Today will be a special one in the desert. Cumulus bases are going to be really LOW for summer, maybe only 3-4 kft above the ground, and likely warmer than 15 C (50 F). Maybe 50 F doesn’t sound special, but it is. A base temperature of summer clouds that warm is rarely observed here. And with that, and all the posts here about the temperatures that ice forms (around -10 C, 14 F) are out the window. Ice will form at much higher temperatures than usual.
This is because on a day when the Cumulus bases are that warm, rain forms by collisions between droplets before clouds even reach the -5 C (23 F) level, the highest temperature at which Ma Nature can produce ice. Rain mgiht even form in our clouds today even before the freezing level itself!
This is so exciting for an Arizonan who has studied ice-in-clouds development over the years because today ice will form in clouds around the -5 to -10 C level, and the mechanism of Mssrs Hallett and Mossop will be heavily involved as well as other lesser understood mechanisms to form ice in clouds today. And, along with that high ice-forming temperature will be categories of ice crystals that are rarely seen here, needles and hollow sheaths, ones that form at temperatures in clouds warmer than -10 C! You can see how excited Mr. Cloud Maven Person is. For comparison, it would be like a bird watcher seeing a _________, something pretty rare go by.
Dewpoint temperatures are running in the upper 60s and was 70 F (!) at TUS earlier this morning! Indicative of a really, really moist day from a cloud standpoint even now is that line of Stratus fractus cloud halfway down on Samaniego (Sam) Ridge. And this is BEFORE rain has fallen. Not too unusual to see something like that AFTER a good rain, but before, its pretty rare.
All in all, a very tropical day ahead, very “Floridian” I would call it, and that means more water in the clouds above us ready to fall out, and more “fuel” to send those warm plumes of Cumulus turrets spaceward. That’s because heat is released to the air around cloud droplets as then form, and the more “condensate” the more heat. The warmer the cloud bases, the more condensate that occurs. Its quite a feedback loop.
The last time we had bases this warm and low, some “lucky” areas got “Floridian” dumps of rain, that is, 3 inches in an hour. (Three inches in an hour is pretty common in Florida in the summer.)
However, need some heating and/or a good symoptic situation to gather up the clouds today if we are to get more than just high humidity from Norbert’s remains. Last night’s model run from the U of AZ was not real supportive of a great day because while the humidity is here, and upper level situation is going in the wrong direction, is not going to help much. A lot of what we needed was expended over night in huge storms that are raking central and northern AZ now, with some sites in PHX reporting up to 2 inches since midnight! And as that upper air configuration responsible for their great rains moves away, what’s right behind it up there, will try to squash clouds.
So, while we have the ingredients down low for an exceptional rain day, its not in the bag. What’s worse is that drier air is now foretold to roll in from the west by tomorrow, further diminishing (not eliminating, though) the chances for a decent rain here in Catalina. “Egad”, considering all the promise that “Norbert” once held for us!
So, in sum, a bit clueless here as to what exactly kind of day we’re going to have. “Truth-in-packaging” portion of blog. I see rain has formed just now (6:41 AM) on Samaniego Ridge, AND to the S-SW, very good sign!
—a note on air quality—as inferred from visibility in a humid situation——–
Another thing you will notice is how clean the air is. We have tremendous humidity, and unlike smog-filled air back east, the sky will be blue, and the visibility good. If you’ve ever been back East, you’ll know that in most areas the sky between the clouds on humid days is pretty white, and horizontal visibility is reduced in the moist air, say ahead of a cold-cool front in summer. This is due to large haze particles that have become droplets before water saturation has been reached, a phenomenon called deliquescence. Its horrible. Really ruins the sky back there on humid days.
Enough semi-technical blather. We’re mostly about pretty cloud pictures here.
Yesterday’s clouds
There were some spectacular scenes yesterday, even though it was disappointing as a rain day, only a late afternoon trace here in Sutherland Heights. Here are some of the best.
