Oh, well. When you’re sloppy and asleep at the wheel, think you know more that you really do, that’s what happens, “weather surprises” that shouldn’t be.
But, what a gorgeous day again! Really, with the smoky skies gone I am so appreciating a blue sky pocked with Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds!
Lettuce reprise yesterday in all its unexpected glory:
8:56 AM. Shallow Stratocumulus-like cap cloud tops the Catalinas, a sign that the lower level moisture is still abundant. But is there anything topside of these clouds? I didn’t think so. Too dry for anything deep was the flawed thinking. I really admire people like myself that admit error.10:46 AM. The early Cumulus sprouts. No problems here, so pretty, too. You can see how the wind increased with height by looking at this crosssection of the clouds and how they lean to the right in their upper portions.11:55 AM, an hour later. What’s that to the SW, upwind, and in the distance? Huh.11:55 AM, an hour later,zoomed view. No doubt about it, all Cumulus hell is breaking loose. That cloud is going to reach the ice-forming level. This is incredible considering what was thought about the day this very morning. I’m happy that it looks like its going to rain somewhere, but sad for myself that I did not see this happening because I was lackadaisical. There is no happiness that exceeds having rain in a desert and you predicted it!11:56 AM. Cu just sitting around just looking pretty over there to the NW. BTW, this house will be for sale soon with its million dollar view; yours for half-price, $500,000 if you call today! (CMP used to live here. so it has some extra caché.) haha12:08 PM. Look at the ice in that turret! “Unbelievable”, having indicated the clouds were going to be too shallow for ice development.12:14 PM. Rain shaft develops… Maybe its a one-shot wonder. Pretty, though, as EVERYTHING was yesterday. Too seductive for my camera!
12:23 PM. I am beside myself, in conniptions looking at this jolt; looks nuclear, to reflect a newsy theme of the day. And now we have some serious shafts, too.12:43 PM. Thunder and the whole bit, a major shaft roll across the desert NW of Saddlebrook and Catalina. Wow. What a day this turning out to be!1:02 PM. Almost ideal shot of a Cumulus congestus all by itself there. Catalina Mountains really didn’t participate much, no rain shafts developed withing sight.3:38 PM. The major cells had “left the building” and for a time looking upwind, there was an impression that it was all over, the subsiding, dry air was now mashing down cloud tops to where no more ice could form. That was not to be the case!3:48 PM. Some nice shadows around, not that the action is over… Was it? Nope.3:50 PM. A distance rain shaft! Unbelievable! The day is still giving after it looked like all that subsidence was coming in! (I was pretty excited here, as I am sure you were, too.)4:08 PM. More astounding by the minute, considering how late it was in the day, for this big boy to erupt. Will it hit Catalina? Will is last long enough to do that?4:16 PM. Taller yet, though some of this straight up look is actually due to the top of this Cumulonimbus calvus (verging on the hairy looking, “capillatus” version_ leaning over us. That’s partly why the rainshaft has thinned from the prior photo. Unless another turret shoots up, it may be all over. Some thunder rumbled out of this cloud, too. Well, it moved rapidly toward the NE from here, missing most of Catalina, the bottom evaporating up leaving only an icy debris cloud during the next half hour. No photos. I was driving somewhere….which prevents taking photos as has been mentioned here on numerplus occasions. (Hah! “numerplus”, a typo that might become a new word!)4:29 PM. This beauty beyond the Charouleau Gap. Can you tell that the top knob has converted to ice? I hope so.6:01 PM. Pretty scenes aren’t always just in the sky, but in the lighting of stuff, to be poetic. And, with a rain gauge in it, can it be any better as a scene?
Since I was clueless yesterday, will remain quiet about today’s weather, though we do have low level moisture around as clouds are again topping the Cat Mountains.
We’ll still get into some early winter like weather in only a week–that’s pretty much in the bag. Probably no rain, though, just a bit of a very windy day or two and very cold air for the time of year plopping over us. Our TEEVEE weather folks are surely all over this!
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.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.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!6:09 PM. Hah! A shower at last! And the movement is in the general direction of Catalina!6:36 PM. Stupendous sunset view, and this cluster is getting closer!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….
Rain almost certain today and/or tonight in Sutherland Heights.
Yesterday’s cloud jumble
4:19 PM. Ugh continues.6:21 PM.6:22 PM. Looked like something might develop for a time.Tiny cell develops overhead with thunder and a few drops at 3:40 PM. Moved NW.2:36 PM.2:34 PM.
We’ve waited a LONG time for a rain day. It was so nice, so photogenic as well. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Also, you may have seen the Froude Number1 in action as Cumulus congestus and Cumulonimbus clouds developed and went around the sides of the Catalina Mountains instead of developing over them and dumping big shafts of rain on them. The heaviest rains yesterday were due to streamers of showers and with an OCNL TSTMS that were north and south of us, Oracleville, Bio2 area, and Marana, Avra Valley where over half an inch was logged in some places.
