As the day rolled forward in time as they do pretty consistently, I was really happy for you having so many things to log in your cloud diary and maybe report to neighbors who might not have been so observant as you yesterday; the various types of clouds you saw, fun dust devils here and there spinning their way across Catalina, Cumulus clouds, a couple of which grew into Cumulonimbus clouds, and even produced a thunderstorm way over there in Safford. You could see that one from here, too. And there was a spectacular chances for you to test your ice-in-clouds acuity score.
Let’s go over yesterday’s clouds and make sure you got them right; but remember, don’t feel bad if you missed something. Cloud maven person will always understand and forgive those who might call a cloud by its wrong name. Believe or not, even CMP has done so1.
10:56 AM. Altocumulus lenticularis patches underlain by a tufts of Altocumulus castellanus.11:51 AM. Mostly Altocumulus castellanus and floccus (no firm base, just a tuft). CMP’s cloud chart points out that rain might follow in 6 to 196 h when this form of cloud is observed. It indicates strong instability at this cloud level.11:53 AM. Fun dust devil goes across Catalina. No jumping castles were harmed. CMP used to jump in dust devils when he was kid when they came across the school yard at playtime. Maybe you did, too.1:17 PM. Small Cumulus (humilis) begin erupting over the Catalinas. Portent: moderate.1:54 PM. Cumulus fractus over Saddlebrooke and points NW. Not much going on in the high mountains, either, (as would be seen by tops of Cumulonimbus clouds) suggesting a dividing line in the moist plume over us; drier to the north, more moist to the south.2:24 PM. “Wow!”, you thought, if I may interject one for you that you should have had yesterday viewing this cloud. The real look of our summer rain season (aka, “monsoon”), a tall, thin Cumulus congestus cloud.2:24 PM. And at the same time, a Cumulonimbus capillatus incus (icy anvil) has formed over there toward Safford! Now summer’s on! Safford reported a thunderstorm about this time.2:54 PM. We really haven’t had an Cloud Maven Junior (CMJ) ice IQ test in quite awhile, and so I thought would give you a little surprise quiz today in the following photographic sequence. Here we see, while not driving I might add, that would be crazy, to add that bit more, we see a protrusion from a Cumulus congestus cloud. Will it turn to ice? And if it did, when exactly did you know that?2:57 PM. Ice in the top tuft yet? You have 10 seconds to come up with an answer.2:59 PM. “You are so ice!” Cloud Maven Person got quite excited and has made a call for you, prematurely. See how the finer detail has started to disappear as the droplets evaporate and the slower evaporating ice (in much lower concentrations) begins to dominate the appearance of the little tuft. Compare the newer tuft on the right and its ruffled appearance to the little, detached tuft on the left. In the one of the right, the much higher concentrations of droplets still dominate providing all kinds of visual detail, though ice would undoubtedly be present inside it and about to take over.
3:04 PM. Secret’s out! The little tuft shows its ice. Poor guy has no droplets any more, is just a defunct ice cloud on its way to evapo-oblivion. Note icy fallout from the trunk of the original cloud now. And, you now know that those sharply outlined turrets in the center of the photo have a ton of ice in them, though droplets are also present (soon to be gone as in our icy little remnant to the left).
The End
No further weather ahead of any interest to a CMJ, anyway. Darn.
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1As a kid, I think I once called an Altostratus translucidus an “opacus.” It was pretty embarrassing.
That’s pretty much it for the weather just ahead. Nice upper low passes overhead in the next coupla days, but it really needed an steroid-like injection of tropical air from way down south to do much for us in the way of measurable rain. Oh, sure, we’ll still get some clouds and isolated showers, maybe one or two with lightning somewhere in the whole state of Arizona, but our chances of measurable rain here in Catalinaland have gone way down because the moist tongue hasn’t materialized in time to reach us, but rather will be shunted to the east. But, the skies will be spectacular, even if they’re dry for us.
For a psychological lift, in addition to the one provided by large amounts of coffee, generous rains will fall in drought-stricken NM and west Texas as our little disappointing low approaches and moves over us. OUR tropical air will be just a little too far east, but great for them.
BTW, the Canadian model, the one that had so much rain in our area as late as 36 h ago, has bailed on rain here, as well in the past two model runs. Probably won’t be going to Canada now for any vacations in the near future; pretty bitter about those misleading forecasts. I think they smoke too much up there, too.