6:34 AM. Altocumulus lenticularis hovers over and a little downwind of the Catalinas.10:03 AM. First Cumulus begin to form on the Catalinas, later than expected. I will using the words, “expected” and “unexpected” a lot today.1:21 PM. First ice seen, lower left top of blue sky and cloud border. Can you see it?1:24 PM. Soon after the first ice is seen, out pops the rain, that very faint haze in the center of the photo.2:12 PM. Mt Lemmon receiving 0.79 inches of rain in about an hour from this little guy. Note that the peak is TOTALLY obscured by this rain shaft.12:24 PM. Cumulus clouds kind of muddled around up there when yours truly was expecting a sudden eruption at any time. Really did not happen yesterday.12:26 PM. Mostly just a pretty scene, the blue sky, the Altocumulus perlucidus, and the Cumulus congestus erectus.4:17 PM. It was especially gratifying, after kind of a non event day, to have this unexpected late eruption of a Cumulonimbus NW of Catalina. Meant chances weren’t quite over for nearby developments.5:03 PM. Cumulus cloud street trails off the Catalinas. Will it do anything?5:21 PM. The ragged edge of the higher layer leads to a series of crepescular rays in the falling rain, while the Cu congestus turret sends a long shadow Catalinaward, A gap in the clouds allows the sun to shine on the rain falling in Oro Valley then. Can you imagine how great the rainbow was on the other side, say from the Tortolita Mountains? The rainbow isn’t seen in the forward scattering direction because its due to reflected light back toward the sun from within the raindrops.5:22 PM. Nice lighting on Samaniego Ridge, rainbow imminent,5:24 PM. Magnificent, the lighting, the rainbow. How lucky we are to be here!6:56 PM. Just when you thought the day was finished, this surprise. Well, it was to me, that’s for sure!
6:58 PM. Ghostly-like late blooming Cumulonimbus calvus and Cumulus congestus clouds rise up against the falling temperatures. Pretty neat sight.[/caption]
6:58 PM. More unexpected strong developments to the west after sunset.
The End!
Heck, if I worked on this much longer, the answer to what’s going to happen today would be in!
Blobs of sprinkle clouds pummeled Catalina yesterday beginning soon after 12 Noon and ending only after 7 PM when an extraordinarily rare “Geo-Astro Meteo Conjunction” (GAMC) was observed due the conjunction of a rainbow, a moonrise exactly over Mt Lemmon, and the top of Mt. Lemmon itself visible through rain. The GAMC “trifecta” scene, is thought to occur only once every several hundred years. The duration of yesterday’s scene was about 3 minutes, the cloud with the rainbow having produced a sprinkle here just prior to the rare scene. Only more rare than the GAMC is a sunrise exactly over the crest of Mt. Lemmon with a rainbow in the direction of the sun.
Three sprinkle periods were recorded yesterday, the longest between 5:43 and 5:45 PM. The others occurred at 12:28-12:29 PM, and 7:26 to 7:27 PM. The rain brought June’s monthly total to a trace, ending the prospect of a completely rainless month.
No accidents were reported due to excited motorists reveling in the “rain” on their windshields, having attention diverted from driving. Local meteorologists explained that higher dewpoints than expected allowed a few drops to reach the ground instead of evaporating completely from the high-level virga that had been forecast earlier. The higher dewpoints allowed cloud bases from which the virga fell, to be 100 millibars, or about 4,000 feet, lower than computer models had predicted. The meteorologists blamed a lack of data far upwind of Catalina for the forecast gaffe.
Below, a rare GAMC, one that you will like not see in your lifetime if you did not see it yesterday:
7:28:26: A truly rare GMAC scene develops toward Mt. Lemmon (the subtle, rounded hump below the moon). This scene can only occur with the rain and sun in proper positions to produce an arc of a rainbow framing Mt. Lemmon, but the rain must be light enough so that neither the moon nor Mt. Lemmon are obscured in any way. Yours, today only, for $1,000,000.
Moving on…..yesterday’s clouds
6:33 AM. Pretty Altocumulus, fatter version of “perlucidus.” Didn’t look to be as interesting a day as it turned out to be. This layer was about 12,000 feet above the ground.12:38 PM. Some Cumulus begin forming underneath the sprinkle clouds (ice/virga visible on the bottoms of the Altocumulus clouds on the left–that made the bottom smooth.)1:17 PM. Gorgeous example of Altocumulus castellanus and floccu (no ice/virga).
5:30 PM. Cloud complex of the day, loaded with sprinkles, CMJs were predicting that sprinkles, and ONLY sprinkles, were about 5-10 min away.5:46 PM. Following the sprinkle, eyes should almost automatically turn to the east for a some rainbow eye candy.7:37 PM. The pretty cloud day closed out with a satisfying sunset.