Still , we managed a third of an inch here in Sutherland Heights, the first appreciable rain since I don’t know when, though, I could look it up. Too long, though, even for Catalina.
Some regional totals, 3 AM to 3 AM: Precipitation Report for the following time periods ending at: 03:19:00 11/04/16 Data is preliminary and unedited. —- indicates missing data Gauge 24 Name Location ID# minutes hour hours hours hours —- —- —- —- —- —- —————– ——————— Catalina Area 1010 0.08 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.12 Oracle Ranger Stati approximately 0.5 mi SW of Oracle 1040 0.08 Dodge Tank Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.16 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 mi W of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.16 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 mi NE of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.24 Cargodera Canyon NE corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.20 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash NE of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.16 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Rd
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.04 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 mi N of Rice Peak 1090 0.16 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 0.16 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 mi S of Coronado Camp 1130 0.28 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.08 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.16 White Tail Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.04 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.16 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Marshall Gulch
Santa Catalina Foothills 2090 0.04 TV @ Guest Ranch Tanque Verde Wash at Tanque Verde Guest Ranch 2100 0.16 DEQ Swan Swan Rd at Calle del Pantera 2160 0.08 Sabino @ USFS Dam Sabino Creek at USFS Dam 2170 0.24 Ventana @ Sunrise Ventana Canyon Wash at Sunrise Rd 2190 0.16 Al-Marah near El Marah on Bear Canyon Rd 2200 0.04 AC Wash @ TV Bridge Agua Caliente Wash at Tanque Verde Rd 2210 0.00 Catalina Boosters Houghton Road 0.1 mi S of Catalina Highway 2220 0.04 Agua Caliente Park Agua Caliente Park 2230 0.04 El Camino Rinconado El Camino Rinconado 0.5 mi N of Reddington Rd 2240 0.04 Molino Canyon Mt Lemmon Highway near Mile Post 3 2390 0.24 Finger Rock @ Skyli Finger Rock Wash at Sunrise Rd
Yesterday’s Clouds
6:50 AM. “Shape of things to come1.” “Nothing could change the Cumulus shapes of things to come” yesterday, to paraphrase here, as evident in this Cumulus shedding ice in the downwind decaying end on the left.7:35 AM. Look at this little guy, so full of ice. Another harbinger of the ice-filled clouds about to arise, and with ice, precipitation, snow aloft, graupel (tiny soft snowballs), and even some hail (solid ice). You could guess here from how shallow this Cumulus cloud is that the bases must be at near the freezing level, and tops must be at least as cold as -10° to -15° C, cold for such a small cloud. But what would we call such a small cloud? Cumulus congestus praecipitatio or virgae (since the present of ice absolutely means some precip up there, not likely reaching the ground though. Shoot from the hip estimated depth 2 km, or around six thousand feet.11:37 AM. Sure enough, as it got warmer, Cumulus congestus/small Cumulonimbus clouds arose trailing ice northwestward in huge plumes of ice. Note to airborne researchers: be sure to sample the older parts of the turrets that have trailed downwind and turned completely to ice even though that trailing portion doesn’t look much like a Cumulus cloud. It you only sample the newly risen portions, you will cheat the cloud out of how much ice it can produce since it takes a little time for all the ice to form. Lotta early airborne researchers made this error, reporting too little ice, but, of course, if they were in the cloud seeding business, they wouldn’t mind at all since they could report that clouds needed more ice, that from their seeding activities!11:37 AM. Oh, so pretty, those dark blue skies punctuated by a little muffin Cumulus cloud. Aren’t you glad you live here?1:25 PM. Showers and weak Cumulonimbus clouds trail off the Catalinas north of Bio2.1:25 PM. In the meantime, stronger Cumulonimbus clouds and showers track westward south of Catalina toward Avra Valley while the clouds over the Catalinas dissipate or remain disorganized while heading toward us.2:33 PM. A voluptous Cumulus congestus in the process of transitioning to a Cumulonimbus calvus (ice is visible but top stil pretty firm and round looking), then Cumulonimbus capillatus (fibrous top) AN older turret, looking all ice, leans to the left. Precip was already dropping out the bottom of this fat cloud. What kind would it be? Grauple, without doubt since so much supercooled liquid water would remain in this cloud amid the ice crystals forming inside. Those ice crystals, nice and pristine when they first form, would have their pretty forms obliterated by droplets that would freeze instantly on them, making them little snowballs, falling faster and faster, collecting more droplets.2:46 PM. Moving rapidly away from Catalina, of course, that cloud has now become a Cumulonimbus capillatus (hairy, fibrous top a,most completely composed of ice–some liquid may still arrive at cloud top in new turrets before quickly converting to ice.) A portion of a rainbow can be seen at almost ground level.2:48 PM. In the meantime, pretty strong storms, now having thunder, rage S through W of Catalina.3:14 PM. While we didn’t have any great clouds near us, at least we had some nice lighting (not LTG) on the mountains from time to time.3:41 PM. Finally, the dramatic skies were shifting northward and measurable rain was on the doorstep. Looking SW toward Pusch Ridge and the Tucson Mountains.4:43 PM. Took awhile, but a decent Cumulus with a nice base now transitioning into a Cumulonimbus plopped some big drops and hail down. Streak at right is a hail particle with its fall distance in about 1/400 of a second.4:47 PM. The hail got a little bigger and I took a picture of one of the stones, a little smaller than pea-sized in case you don’t believe me that some hail fell, too. Sometimes I think people don’t believe what I write, especially in footnotes….5:02 PM. While the sunset was dramatic, it didn’t bring the color hoped for, but this line of dark clouds presaged another bit of rain for Catalina.