Yesterday’s clouds
First, in case you’re mad at me for predicting measurable rain, 0.05 to 0.25 inches, have some kind of “rain rage” going on now, a picture of a cute dog to help you get back in control of yourself:
Photo of a cute dog.10:04 AM. Flying saucers! Altocumulus lenticularis clouds sometimes trigger calls to the police department that a flying saucer is about. Had a real scare back in the 50s around Mt. Rainier, Washington due to an Ac len (true story).12:12 PM. This one looks painful. Never seen anything like it before, a kind of yoga for clouds, “downward dog” cloud formation.
12:12 PM. Wouldn’t want to be flying under this one; suggests extreme turbulence to me.12:44 PM. That shredded, ragged base below the lenticular in the center indicates heavy turbulence below it. The smooth cap is due to a temperature inversion that allows some give, a dome, a hump in it, but nothing more.1:46 PM. An example of almost invisible Cirrus/Cirrostratus. “Invisible Cirrus”, btw, is kind of a hot research topic since clouds affect the radiation budget of the earth. That kind of cloud is just ice crystals floating around up there that are too low, and small, in concentrations to be seen, but can be captured by aircraft instrumentation., which is how it was discovered. This is about as close to “invisible Cirrus” as you can get. Look hard and you will see the faintest whitish hazes around and above the flecks of Ac len clouds; the one a left center has a trail of fine ice crystals coming out of it. Ac len remain stationary while the air flows through them, so the ice ejects on the downwind side. But, no sign of an Ac len having produced the whitish haze above and to the left of that cloudlet, though. Personally I have never seen invisible Cirrus.
The weather way ahead
NOAA spaghetti plots suggesting that tropical air ahead of a trough may yet bring us rains in early June. Check it out.
Other than that, our only chance for measurable rain is in the next 48 h when MAYBE a rogue shower might hit. But, no matter what, pretty skies anyway for the next couple of days. Have camera ready.
As much as 1-2 inches as far south as Ventura County so far, 3-4 inches in the coastal mountains of central Cal as of just now (4 AM AST). Rolling 24 h Cal State archive here. LA area rain here; keep an eye on Opids Camp and Crystal Lake FC. Totals in NW LA County just now going over an inch. Following this drought bustin’ sequence, while just a” two shot wonder”, will be like watching….I don’t know..something really exciting, a weather kind of Olympics, where the favored team “drought” is taken down unexpectedly by some upstart storm. Yes, I will play the Olympics card.
And remember, this is just the lightweight division today; up next, beginning Friday in southern Cal: “Sumo wrestling”, as a 400-lb storm moves in next to push aside “Team Drought” at least for the moment. (Is Sumo wrestling an Olympic sport?) Still expecting some jumbo rain totals in the mountains of southern Cal, such as more than 10 inches at places like Opids Camp in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Speaking of jumbo totals, a friend and expert weather forecaster (and big atmos sci faculty member at Colorado State who now lives part time in Catalina), sent a stunning e-mail to me yesterday expressing his opinion that Catalina will get “1.5 to 2 inches of rain” from the second “Sumo” storm, the one that eases into Arizona late Friday and arrives here by dawn on Saturday, and then continues for around 24 h. Cloud maven here can’t go that high in his guess, doesn’t have the “testicularis” you might say, to go that high; 1 inch max is all I can come up with, but would be ecstatic if in error!
Still, this is going to be FANTASTIC! Saw some perennial wildflower blooms on the trails yesterday (see below), ones in need of a little pick-me-up–actually a big one, and this will be great for them. Fauna, too, will be happy! It may be too late for the annuals…not sure. Poppies are few, and awfully stunted this year, as many of you know.
Don’t forget, too, before our storm; those gorgeous skies! Have camera and pen ready to document and make notes about them in your weather diaries Those skies we’ll be fantastic, too, like yesterday, which was a great day to be on a horse, watching the sky.
Even when its raining the skies will be fantastic!
How many of us, even if we’re from Seattle, are STARVED for low gray, dank and dark daytime rainy skies, clouds chopping off the Catalinas a thousand feet above us, listening to rain pounding on our roofs, then running off roof making puddles, those richer shades of desert green after the rain ends, the glistening, water-covered rocks on the Catalinas in the morning sun after the storm? Its a real treasure when rain falls here.