The weather ahead
Today looks like it will be pretty much like yesterday, lots of mid-level clouds cold enough for virga, as you can see out there right now (just after sunrise), supplemented by afternoon Cumulus. Altogether another pretty day with reasonable temperatures held down by clouds and virga around. We’re on the edge of this mid-level moist plume coming up out of the Tropics, BTW. Rain is foretold by the quite wonderful U of AZ Beowulf Cluster calculator to only fall in the SE corner of the State today. This from last evening’s 11 PM AST data.
The later model runs have had potent Hurricane Crissy’s moist plume missing us to the east now, so don’t really want to talk about it. Winds in Cristina now 145 mph sustained as it rapidly intensified from yesterday’s 75 mph. Should mean good surf along the west coast of Mexico and a certain south-facing southern California beach haunt of CMP, called, “Zuma Beach”, where the acclaimed dramatic series, “Baywatch” was first filmed.
…weren’t quite realized1 in the rain totals that our storm produced; the very exciting prediction of several inches of water content foretold for Ms. Lemmon didn’t happen (see ALERT gauge listing below, saved for pretty much the maximum 24 h period of our storm.)
Still, rains were substantial, the occasional morning lightning was great, and in a few places in PC (Pima County) the rain total did exceed 2 inches, with amounts of an inch and a half in the Cat Mountains. Good, better, but not as “great” as in expectations, except maybe at Park Tank, Reddington area, where the ALERT gauge says, 3.78 inches. Also, if you didn’t catch it, a stupendous sunrise and sunset; see pics WAY below.
Here in Sutherland Heights, 0.60 inches fell, by far most of that during the middle of last night when strong storms bounded in and abounded all over eastern AZ with a final rainband. Here’s what that 3rd and final rain “act” looked like on radar and in the satellite imagery last night (very exciting weather shape, BTW; “the curl”):
Radar and sat imagery from IPS MeteoStar for 1:15 AM. The heaviest rain fell just to the north of us. This “curl” configuration indicates that a potent part of the trough was passing by, causing clouds to explode upward from the tip of the “tail” near Rocky Point on their way to the NE from there. Got even bigger as they passed by us and headed toward Miami-Globe area. You can also see the three bands of rain that affected us, more or less still intact.
Precipitation Report for the following time periods ending at: 03:59:00 03/02/14 (also learn where stuff is) (data updated every 15 minutes) Data is preliminary and unedited. —- indicates missing data Gauge 15 1 3 6 24 Name Location ID# minutes hour hours hours hours —- —- —- —- —- —- —————– ——————— Catalina Area 1010 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.28 0.43 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Road in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.00 0.00 0.24 0.43 0.67 Oracle Ranger Stati approximately 0.5 mile southwest of Oracle 1040 0.00 0.00 0.16 0.31 0.51 Dodge Tank Edwin Road 1.3 miles east of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.28 0.47 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 miles west of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.00 0.00 0.35 0.55 0.83 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 miles northeast of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 Cargodera Canyon northeast corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.24 0.35 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash northeast of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.31 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Road
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.43 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 miles north of Rice Peak 1090 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.39 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 0.00 0.00 0.39 0.71 1.02 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 miles south of Coronado Camp 1130 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 1.46 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.30 White Tail Catalina Highway 0.8 miles west of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 1.34 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 1.54 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 miles south southeast of Marshall Gulch
Santa Catalina Foothills 2090 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.75 TV @ Guest Ranch Tanque Verde Wash at Tanque Verde Guest Ranch 2100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.16 0.43 DEQ Swan Swan Road at Calle del Pantera 2160 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.31 Sabino @ USFS Dam Sabino Creek at USFS Dam 2170 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.59 Ventana @ Sunrise Ventana Canyon Wash at Sunrise Road 2190 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.75 Al-Marah near El Marah on Bear Canyon Road 2200 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.71 AC Wash @ TV Bridge Agua Caliente Wash at Tanque Verde Road 2210 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.79 Catalina Boosters Houghton Road 0.1 miles south of Catalina Highway 2220 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.83 Agua Caliente Park Agua Caliente Park 2230 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.79 El Camino Rinconado El Camino Rinconado 0.5 miles north of Reddington Road 2240 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 0.91 Molino Canyon Mt Lemmon Highway near Mile Post 3 2390 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.39 Finger Rock @ Skyli Finger Rock Wash at Sunrise Road