Except for a morning or afternoon sprinkle, no rain in sight, just a warm up back to above average temperatures. Dang.
The End
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1The young fluid dynamicist, Richard Penniman, fascinated by the flow around mountains, and who later became known as the rock and R&B entertainer, “Little Richard”, first brought the Froude Number to public attention in his song, “Tutti Froude-e.” The title, after an early release failed to capture the public’s imagination, was later revised for greater “accessibility”, to the song we know today as, “Tutti Frutti.”
2Who can forget “Max and the Storm Troopers” and that great song? I would submit, “everyone.” Of course, few know that after 1968 they changed their name to “Led Zeppelin.” And that, my friends, is “the rest of the story”, as Paul Harvey might say if he was lying about something anyway.
“Too many pictures, for one site…”, a continuing theme here1, to paraphrase “? and the Mysterians1“.
Two stations near Picture Rocks reported 1.25 and 1.35 inches, respectively, so some major rain fell fairly close to us. You can see the amount arounds around the State or here at the Banner U of AZ rainlog,org site.
Below your October 8th, 2016 cloud day, a Saturday in which the author’s former company fubball team, the Washington Huskies, spanked the Nike University of Oregon Duck, 70-21, ending years of futility against the billionaire’s sports teams. Too bad Washington multi-billionaire Gates is more interested in saving the world instead of helping the Huskies get better in sports like Phil Knight does with The Duck there in Duckville, OR….
Oh, well, off task there for a minute. I’m back now!
7:06 AM. Pretty Cirrus uncinus (tufted ice clouds with the larger ice crystals falling out where the wind is not as strong as where the head is) with a few Altocumulus over on the left.8:43 AM. The really sharp-eyed cloud maven junior person would have noticed these little icy trails in a sliver of Altocumulus or Cirrocumulus. These supercooled clouds were converted to ice along the path of the aircraft. The brighter one is the most recent one and is so white due to the extremely high concentrations of tiny (order of 10s of microns) germ-like ice crystals. Concentrations would be something like 10s of thousand per liter. Once formed, they compete for the available moisture, some evaporating, some able to grow larger and fall out just as ice crystals do in Cirrus clouds. The less white trail is older and is one where the crystals are spreading out and also evaporating so the concentrations are much less. Presently it is believe that the air going over the wing of a jet drops the temperature to below -39° C where crystals form spontaneously and can survive and grow within a supercooled water cloud egad this is getting to be a long caption.
Now, here where the excitement begins. Recall Mike L. and Bobby Maddox, both super experts concerning convection, called for severe storms and large hail today due to what the models were showing in the vertical wind profile and the amount of moisture available. Below, we start yesterday chapter of convection, and see where it leads.