Yesterday’s clouds
12:23 PM. You got yer Cis spis (Cirrus spissatus) topping a few Cu fractus and humilis, if I may. It was so great to see those Cumulus clouds, reminding us that July and huge clouds are only about 125 days away!12:23 PM. You got yer Cirrus uncinus. Note fine strands hanging down. Amazing they can be so perfect, not erratic (see arrow), when the wind up there is about 100 mph!
3:54 PM. A great line of a Ac lenticular advanced over Oro Valley. This shot was about the best I got and its not that great.
3:55 PM. Not all about clouds..wanted to show you that I have more than one dimension. Here, a wild onion bloom maybe, slightly out of focus. Prickly pear is in focus, though.3:55 PM. Very nice Altocumulus lenticularis formed later in the afternoon downwind from the Catalinas.6:25 PM. Another very nice sunset due to some Cirrus spissatus and a few lower Altocumulus clouds.
On the weather horizon
Mods still have unusually warm weather here in the storm after life, 8-12 days out (cold in the East continues, too). But, then some Catalina rains continue to show up after that hot spell when you think May is already here.
Total precipitation predicted for Catalina (0.01 to 0.10 inches) ending at 5 AM tomorrow morning. Some to the north fell yesterday afternoon, but it wasn’t that much. Sure, its yesterday’s model crunch based on data that’s almost 24 h old, but its got some rain in it, and glimpsing the incoming cloud mass, now located in western AZ and southern Cal, this looks a little reasonable to even a little low now. thinking now that it will be more than 0.10 inches; might get 0.11 inches here in Catalina. Have dip stick (rain gauge one) ready. A new set of computations is not yet ready, but by the time you crawl out of bed and while I’ve been working, the link above will have new information that might be a little different than what I am looking at here at 4:10 AM AST. But I have to move on now!
So, look for lots of middle clouds (Altocumulus/Altostratus) again today, but likely bases lowering during the day and looking pretty threatening by evening. Check this sounding sequence from the BC and how the dewpoint and temperature lines come together at lower heights during the day today. So lots of clouds to write about in your weather diary today, pretty much like yesterday1.
No rain and lots of warming ahead after this.
Yesterday’s clouds
Perhaps first, before moving on to something as ephemeral as clouds, we should start with something contemplative; an aphorism written by a man who compared humans and their lives to the activities of arachnids. Pretty effective I thought.
Chief Seattle, too, by his very namesake, reminds us of the recent big Superbowl victory, after which 700,000 Chief Seattleites gathered in the streets yesterday to see the parade of players and other festivities, weaving their own distinctive strands of life.
Sanctuary Cove Park, Marana, maybe. Then again, it might be in Tucson. Nobody really knows where these towns start and end.
Day started with an overcast of Altostratus with mammatus/testicularis (which I showed yesterday) that devolved into an Altocumulus overcast most of the rest of the day, example below:
12:45 PM. Altocumulus opacus. No virga evident.
2:52 PM. Thin wisp of vIrga and light snow top Mt. Lemmon (center peak). Hope you logged it. I did and I was about 15 friggin’ miles away. But don’t feel bad. I sometimes miss things myself. You just have to bear down, as we say around here, and be fanatical about it. That’s the strand I want you to weave in this life.3:46 PM. Altocumulus lenticulars form under an Altocumulus perlucidus layer. View from Sanctuary Cove Park, very nice little loop walk there.
4:14 PM. More isolated examples of Altocumulus lenticularis near the Tucson Mountains.
Seen in Sanctuary Cover Park, inappropriately blooming wildflowers. This MIGHT be a purple “brown-plumed wire lettuce”, best match I could find in Wildflowers of Arizona by Rick and Nora Bowers. Message sent: global warming hitting hard in AZ this winter so far.
On the other hand, to be fair to the earth, global warming’s on the run in the Great Lakes area. Check this “find” out, courtesy of that big troublemaker and former WA State Climatologist, Mark Albright who enjoys finding discrepancies in fashionable postulations, causing people to think, maybe explain things they weren’t expecting:
The green line is the median ice coverage for the Great Lakes. Good grief, has it been cold around there or what? I guess it all evens out, and for some folks, that’s a problem these days.
The End.
