrus uncinus on top.
3:14 PM. Another one of those, to me, memorable, dramatic shots just because of cloud shadows on our pretty mountains caused by Cumulus humilis and mediocris clouds; Cirrus uncinus on top.

3:15 PM. Pretty CIrrus uncinus, "Angel's hair."
3:15 PM. Pretty CIrrus uncinus, “Angel’s hair.”

3:15 PM. Looks like a cloud street off the Tucson Mountains, one that streamed toward Catalina. Hope you were unbusy enough to notice it. Its a pretty common one here when the lower level winds are out of the SSW, and the clouds shallow.
3:15 PM. Looks like a cloud street off the Tucson Mountains, one that streamed toward Catalina. Hope you were “unbusy” enough to notice it. Its a pretty common one here when the lower level winds are out of the SSW, and the clouds shallow.

3:50 PM. Shadow quirk. The cloud shadow follows the terrain line. Wow. Never seen that before, but I suppose if you had an infinite number of monkeys watching, they'd see it all the time. Maybe they would type out some Shakespeare as well in time.
3:50 PM. Shadow quirk. The cloud shadow follows the terrain line. Wow. Never seen that before, but I suppose if you had an infinite number of monkeys watching, they’d something like this all the time. Maybe they’d type out some Shakespeare as well in time.

3:54 PM. While busy watching the cloud-sahdow dappled mountains, some honest-to-goodness Cumulus congestus arose in a line to the southwest! Not at all expected! Looks like they're tall enough to form ice, but don't see any. Will take too many photos to see if any develops though.
3:54 PM. While busy watching the cloud-sahdow dappled mountains, some honest-to-goodness Cumulus congestus arose in a line to the southwest! Not at all expected! Looks like they’re tall enough to form ice, but don’t see any. Will take too many photos to see if any develops though.

3:56 PM. That poor turret that first extruded from this line (center raggedy one) is being ravaged by "entrainment", that cloud killing process wherein the surrounding dry air gets in and kills off the droplets. Pretty sad when you think about. It also shows you just how friggin' dry the air was just above the main tops. No ice visible here.
3:56 PM. That poor turret that first extruded from this line (center raggedy one) is being ravaged by “entrainment”, that cloud killing process wherein the surrounding dry air gets in and kills off the droplets. Pretty sad when you think about. It also shows you just how friggin’ dry the air was just above the main tops. No ice visible here.

3:56 PM. Let's zoom in to be sure. Anyone saying they can see some ice in this is either an ice-detecting genius or just play lying.
3:56 PM. Let’s zoom in to be sure. Anyone saying they can see some ice in this is either an ice-detecting genius or just plain lying. BTW, that turret on the left, partially visible, is much taller, so its got a good chance to convert to ice.

Ann DSC_7808

3:58 PM. Now even little tiny babies can see the ice that formed in that now dessicated turret. This means some rain fell out of it! Wow, did not see that coming today.
3:58 PM. Now even little tiny babies can see the ice that formed in that now dessicated turret. This means some rain fell out of it! Wow, did not see that happening today.

3:58 PM. Pulling back to grab the whole scene, those Cumulus congestus clouds converting to small Cumulonimbus clouds that will bring those few tiny drops to Catalina in an hour.
3:58 PM. Pulling back to grab the whole scene, those Cumulus congestus clouds converting to small Cumulonimbus clouds that will bring those few tiny drops to Catalina in an hour even as the dry air up there wasted them. Real cloud mavens would be thinking about the possibility of rain here, seeing the ice form in clouds upwind of us, that right at that time! Congratulations!

4:09 PM. Doesn't look that great now, but areas of ice visible, and its heading this way with a light shower falling out of it! Maybe we'll pick up another trace!
4:09 PM. Doesn’t look that great now, but areas of ice visible, and its heading this way with a light shower falling out of it! Maybe we’ll pick up another trace! But what cloud name would you put on this scene? Well, its kind of embarrassing to call them “Cumulonimbus”, but we do have a suitable moniker for weakly-producing Cumulus ice clouds with a little precip, Cumulus congestus praecipitatio. Yep, that’s the name I would use here since the rain is reaching the ground (is not just producing virga).

4:30 PM. Code 1 rain shaft, a transparent one. We're going to a LOT of trouble for a trace of rain here! But, you should have been really excited by this time. The possiblity of rain is just minutes away, but you'll have to be outside to notice it!
4:30 PM. Code 1 rain shaft, a transparent one. We’re going to a LOT of trouble for a trace of rain here! But, you should have been really excited by this time. The possiblity of rain is just minutes away, but you’ll have to be outside to notice it!