3:47 PM. Beginning to think Mike L and Bobby M are going to be wrong. Cumulus in the heat of the day have only reached moderate, “congestus” sizes around here, though Cumulonimbus cloud tops can be seen off in the distance.2:50 PM. Another pretty sky scene with an ineffectual Cumulus congestus there north of Saddlebrooke. Looks like is has a little ice ejecta on the far right, middle. But see how any rain would fall out not within the main cloud body but out the side away from the base. More evaporating of any drops would occur. This is happening due to the moderate southwesterly winds higher up, with slower winds from the south below. Thinking about taking a nap….2:51 PM. On second thought, maybe I should see how the septic repair is going…. Looks OK. Wonder how many thousands it will be?2:58 PM. Even though it looks like Mike and Bob are still going to be wrong, at least someone’s getting some good TSTMS (weather text for “thunderstorms” in case you do that, but don’t do it whilst you’re driving, a public message from your CMP. Some cloud science: On the right is a turret that’s climbed up beyond the level of “glaciation” but still contains tons of water. Center left, is a complex of turrets a little behind that one that are taller, and in those tops you woud find little or no water, just ice crystals. Can you see the difference in texture between the rising turret full of water (though graupel, hail, and small ice crystals are likely inside it)3:58 PM. Septic crew was asking, “where’s the hail you said would happen today?” I corrected them by saying that Mike and Bobby told me that, I didn’t personally make that forecast. I told them, hang on, things are starting to happen. And, about this time, the NWS started to issue severe TSTM alerts for Cochise County due HAIL and high winds! Still, it didn’t yet look that great for us here in Catalina, Oro Valley area. The Cbs shown here are that “tough.”4:27 PM. Still kind of bored, think I’ll take picture of an interesting shadow pattern.4:34 PM. Gads, looks awful out there. Only the anvil is left of a former thunderstorm toward Twin Peaks as the wind shear aloft rips from it from its root base. Not too bad there on the left, though. Still looks like a dud day for us in Catalina anyway at this moment.4:55 PM. Modest Cumulonimbus forms in the lee of the Charouleaiu Gap. Notice here that looking to the NE you can only see the rising turret part of this Cumulonimbus. The anvil is trailing downwind away from you, some of that anvil can be seen at the far right,just above the ridge. But you can clearly see some precip is falling out of this, Code 1 (transparent shaft) likely because as we saw earlier, the precip is not falling through the whole depth of the cloud but is falling from a higher portion of the cloud that has been blown off toward the NE before the precip got going in it.5:01 PM. Yikes, when did this happen? Must have been between commercials during football viewing. You can only go outsie during commercials so you miss some things. Bobby and Mike are going to be correct for our own backyard! Hope we get something, and it appears to be upwind of Catalina!5:06 PM. Just because it was pretty. Cumulus congestus tops, brilliantly white (that higher one in the back).5:31 PM. More commercials allow a quick trip down the road to get this. Of concern, the shafting is shifting rightward and away from us. What’s upwind is now the Code 1 transparent rain. BUT, the base in the middle of the photo, and close by, looks great! Perhaps some stupefying dump will emerge from that and grow more good base material exactly upwind of us!5:58 PM. Another discouraging day of promise gone unfulfilled here in Catalina/Sutherland Heights. Feelling sad, though I would take a funny picture of my shadow whilst walking the dogs at half time, makes me look bigger than I really am. made me smile amid the dismal sprinkle that started to fall, giving us yet another “trace” of rain day.6:06 PM. There goes our complex of rain, thunder and lightning off into the distance. Still, the scene was great.6:08 PM. Day ended with some dramatic, colorful scenes, something said here alot, but true.
The End.
1If you don’t believe ? said something like that, go here
Kind of getting tired of gorgeous rainbows every day, ones without a lot of rain here in The Heights. But, here they are again:
5:44 PM5:54 PM.
Upwind Cumulonimbus clouds faded as the trudged toward Catalinaland yesterday, bottoms evaporating, raining out, leaving only a big patch Altostratus cumulonimbogenitus way up (at least ten kft above the ground) there with rain drops just big enough to survive evaporation and reach the ground just before 3 PM.
2:18 PM. Heading for Catalina, right side will maintain–note nice flat base, left side of heaviest shaft is a gonner. So, hope is on the right (not a political statement, but rather referring to the part of the cloud you want to be heading for you, which is not the shaft itself due to the short lifetime of shafts, but the new parts where new shafts will emanate. No renewing base/updraft over there on the left. You hope that segment isn’t exactly heading for you. We shall see in just a few minutes of yesterday time.2:24 PM. OK, we’re done as far as rain goes in Catalina from this. The updraft and solid base are propagating to the right, meaning that nice appearing rainshaft will be what targetis us. But the lives of shafts are so short without renewal, and that renewal is going to slip to the west of us. Notice how in six minutes the shaft on the left is almost completely gone.2:48 PM. Hard to believe that this is all that’s left of that pleasant Cumulonimbus cloud, an Altostratus translucidus cumulonimbogenitus , maybe with praecipitatio as well with it since you can see a veil of preicpitation is reaching the ground. Note the sun is shining through larger ice particles like snowflakes, its disk cannot be made out, though its position can. If this cloud was a thin droplet cloud, the sun’s disk could be seen as a sharply outlined disk.
In the meantime, all the excitement, possibly spurred by the gusty outflow winds that accompanied the above seen, was happening almost overhead to the NW-NE, as a great line of Cumulus bases blackened. They were already passed us, but if they unloaded and sent a pulse of wind out and toward us, then we might end up in a wind clash zone, with huge clouds forming overhead. OK, was dreaming again, but here’s what was going on, which ultimately led to another major dump on the CDO watershed.