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1I did notice that the big clearing didn’t get here yesterday as early as was thought, that clearing between yesterday’s trough and clouds those in this incoming one today and thought I would hide the discussion of that forecasting error in a footnote. But, maybe the whole point of life is learning from your mistakes, taking them head on. Then at the end, when you’ve finally think you’ve got it all right, you die. Doesn’t seem right.
7:46 AM. Stratocumulus lenticularis castellanus (has spires), an oxymoronic cloud. You would call this Stratocumulus because its low enough to top Ms. Mt. Lemmon. While some turrets can be seen, others are causing shadows. Have never really seen something quite like this and I look a LOT.10:35 AM. Stratocumulus lenticularis on the Catalinas. The moist air is resisting like mad being lifted over the Catalinas. Oddly, once condensation occurs a bit of heat is released and on the left you see that it was enough heat to allow a Cumulus turret to rise out of the smooth cloud. This is pretty darn rare site, seeing such smoothness AND Cumulus rising out of the same deck.3:46 PM. Cumulus humilis, no ice, except in those Cirrus clouds on the right.5:28 PM. Sun dog, or mock sun, also “parhelia” in natural Cirrus and in a contrail. The parhelia is likely brighter in the contrail since the simple hexagonal (six-sided) plate-like ice crystals that cause parhelias are smaller and more numerous in the early stages of a contrail.
6:09 PM. Cirrus spissatus.
Today’s clouds
Much like two days ago. Higher based Stratocumulus/Altocumulus with patches of heavy virga and sprinkles around.
Back edge of the cloud mass times in around 2-4 PM. Might be a little early for a great sunset, but just in case, have camera ready.
Looking farther ahead….
Still mainly dry through the next two weeks, though close call on the 7th, a situation that appears much like today, That close rain call NOW appears in both the Canadian and US WRF-GFS models (yesterday they were vastly different). So, with that, a chance of a few hundredths here after nightfall on the 6th into the morning of the 7th.
Spaghetti, in a dismal series of plots, also shows little hope for rain here through the 20th. So, even with mistakes in the initial analyses, deliberate ones to see how different the forecast maps turn out, we still can’t exit our drought! Oh, me. Poor wildflowers.
The End (did you see the giant mammatus/testicularis to the north this morning? If not, here it is:
I’m trying to keep you busy today. Maybe you’re retired and you don’t know what to do with yourself. Well, today you can look at building precipitation totals in Arizona all day! It will give you something to talk about.
In fact, occupying retirees with searches for precip data is why we have so many different sites that record precipitation. We have a lot of retirees in AZ, low temperature refugees, and we need to keep them occupied and out of trouble.
Imagine how awful it would be if we had ALL of these rainfall amounts in ONE place and you could look at them all immediately, or have a map plot of all these sites and amounts? Imagine just CoCoRahs and Rainlog.org being friends and cooperating together and just having one site for their rainfall collections? It would be like the Berlin Wall coming down, precipitationally speaking. Oh, well, that’s not gonna happen.
Oh, yeah, the Heights of Sutherland here in wonderful Catalina, AZ?
Got 0.17 inches overnight. “Main bang” still ahead, quite a long ways ahead, considering the passing showers we have now. Doesn’t look like the major band will get here until after midnight, then pound on us most of the day tomorrow. This prediction from the Huskies of Washington’s Weather Department model seen here.
So being on the toasty side of the cold front, should be a pleasant, mostly day with dry spells in between showers, and maybe, if the low clouds break a little, with fabulous middle and high cloud patterns associated with the powerful jet stream overhead (winds at Cirrus levels today and tomorrow should be over 100 mph!) Have camera ready.
Range of amounts from this front, a little in the withering stage as it goes by tomorrow, here in The Heights of Catalina, 0.4 to 1.5 inches, median guess 0.95 inches. Just too cellular in nature to be sure you get hit with all that’s possible, so you fudge on the downside some.
HOWEVER, just viewed the accumulated precip from our great U of AZ mod and it shows about 1.5 to 2.5 inches here, with the model run ending at 1 PM tomorrow–with more still falling! Wouldn’t that be fantastic! Certainly we’d have water in the CDO.
Precip totals ending at 1 PM tomorrow!
These mod forecasts do tend toward the high side, but I would be very pleased if more than my highest estimated amount (1.5 inches) fell.
