Since the forecast given HERE for large Cumulus clouds becoming Cumulonimbi did not happen last evening, it seemed appropriate to show some wildflowers as a distraction. First, a light, purple one of some kind; second, what we here call an “Arizona rose”, those fabulous blooms that form on prickly pear cacti. The photos below were, in fact, taken late yesterday afternoon as the forecast of the development of those larger Cumulus was failing to materialize.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could GM these to have long stems?!
Now that you’ve forgotten the erroneous forecast of large cumuliform clouds made here yesterday, I would like to point out that the cooler air up top has finally arrived in the pre-dawn hours today, and we do have Cumulonimbi in the area; even some LTG over there by Mt. Graham around 4 AM as this is being written.
However, bases are pretty high, 7,000 feet above the ground, and so only the central cores of the rain shafts are producing much rain to the ground right now. However#2, these are the kinds of situations that incredible photos of long virga trails during sunrise can be gotten. Be ready! The whole situation is moving east pretty rapidly.
Yesterday’s clouds
10:22 AM. Cumulus fractus and humilis topped by Cirrus spissatus enhance a blue sky.10:28 AM. Wow, a Cumulonimbus capillatus top can be seen just beyond Mt. Sara Lemmon! And it only mid-morning! This is a test. A patch of Cirrus has aligned itself above some small Cumulus clouds topping the Lemmon. We’re you fooled for a moment? I hope not.5:13 PM. More Kelvin-Helmholtz billow clouds at Cirrus level. Pretty rare sight, actually. Shows waves in the atmosphere. Don’t want to fly in them. This was about the greatest cloud excitement of the whole late afternoon and evening.6:06 PM. “Slab lifting” by our incoming upper level thingy has led to the formation of a couple levels of flat clouds, Altocumulus lenticularis, some Altocumulus perlucidus (honeycomb look), and some Cirrus perlucidus way up top. Some small to moderate Cu can be seen on the horizon. Was still thinking they might “pop” as cooler air moved over us. You might be able to see that some of the little cloudlets at Cirrus-levels started out as droplet clouds before transforming to ice. Ma Nature likes water so much it almost always develops first before ice even at temperatures below -30 °C. Pretty amazing, really.
Thunder just now! Wow. 5:20 AM. Sorry for the delay, had to go outside and check things out. Really will be a fabulous sunrise!
6:16 PM. Still thinking it might pop. Didn’t even see ice as that Cumulus turret declined.
Though the clouds faded as the sun went down, there were still some highlights on the Catalinas that made it a near perfect day.
6:17 PM. What’s to say? We’re so lucky to be able to see scenes like this in Arizona.
The weather ahead
Turbulent, changeable, unsettled through the remainder of April. More chances to add to our 0.73 inch total so far for this month. Stay tuned to your favorite media weather folk!
The total was likely more, but at 3:30 AM it was 1.5 to 2 inches in the deepest spots, and likely had melted down to those levels overnight. One report, down Swan and Golder Ranch Dr way, was 3 inches on a deck after midnight! And its so pretty with all the Christmas lights around!
What a great rain and snow storm, too! It fell so gently, and at the same rate, R- to R– (“light rain”, and “very light rain”, as we used to code it) for a total of at least 0.59 inches–some snow in the gauge has to melt before the final total is known. While it seems a little high, the Bridge at Golder Ranch Drive and the CDO wash is reporting 0.98 inches!
Here’s the unusually steady way that our rain/snow fell. Normally a storm system is composed of “rainbands” with higher intensities, and lower intensities, or even no rain in between them (see Elliott and Hovind, 1964, Journal of Applied Meteorology) if you think I made that up for some reason.
All of the high gauges had snow, and the snow has clogged the gauge so that there are a lot of bogus zero or tiny amounts in our mountains. It would appear that the liquid water totals will be an inch or more when its all melted and gone into the gauges today.
Yesterday’s fast moving middle and high clouds; about 100-120 mph with delicate patterns
In case you don’t believe me, here is the text version of the TUS sounding at 5 AM AST, yesterday morning, December 31st, last year. I thought maybe seeing some numbers would do you some good. Remember what Lord Kelvin said: “He whose knowledge cannot be expressed in numbers has but a meager, insufficient kind.”
Also, Kelvin-Helmholtz waves1 are named after the famous physicist; the surfers at The Mavericks, and other big wave locations like to see giant K-H waves roll in and break.
72274 TUS Tucson Observations at 12Z 31 Dec 2014
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PRES HGHT TEMP DWPT RELH MIXR DRCT SKNT THTA THTE THTV
hPa m C C % g/kg deg knot K K K
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Begin 100 mph winds at these levels (444 mb, and 6525 meters) where the Altocumulus/Cirrocumulus were and over 120 mph where the Cirrus was (289 mb, and 9551 meters). The “82”in the first line is the wind speed in knots, which is 100 mph.
OK, images being corrupted again as they are imported into Word Press, something that started a few days ago. You can see the corruption by the linear shadings in these first two photos
Quitting here. This is pretty frustrating when you put in so much work trying to be silly, but at the same time also want to have great, and interesting photos!
May resume blog someday when this problem is fixed.
Just cold ahead for the next 24-48 h followed by a nice warming trend. No rain now in sight over the next two weeks, outside of a few mountain snow flurries tomorrow. “Trough Bowl” seems to be shifting eastward, which means repeated cold snaps east of the Rockies. It be replaced by a humping ridge over us, something that means the storm track is bumped up to the Pac NW and northern Cal.
The End
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1K-H waves:
Taken by the author a long time ago at Seattle’s Sandoval Park.