2:20 PM. Dark Cumulus bases mass over Saddlebrooke and north. No precip trails yet, but they were virtually assured. Started videoing this scene about now.2:28 PM. In just eight minutes this has become really menacing, possibly a major dump on Saddlebrooke with more golf balls flooding down into the CDO wash as happened the previous day. Now looking for the first strands of the largest hydrometeors (likely hail or graupel) to drop through the updraft, which is looking very substantial at this time due to that well-formed base.2:30 PM. Here’s a close up of that base over Saddlebrooke, now placed in the “Cloud Base Collection” series that we offer to readers from time to time. We’re hoping ot get into a gallery soon.2:37 PM. “Thar she goes!” This is really hard to see, but at top center the rain/hail/whatever is just starting to show out the bottom. Some of these, likely gigantic drops, are already reaching the ground. Notice the slight dimming of the Cumulus clouds in the background. That would be the developing rainshaft is going to be.2:39 PM. Now even little teeny babies can see the shaft dropping out.2:42 PM. For all to see now….just three minutes later.2:44 PM. Just another two minutes later. Its pretty remarkable how fast these things collapse. The whitish strands are likely hail/graupel shafts, often located on the upshear/upwind side of thunderstorms.2:49 PM. Soon the plop of all that rain push enough air out of the way that the shaft extruded outward toward the west. Note that rain would be falling on people from a raining cloud some mile or three away. The heaviest rain seen in the ALERT gauges from this event was only 0.79 inches at Pig Spring, near the Charouleau Gap. The peak rain was probably in the 1-2 inch range.
Hiked over to see if the Sutherland Wash, east of the similarly named housing development, Sutherland Heights, had a good flow from our “Mighty Kong” of prior day. It had:
3:45 PM. The Sutherland Wash scene showing that it flowed bank-to-bank as did the CDO here in Catalina.
The weather ahead
Seems Remnant Roslyn will spit out another snippet of moisture ahead of our fall-like cold front passage late Sunday or early Monday bringing clouds, and with clouds, a slight chance of measurable rain. Don’t hold your breath for measurable rain IMO. Hope I’m as wrong as the prediction I made to a friend that the Stanford Cardinal would trounce the wildly overrated Washington Huskies fubball team last night.
Should be some good rain today in Catalina, FINALLY! Thinking maybe half an inch or so over the next 24 h, something decent, as tropical air drains o northward and over us out of tropical storm remnant, Roslyn (“Rozzi”).
Clouds and weather interruption:
Due to the name of our weather-affecting tropical storm, Roslyn, I am now reminded of a profound, life-altering “Hallmarky” chapter of life when I was in HS, involving another Roslyn (aka, “Rozzi”). In an another attempt to increase blog readers, those really not interested in clouds and weather anyway, I have inserted this story about a 15-year old, shy boy and his incapacitating crush on a Rozzi R as a junior in HS I suspect it is a fairly common one in some ways, although this one leads to the formation of other people with a different classmate. The Story of Rozzi R
This story was passed to Rozzi, who had no idea who I was, only in 2009, btw. She seemed to like it, and told me about her life, family and three kids. I think its OK to share it.
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Back to weather, at 7:11 AM, one pulse of rain is within a half an hour or so. (Later, we only got sprinkles out of that first pulse).
Yesterday’s clouds
Nice rainbow last evening; nice sunset, too:
6:26 PM. Altocumulus and patches of a higher mostly ice cloud (Cirrus spissatus or Alstratus?) provided quite a nice sunset yesterday evening. Back the other way, were rainbows galore.6:11 PM. Rainbow under a more or less stratiform remnant of a Cumulonimbus cloud.6:17 PM.
The Prodigal Storm yesterday afternoon
Yesterday afternoon had quite the dump and something of a little ‘boob from the outflow winds, so much rain came down initially around Oro Valley/Marana, west Tucson, south of Pusch Ridge. Was heading this way, too, with nice big, black, solid-looking base. Started a video of it, thinking about the gush was to strike Sutherland Heights/Catalina.
Here it is, in all of its glory and subsequent dissipation:
3:09 PM. Outflow from TUS storm builds ledge of Cumulus base S-SW of Pusch Ridge.3:20 PM. Only 11 minutes later that new base has unloaded its load on Oro Valley. ).59 inches at the CDO and Ina Road intersection yesterday, but likely an inch fell out of this in the peak rain area. Note how the winds are pushing rain and dust west and northwest.3:25 PM. She’ll be comin’ around the mountain when she comes. This was looking so good for us. Why? Look at that great SOLID base coming at us ahead of the rain! The lower scruffs of cloud are called “pannus” and in this case they are created by the nose of the outlfowing winds from this storm. What you want is for those outlfowing winds to keep generating new, fresh Cumulus bases, ones that explode upward into Cumulonimbus clouds. Without the new, good base and the updraft that goes with it, all of the rain can fallout in less than half an hour from the ones already raining. Its a supply thing, you have to keep it going. What if there were no new people born? Well, after awhile the supply of people would run out.3:31 PM. By this time, you’re getting worried about this incoming system. Look what’s happening to the formerly solid base. Its beginning to get “lumpy” looking with dark and lighter spots telling you the updraft is getting broken up, fallling apart, maybe due to the blockage presented by Pusch Ridge. But there’s still hope, the updraft MIGHT reassemble itself….and there are still a couple of pretty good base “hot spots” where the updraft is still good.3:37 PM. “Its is finished.” What;s heading toward Catalina is that transparent veil of rain on the left of the shaft. We now have no chance for a major dump. Maybe it will measure though, a few hundredths…3:44 PM. Need more be said? Sprinkles occurred here, it did not measure. Warning: A sprinkle isn’t drizzle, a continuing theme here. Look at the “crapulent” bases now! Oh, me. I wanted to go in the house and never come out again, it was SO DEPRESSING to see this happen. Lots of storms make it past Pusch Ridge, too, but not this faker.3:44 PM. As usual, major shafting occurred AROUND Catalina, and not on it, pretty much like this whole summer has been. This is looking north toward Bio25:16 PM. Nice interplay of rain and sun.