As you will see, rain’s piling up like mad in central AZ just to the west of us. Amounts, according to radar, already well over an inch just for the last few hours according to NWS storm total radar loops from PHX and Yuma. Hah, Yuma! How often does that radar see amounts over an inch in winter?
I suppose we’ll be complaining soon about too much rain….
Yesterday’s clouds
So much was happening skyward yesterday! So much so, its probably best seen through the U of AZ Weather Department’s time lapse movie here. Its really great and shows all the complications of a day where clouds are moving in at different levels, and there are lots of wave clouds (lenticulars) over the Catalinas to marvel at.
6:59 AM. Altocumulus patches and pastel Cirrus announce a new day.
7:06 AM. A few minutes later, Altocumulus perlucidus join the color display.
11:07 AM. Once again, the rarely seen Cirrus castellanus (“Cumulus in a Cirrus) that I seem to notice every week here…
11:44 AM. Hover clouds (Ac len) over the Catalina, Altostratus above.
1:14 PM. Barging in from the south, the next lower layer, Stratocumulus and Cumulus; bases touched Ms. Mt. Lemmon. Sky darkened rapidly and almost eerily right after this.4:22 PM. The occasionally seen Seattle June sky, overcast with threatening clouds that don’t do anything, and with mild temperatures. Tops 0f these clouds were right at the normal ice-forming level here, -10 C (14 F), and by evening, virga and light rain began to fall from them as they deepened up a bit more.
The weather way ahead
More rain as month closes out. If you don’t believe me, a theme here, check this image out:
Valid for 5 AM AST, November 30th. Of course, I’m not going to show you the actual rain map, I want you to go from this as a bonafide Cloud Maven, Jr. (CMJ). I’ve noticed that some of you have not yet ordered your sophisticated “Dri-Fit” TM, “I heart spaghetti” tee shirts… What’s up with that?
As you will see from these links, they’re getting pretty worked up, and have issued the SAME “Special Statement” for ALL of Arizona, that’s how big the storm is. We’re all in this together. BTW, the U of AZ model forecast from 11 PM AST last night had as much as 5-6 inches of rain indicated in the central mountains of AZ over the next 24-36 h! Will the washes flow here, eventually as the major rain moves east? Hope so.
But, must point that the range of amounts that will fall here in Catalina has to be considered quite large; something from “just a nice rain” (0.4 inches total) to a gully washer (1.5 inches total) due to the fine-scale of the heaviest rainfall bands rotating around the dawdling low over the next couple of days. Its really not possible to pin it down better than a large range of possible values in situations like this, but it does appear that most of it will fall on Friday night into Saturday.
In the meantime, more pretty skies today before the deeper clouds and rain get here overnight or tomorrow morning. Very little rain is indicated here, though, through tomorrow evening,in this latest U of AZ mod run. while inches pile up just to the west and in the AZ mountains.
Yesterday’s clouds
Had pretty skies all day yesterday, even saw some clouds that as far as I know, have no name, these ones below that LOOK like Altocumulus perlucidus but are all ice at Cirrus levels. Could be called, to make up a name, “Cirrus perlucidus” I guess:
7:46 AM. “Cirrus perlucidus.” It may be hard to tell for most folks, but these flocculent clouds are all ice. There is no WAY I would call an all ice cloud, “Altocumulus.” There’s a patch of Altostratus in distance, and an Ac lenticular to left of pole on horizon.9:49 AM. Altocumulus virgae. Great example of the “upside down” storm; droplet cloud at the top, ice and snow underneath as ice forms amid the droplet cloud, grows like mad and falls out. This finding, first made in the 1950s was surprising because the clouds were liquid at the lowest temperatures. 12:04 PM. Cirrocumulus lenticularis, a bit too thin to be Ac lenticularis.
3:59 PM. This view from atop horsey, an Ac lenticular stack beyond the Gap, in lee of Catalina Mountains. Ac perlucidus in the foreground.4:00 PM. Looking S; buttermilk skies due to Ac perlucidus; lower layer of Ac opacus advancing from the the west below those mottled clouds.5:31 PM. Brief sunset “bloom” due to a small break in the overcast just over the horizon.
The weather way ahead
Valid at 5 AM AST, December 2nd. A near twin of the upcoming situation.