4:40 PM. Drawing back to look at the whole scene, which is not that great. Bottom of sprinkle cloud has evaporated leaving that big patch of ice, left side of photo. Can the sprinkle heading toward us survive? Your heart probably was really pounding at this point since you wanted to see some drops so BAD, report that trace the next day, one that maybe only you would have noticed.
4:40 PM. Drawing back to look at the whole scene, which is not that great. Bottom of sprinkle cloud has evaporated leaving that big patch of ice, left side of photo. Can the sprinkle heading toward us survive? Your heart probably was really pounding at this point since you wanted to see some drops so BAD, report that trace the next day, one that maybe only you would have noticed.

4:47 PM. Three minutes to first drops, though here no drops would be reaching the ground from the condition the cloud is in now, its too high, just really anvil ice, and the ice crystals too small, The drops that are going to be intercepted are surely the last ones reaching the ground, the top of the sprinkle shaft, above which there are no more drops.
4:47 PM. Three minutes to first drops, though here no drops would be reaching the ground from the condition the cloud is in now, its too high, just really anvil ice, and the ice crystals too small, The drops that are going to be intercepted are surely the last ones reaching the ground, the top of the sprinkle shaft, above which there are no more drops.

4:55 PM. Drops are collecting on the windshield a few hundred yards from the house with almost no cloud aloft at this point!
4:55 PM. Drops are collecting on the windshield a few hundred yards from the house with almost no cloud aloft at this point! A trace of rain has been logged!

The End

(What about those gorgeous Cumulus congestus and Cumulonimbus calvus clouds over toward and well beyond Charouleau Gap about this time? Maybe later or tomorrow.)

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

DSC_5616
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.

DSC_5623
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.
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.
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.
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.
6:21 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!
6:34 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.
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.

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.

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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.

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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,

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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).

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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!

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

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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.

One of the great humilis days of our time; began with virga above Ms. Mt. Lemmon

I was really happy for everyone out there when the skies were dotted with so many perfect examples of Cumulus humilis.   It was like a numismatist finding a perfect Indian head penny.  If you were like me, and I suspect you are, you were just going CRAZY taking pictures of those flat little pancake clouds.  Those clouds were pretty much limited to about 1,000 feet (300 m) thick at most

Not cold enough for ice in them, of course, since the temperatures at Cumulus cloud tops were only around -3 ° to -5 °C (28 ° to 23 ° F, respectively).  Around here, ice USUALLY does not appear in clouds until the temperature is lower than -10 °C at cloud top.

Yesterday began with some light snow falling on Mt Lemmon…well, it was falling downward TOWARD Ms Lemmon, actually.  Fell out of some thick Altocumulus clouds up there around where the cloud top temperature is… what?  OK, silly question for you, probably lower than -15 °C (5 ° F).

Let’s check the sounding to be sure, remembering that the launch site (University of AZ) was downwind of air flowing from the NW yesterday that went over the Catalinas, so a sounding at the U of AZ might suggest higher temperatures than this cloud was actually at since the air was probably descending before it got there.

Indeed, as just seen by me, the TUS sounding indicates that layer, up around 14 kft above sea level, 11 kft or so above Catalina, not a city, but rather a Census Designated Place or CDP, was “only”at  -10 ° C.

I reject that as the temperature of the virga-ing cloud over Ms. Lemmon!  Its a little too warm IMO.

8:41 AM. That white haze under the Altocumulus cloud is composed of ice crystals, concentrations probably a couple or less per liter of air. Likely stellar or plate crystals, ones that form at temperatures less than -10 ° C.
8:41 AM. That white haze under the Altocumulus clouds is composed of ice crystals, concentrations probably a couple or less per liter of air. Likely stellar or plate crystals, ones that form at temperatures less than -10 ° C.   Almost certainly no aggregates of crystals; concentrations too low to form “snowflakes” which are aggregates of single crystals.  Snowflakes form when higher concentrations of crystals collide and get locked together, as in stellars, and their cousins, dendrites, that grow in a similar temperature regime.  Dendritic crystals are usually seen in deeper clouds than these because those crystals have time to grow extensions in various directions, are not just “planar” ones.  If the cloud is thin like this one, not much growth can take place in the droplet cloud and simpler crystals like hexagonal plates and stellars (Christmas card crystals) fall out.  There is a lot of hand-waving here….

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10:20 AM. A horse named “Zeus” looks to see if any Cumulus clouds are forming over the Mogollon Rim to the NE, or, maybe he’s fixated on the horses in that corral below…

By afternoon, the skies over Catalinaland were spotted and dotted with spectacular Cumulis humilis examples.  (The littlest shred clouds are Cumulus “fractus.”)

I’ve left the time of the photos off today.  After all, there was only one true time yesterday, “perfect humilis time!” or as we like to say, “PHT.”   Immerse yourself.

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The End