Models, with spaghetti support, show a strong, but dry, cold front coming through next week, and fall will be in the air as nighttime lows drop into the 40s in our colder, lower spots, like at the bottom of Catalina State Park, in the CDO wash, etc.
Welcome to one of the great cloud blogs of our time today, great as in volume, not in eloquence or anything like that.
6:16 AM. Pink castellanus, Altocumulus castellanus. Note the “micro-cumulonimbus” turret complete with a little anvil that’s shearing off to the left (center left). So now what? Should we have a cloud called an Altocumulonimbus? Maybe so, since on this morning, clusters of Altocumulus grew into major true Cumulonimbus clouds with rain and lightning in Arizona yesterday morning. Its a pretty common thing having thunderstorms and Altocumulus castellanus and floccus based at the same level at the same time.6:21 AM. Looking pretty much at the same scene but a little farther to the north where a dissipated Cumulonimbus can be seen (on the right) formed at the same level of the Ac cas, in case you didn’t believe me that that could happen.6:43 AM. Rainbow and corral, horse poop in foreground. Yours today for only $1800. Shows that aforementioned Cumulonimbus was producing rain to the ground. Was the first rainbow event of the day.12:08 PM. While Ac cas and small Cumulonimbus clouds dominated the sky all morning, heating finally started to launch boundary layer clouds fueled by that heating. With lower than normal temperatures aloft due to an upper level trough, watch out! Here we go!12:13 PM. Hardly had the thought to “watch out” crossed my mind, when I looked up toward Winkelman and Mammoth areas and saw that it was too late to “watch out” as this gargantuan Cumulonimbus had already exploded up thataway.1:23 PM. A large Cumulonimbus erupts upwind of Catalina. Will it make it? Because this is a fall circulation pattern with a tough in the westerlies affecting us, the clouds are moving more rapidly than usual and from the southwest, not from the eastern semicircle, our as during our normal “summer rain regime.” Remember, the “monsoon” is in India and all around there.2:21 PM. OK, its an hour later, that distant Cb didn’t make it but this one upwind looks more promising. Why? Because its got a protruding Cumulus base on the left side suggesting it will keep developing. Same on the right side. Without those re-inforcements to the updraft of this complex, it would die, all or most of the rain fall out before it got here. Let’s see what happens.2:31 PM. Starts to look disappointing again, but hope arises in the distance. See caption-sized note on photo.2:43 PM. I could feel your excitement here as the farther out base developed, broadened, new shafts started to appear in the distance from that complex of firm-looking bases. I was excited too. Maybe we’d get half an inch out of this group!2:44 PM. In the meantime, nice lighting on the Catalinas and moderate Cumulus pass by in a hurry. Thought for today: “Mountains: the canvases on which clouds paint.”3:03 PM. Heart has sunk by this time, as did yours. New cloud bases (on the left side) driven by outflow winds is causing this thunderstorm to propagating to the right of the wind flow and so the part of this that appeared to be directly upwind of us, and looked so good, was now raining out because there was no new cloud forming to keep it going in a steady state way So, no half inch after all except maybe down there. Oh, me. Nice scene, though.4:21 PM. Break in the action. This Cumulus congestus cloud person seems happy, thumb is pointing up. Not so much here as upwind clouds have dwindled.5:13 PM. THen, just after it looked like it was over, and cloud maven person left his post, all HECK broke loose as a powerful thunderstorm roared out of the Tortolita Mountains and off toward Oracle and points north. The shaft that fell out has produced a small arcus cloud, that lower scruff ahead of it. That was to be our hope. A blast out of the north from this monster that could trigger overhead new cloud developments!