Now showing up on mods, as November closes out, a low center that looks an awful like the situation we’ll have tomorrow and Saturday, another vortex aloft tracks S along the coast, settling in around San Diego, then moving along to the east very slowly. As you know, weather patterns like to get in a groove and repeat themselves for awhile. Could be we’re in that phase where the SW is a low “magnet” and that would mean above normal precip over a spell of a few weeks. Above, a map for December 2nd at 5 AM AST that looks a lot like what we have coming right up. For that reason, you tend to place a bit more credibility than you might otherwise in a forecast that far away. The exact day this occurs will be most likely be off, but it is likely that a troughs/clouds and precip will to affect the SW over the next couple of weeks or more. Good bye dry spell!
If you don’t believe me, check this 10 day outlook from the NOAA spaghetti factory:
“Lorenz plot” from NOAA, valid at 5 PM AST, November 30th. Its pretty plain to see that there is a strong likelihood of a cutoff low in the extreme SW US, if you can find it. (The vast number of contours is due to a software glitch today. Usually only a few upper level contours are tracked.)
One of the best, really, never mind all that wind yesterday. No rain, of course, in our future, not even fantasy rain these days.
See usual rehash of yesterday’s clouds, the 60s, in case you forgot, below:
8:49 AM. This Altocumulus perlucidus cloud behaved like a lenticular, holding in place for at least 2 h, but did not have the classic pancake or sliver look of lenticularis clouds. Air likely too unstable (temperature dropped with height rapidly) and allowed tiny cumuliform elements to form. Only on the very right edge where it first formed, did this cloud appear “lenticular” in any way with its smoothness
10:15 AM. More classic looking, sliver Altocumulus lenticularis beyond the Catalinas. Cloud forms on the right edge, dissipates on the left as the air rises and falls slightly.
11:58 AM. Cirrocumulus (delicate granulation) on the fringes of Altocumulus (larger elements on the right). 12:01 PM. These clouds change by the second as the degree of moisture in the air jetting along up there ebbs and wanes. Look how much larger that fine granulation on the left got in just a couple of minutes. 2:09 PM. One of the many examples of iridescence seen yesterday in those Cirrocumulus clouds, or on the very thin upwind edge of Altocumulus lenticularis clouds. Its due to the formation of extremely tiny droplets, a few microns in diameter, that cause diffraction in the sun’s rays (see link for a more complete explanation and nice examples). Do you remember that white light has the wavelengths of all the colors in it? Here you can see some of them, and photograph them by performing a replication of the Black Power salute of Tommy Smith and John Carlos from my alma mater, San Jose State, one that beat the Wyoming Cowboys recently in fubball. I added a link in case you forgot and wanted to get worked up again. Yes I was at SJS when that happened down Mexico way, minding my own business doing weather forecasts with a political slant (left, of course, because that’s what made you popular during the rad lib days) for the college paper. Suddenly, I feel like going to San Francisco, putting some flowers in my hair.…
2:19 PM. Cirrocumulus and Ac lenticularis in the same layer. Recall Cc can’t have shading, not that it matters that much.
4:39 PM. This dramatic scene amid the dust and wind. This would be an Altocumulus lenticularis, one that devolves into Altocumulus perlucidus (honeycomb pattern seen downwind from the distant leading edge).
Well, it seems that the WP spell checker doesn’t work on titles. Intersting. Oh, well, “intersting” gives today’s cloud harangue a folksy, accessible aura I think.
So not much happened yesterday. Kind of dank with that mid-level Altocumulus overcast, a few sprinkles-its-not-drizzle1 here and there most of the day. I noticed I didn’t take even 100 photos, a photographic measure of local sky boredom. Three hundred plus? Now that’s a really great day!
Here’s what we had, the first photo of the day just after 9 AM (a little slow off the mark due to boredom):
9:13 AM. Altocumius opacus, with a lower patch of Stratocumulus with some light precip coming out beyond Pusch Ridge. But that big clearing on the horizon, filled with huge Cumulus portent was a fine sight.
9:30 AM. Going down Oracle toward Tucson, that gritty looking rain haze was apparent on Samaniego Ridge and on Ms. Lemmon. It was nice to see.