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5:15 PM. Unnecessary close up of this monster.5:20 PM. Another look at the dramatic sideswiping storm. Looks more like a shot from Kansas or OK.5:20 PM. In the meantime a blast of north wind from the giant cell north of us has hit Sutherland Heights and is pushing up a great looking base that is creeping TOWARD us!5:21 PM. Its only a minute later, but its such a great, dramatic scene its worth checking again.5:23 PM. That great cloud base just north of Sutherland Heights is starting to unload, but it hasn’t progressed farther south. Hmmmm.5:29 PM. The north wind was accompanied by a scruff of clouds that topped Samananiego Peak. But what’s wrong here? Look at the poor “quality” of the cloud base over and just east of us now, full of light and dark areas, not a solid blob of darkness as we saw just to the north of us. So, this is going to do nothing here.5:31 PM. That low cloud continues to race south, and with the sun breaking through, produced a pretty scene if a depressing one due to the lack of a “good” big, dark base.5:32 PM. That large, dark cloud base has receded to the north while scud clouds still stream south. Dang.5:39 PM. That great Kansas-looking storm is disappearing now behind Pusch Ridge with only the middle portion of the cloud left to precipitate (once have a great bottom, one that disappeared as the shove upward went to the east. So, its still thick and low enough on the right side to produce a burst of moderate rain, but will it get here?5:45 PM. Remarkably heavy rain still falls out of clouds that now appear to be only residual Altocumulus/Altostratus (cumulonimbogenitus, of course). And, if you saw this scene, you could anticipate being in somebody’s rainbow when the sunlight got to you, and that you were going to see something special in that regard VERY soon.5:47 PM. Yes, but two minutes later, the sunlight reached Sutherland Heights causing this rainbow spectacle.5:48 PM. Another look at this spectacle. There appears to be a pinkish red drop, maybe a part of the rainbow I have to be in for others to the west of me! Real evidence maybe of being in a rainbow when your in the rain and the sun is shining! Never have seen a pink drop before.5:49 PM. Let’s look and see if there is another end to this rainbow… Yes! There it is toward Charouleau Gap.5:50 PM. Close up of a rainbow to see what it looks like a little better.6:44 PM.6:43 PM. Stratocumulus of the evening.
A humorous final note: Here are two model runs only 6 h apart from last evening. The first one, from 5 PM AST global data, valid on the 26th, brings that Mexican Pacific hurricane back into AZ/NM as that strong low drops down into Cal! How crazy izzat?
The second panel was the model output from just 6 h later for about the same time. No trough nowhere near Cal as is shown in the first panel, and our powerful hurricane stays well offshore. Still, it was an intriguing glitch of a magnitude you hardly ever see.
Also, I am also posting way below a new (!) not-previously-published. but rather rejected- by-important-scientists-a-long-time-ago-manuscript FYI!
Very exciting! (Hah!)
Its published now, though, isn’t it???!!!
“Online.”
Its about science and how it works, and how it has failed; examples given. I put it down toward the bottom of a normal blog because I am shy.
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Clouds from a few days ago, August 26th, now that the “choke point” in uploading photos to Word Press has been, at least temporarily ameliorated.
Here’s the sequence as a great cloud bottom drifted toward us from Pusch Ridge on the afternoon of the 26th. If you saw this coming, you should have been clearing channels around the house for excessive water flow. I forgot to.
Unloaded 0.45 inches at this site. 1.69 inches up on there on ol’ lady Lemmon. We sure needed this dump! Below, one of the great cloud bottoms of our time, that of a Cumulus congestus cloud, filled, as we say here, with rainy portent (maybe hail, too):
1:44 PM, August 26th. Note just a tinge of shading on the right side. First drops, the biggest ones, or even hail stones are just coming out.1:48 PM. Cloud beginning to bust open with rain now; updraft collapsing over there. Now its a Cumulonimbus.1:53 PM. Nice shafting over there, but will the cloud base overhead now split open over us?1:54 PM. Looks really good almost overhead toward Saddlebrooke! Just don’t unload after you go by! Note scruff of lower cloud (called, “pannus”) caused the the outflows of storms to the SW of Catalina. Not long enough really to be a “arcus” cloud, but clouds like this are almost always associated with a shift in the winds that helps build clouds overhead by acting like a micro-cold front, the rain-cooled air lifting the warmer, humid air ahead of it, and some of that warmer air being cooled to its condensation point producing these lower shelves of cloud.2:07 PM. The height of the storm, the visibility down to a hundred yards or two is all. This particular intense period hardly lasted a couple of minutes before it let up noticeably.
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Pedagogical or possibly, pedantic (boring) module
Update alert for the posting of new (!) not-published rejected items by this Arthur:
(the original title, submitted first in 1997), final rejection in 1999 (Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.)
The reviewers, Harold O., Danny R., and someone named “Anonymous Reviewer B”, guessed as, “”B”, for “Bernie S.”
Those in the cloud seeding culture don’t need the names spelled out. Harold O. is part of the “old guard” cloud seeding culture, while Danny R. is part of the new cloud seeding guard, one that has gone on to be a science superstar since his early work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the leader of the Israeli cloud seeding experiments. He did some work there on the clouds of the Mediterranean and satellite interpretations of them (available in Hebrew only the last time I checked).