Was going down to the south part of Tucson, well, South Tucson, to look at a car for sale on Craig’s List. Since yesterday was so boring, will show shot of that car to break up the boredom to follow. The sellers wanted $3,000 for it. I thought it was a little high after I saw it up close. Looked like it had been sitting there awhile, maybe 10 years, too:
10:06 AM. Car for sale; $3,000. Maybe they meant pesos, or rupees. I deferred. Missed a lot of lack of action in Catalina, too, in the hours it took to go take a closer look down Tucson way. Real nice folks, though, were offering it. Cute story about how they met. He was from Bremerton, WA, called down to complain about some work she had done, and then decided to move to Arizona and next door to her! Gossip content always jacks up ratings and that’s what we’re into here. What would we do if we didn’t have titillating gossip? (This is a true story, BTW.)
12:32 PM. Altocumulus lenticularis clouds (hover clouds that don’t move), at left and at center above the dark tuft. The lenticular clouds were produced by an air bounce off the Catalinas. They formed at the base of an Altostratus layer. Other patchea of Altocumulus clouds are seen in the distance. The dark tuft in the foreground was first beginning of a Cumulus cloud near the Catalinas (Cu fractus), but it went nowhere.
4:18 PM. That Altocumulus lenticularis, still hanging on, though it has moved in position a bit.
For a terrific view of yesterday’s clouds and those lenticulars that recurred over and over again, to be redundant, go to the U of AZ time lapse movie for yesterday. It also demonstrates how breezy it was up there at cloud levels compared with our normal sluggish summer flow, and how complex behaving clouds are even when they appear dank and uninteresting.
Of course, we had a nice clearing, and some Cumulonimbus clouds arose in the distance toward the border during the mid and late afternoon. And as the sun went down, another thick patch of middle clouds started coming across the Catalinas with light rain, and with that, a rainbow appeared. Quite nice.
6:30 PM. In case you missed it again, a rainbow briefly appeared as another patch of lightly raining As/Ac clouds approached
Seems like a nice place to quit inserting photos.
Today?
Very light rain over the past 2 hours, and so we’ve accumulated another 0.03 inches on top of the 0.42 inches yesterday. U of AZ mod run from 11 PM last night seems to think we’re in for a pretty good rain day today. Seems to be predicting something around 1.5-2 inches on Samaniego Ridge before midnight (mod run not done yet, either!) Well, these forecasts tend to run on the high side, but still, this could be a fabulous day here in the tropical river we’re in! Charging camera batteries now….
BTW, flow is now from the south, and so you’ll want to be looking toward Pusch Ridge for “incomings.”
The End.
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1Another reminder about the difference between “drizzle” and rain. You must know this. Sprinkles isn’t drizzle!
This whole situation, in spite of the inclinations seen in “spaghetti”, has gone to pot. Well, actually, to the north more than foretold days ago. No rain is now foreseen here for another week or two.
But instead of discussing in minutiae what went wrong, and why CM fell for it, that is, go through a bunch of hand-wringing about how bad our models are, even with some chaos thrown in (produces “spaghetti”), let us instead change direction for awhile, a diversion really, and consider the two forms of anarchy today: good anarchy, and bad anarchy.
We begin our discussion with an example of “good anarchy”, shown below:
Here, at an entrance to the University of Washington, conscientious citizens exhorting their fellow citizens to be as good as they can be and not break laws. While it was illegal to write on the wall, you can see that they were good-hearted people, ones that might pick up litter as well.
In contrast, below I present an egregious example of quite “bad anarchy.” Please note the clear message by the authorities on the sign at right:
This was horrific, shocking. Here people, but not me, violate a clear edict about walking past a sign with a black pole marking the point you are not supposed to go past. And the violators seem to have no remorse about they have done, but are just kind of ambling along. What has happened to us? Perhaps the woman on the left is bowing her head in shame. Maybe THAT is the only thing we can take away to boost our spirits over this sad scene of otherwise happy, non-chalant acting people in violation of the law. I will never forget this scene.
Yesterday’s clouds
We did have a nice sunset; so many here. Hope you saw it. Pretty much an all daymlollipop lentiular cloud downwind of Ms. Lemmon yesterday, too. Here’s the U of AZ time lapse for yesterday. You can really see how these clouds hover, shrink and expand, disappear, reappear, as the moisture grade changes.
6:45 PM. Altostratus with virga, lit from below due to a distant hole that allowed the fading sun to illuminate this portion of the As clouds and the light snow falling from them (virga).
7:03 AM. Ac len downstream of Lemmon.1:13 PM. Still there.4:43 PM. Some more over there, too.