While Danny R was there during the time of the reporting of the benchmark Israeli 2 randomized experiment by the leader of the experiment (1976-1986) he himself was not involved in those (ultimately flawed) analyses. Later, he participated in the unraveling of the 2nd experiment with Israeli statistician, K. Ruben Gabriel in 1990, J. Appl. Meteor. Half of the 2nd experiment’s results had been previously omitted, an omission which produced an apparent, unambiguous “confirmatory” success of the Israeli 1 experiment, for the short of it.
The 1990 development in Israel, in essence a retraction of what everyone thought was an unambiguous cloud seeding success, plus the fall of the equally important, earlier benchmark randomized experiments in Colorado, at one time also claimed to have proved cloud seeding by the National Academy of Sciences (Malone et al 1973), were the primary reasons for composing the piece being posted today. You may also know that your very own Catalina “cloud-maven” was in Israel in 1986 for 11 weeks, in doubt of those “hard-to-rain” clouds that were being described by the leader of those experiments, resulting in “Rain from Clouds with Tops Warmer than -10° C in Israel”, (1988, Quart J. Roy. Meteor. Soc.). This was to some degree the first crack in those experiments. (Of course, I would say that!)
How could such glowing, but ultimately critically flawed journal papers appear ultimately involving hundreds of journal pages? What went wrong with peer reviews?
I attempt in this piece to describe in this piece how science is supposed to work, and these pretty amazing chapters of science in cloud seeding, and offered some possible solutions.
At one time, Prof. Peter V. Hobbs, named to write up a status piece on Clouds-Climate for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 2003 or so, was going to use the “rise and fall” of the Colorado and Israeli experiments in this piece I have just posted. He was going to demonstrate how we scientists can think we have proved something, but upon closer inspection, find that we have not proved at all!
Peter Hobbs was concerned that the then many unknowns about clouds were not being treated properly in climate models (being parameterized too crudely), and therefore those parameterizations of clouds in climate models could lead to erroneous conclusions concerning the amount of global warming that might be ahead.
In his take on this MS, and that “rise and fall” section in particular, Peter, who was not one to dole out compliments very often said of it, “This is pretty good.” Peter had not reviewed it beforehand.
Ultimately, Peter contracted pancreatic cancer and was unable to submit his status summary to the WMO.
As well as some shots of that violent blast that hit the CDO HS and the area around Concordia Ave. One ALERT gauge reported 1.34 inches! Nice. The uprooting of trees wasn’t so nice, however.
Sutherland Heights whiffed again on rain, except for that little sprinkle just after 8 PM, sad to say.
4:37 PM. What a great looking pileus of Cumulus congestus with a little pileus veil at the very tippy top. This is heading toward being a Cumulonimbus calvus (remember, “calvus” means “bald”), the most ephemeral stage of Cumulonimbus. This stage doesn’t last long since its when the cloud droplets are disappearing because of the rapid formation of high ice particle concentrations inside the turret. Remember, ice and water don’t stay together long; water disappears, evaporates due to mixing of environment air around the turret, all that ice sucking the life out of those poor droplets since water vapor molecules love ice more than being inside a droplet when ice is around and they escape to the nearest ice particle, which then gets fatter and fatter, cannibalizing those droplets in a sense.
4:52 PM. Jumbo Cumulus congestus has congealed into a complex of Cumulonimbus clouds, riding the north wind that was about to sweep into the Sutherland Heights later in the evening.6:32 PM. WIth the gush of north winds, Stratocumulus and Cumulus bases quickly covered the sky, some piling higher into Cumulonimbus clouds.6:55 PM. Northerly wind and associated line of Cumulus above it grow into Cumulonimbus clouds. Very pretty scene. But tops not doing much here, so big dump not likely without something changing, which did! The older wispy turret above the larger rain shaft is already sinking back. The new shaft is coming out of the youngest, firmest looking turret.6:55 PM. Zoomed view of the top of turret where the new rain shaft is coming out. That bubble on the right side is just starting to show its ice externally, though grauple (soft hail) and/or hail were already hidden inside it as evidenced by that new thin rain shaft. Notice the younger turret behind it is higher, and therefore colder, and must also be full of precip. Watch out below! It doesn’t show the “softness” as the droplets evaporate in the presence of ice likely because its still on its way up, and condensation onto drops is faster than removal of vapor by ice. Watch out below, #2.6:57 PM. In the meantime, the Catalinas reap a nice sunset shower.7:08 PM. That new turret is now unloading around Ina and Oracle. Very exciting and a pretty scene, too, with the glow of the sunset. This storm was to go on for another hour.7:23 PM. Slightly out of focus, but you can see one of the MANY strokes of lightning that accompanied this tremendous downpour.
AZ mod (from 5 PM data last evening) thinks we have a chance for an afternoon dump today, Thursday.