Redington Pass Area 2020 0.00 0.08 0.55 0.67 3.78 Park Tank Redington Pass, 0.8 miles south of Park Tank 2030 0.00 0.04 0.28 0.39 2.09 Italian Trap Redington Pass, 0.7 miles east southeast of Italian Trap Tank 2040 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 1.14 White Tank Redington Road near White Tank 2050 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 1.14 Bellota Ranch Road Bellota Ranch Road near Redington Road 2070 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.24 0.87 TV @ Chiva Tank Tanque Verde Wash 0.5 miles south of Chiva Tank 2080 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.16 0.87 Alamo Tank Redington Road near Alamo Well
Rincon Mountains 4100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 1.06 Manning Camp Manning Camp in the Rincon Mountains 4110 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.47 Rincon Creek Rincon Creek at X-9 Ranch
Greater Tucson 2110 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.71 TV @ TV Road Tanque Verde Wash at Tanque Verde Road 2120 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.59 TV @ Sabino Cyn Rd Tanque Verde Wash at Sabino Canyon Road 2300 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.16 0.63 Well D-37 Rosewood Street west of Harrison Road 2310 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.16 0.67 Well E-23 Rancho El Mirador north of Broadway Boulevard 2320 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.47 Beverly Well C-51 Beverly Avenue at Hawthorne Street 2330 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.08 0.51 Kolb Boosters Kolb Road at Golf Links 2350 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.39 Rillito @ Dodge Rillito Creek at Dodge Boulevard 2360 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.43 Rillito @ La Cholla Rillito Creek at La Cholla Boulevard 2370 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.28 0.63 Alamo @ Glenn Alamo Wash at Glenn Street 2380 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.35 DEQ Ruthraff Ruthrauff Road at La Cholla Boulevard 4160 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.55 E-8 Irvington Road near Pantano Road 4180 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.12 0.51 Pantano @ Houghton Pantano Wash at Houghton Road 6040 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.04 0.43 Santa Cruz@Valencia Santa Cruz River at Valencia Road 6180 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.39 ArroyoChico@Cherry Arroyo Chico at Cherry Street 6190 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.59 Arroyo Chico@Randol Arroyo Chico at Randolph Way 6230 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.55 Ajo Detention Basin Tucson Diversion Channel at Ajo Detention Basin 6240 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.12 0.63 DEQ Cntry Clb Country Club Road near Columbia Street 6250 0.04 0.04 0.16 0.20 0.75 Craycroft@Golf Link Craycroft Road at Golf Links Road 6260 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.08 0.55 Tucson Electric Pow Irvington Road at Belvedere Avenue 6270 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 0.59 Pima Air Museum Valencia Road at Pima Air Museum
Southern Tucson Area 6200 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.20 0.67 Summit Elementary Summit Street at Epperson Lane 6210 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.59 Franco @ Swan Franco Wash at Swan Road 6220 0.00 0.00 0.20 0.20 0.83 PC Fairgrounds Houghton Road at Dawn Road 6280 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 0.63 Wilmot Wilmot Road 2 miles south of Old Vail Connection Road 6290 0.00 0.04 0.55 0.55 1.42 Corona Sahuarita Road at Sewage Treatment Plant
Altar/Avra Valley Area Area 6370 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.31 1.77 Arivaca Las Guijas Mountains near Arivaca 6380 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.31 1.10 Altar Wash @ Hwy 28 Altar Wash at Highway 286 6410 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.24 0.59 Diamond Bell Diamond Bell near Stagecoach Road at Killarney Avenue 6420 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.31 Brawley@Three Point Brawley Wash at Highway 86 6430 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.28 Vahala Park Wade Road at Los Reales 6440 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.24 Brawley@Milewide Brawley Wash at Milewide Road 6450 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.16 0.43 Hilltop Rd Hilltop Road at Riveria Road 6460 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.28 0.35 Picture Rocks CC Picture Rocks Community Center 6470 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.35 Michigan @ Calgary Michigan Street at Calgary Avenue
Marana/Oro Valley Area 1200 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.28 CDO @ Ina Road Cañada Del Oro Wash at Ina Road 1230 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.24 0.31 Oro Valley PW Calle Concordia at Calle El Milagro 1240 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.28 0.35 Moore Rd Moore Road at La Cholla 1250 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.24 0.35 Pima Wash @ Ina Pima Wash at Ina Road 1260 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.28 0.43 Big Wash Big Wash at Rancho Vistoso Boulevard 1270 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.31 CDO @ Big Wash Cañada Del Oro Wash near Oracle Road 6020 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.24 0.35 Santa Cruz @ Ina Santa Cruz River at Ina Road 6110 0.04 0.04 0.08 0.24 0.24 Avra Valley Airpark Santa Cruz River 0.5 miles east of Sanders Road
Vail Area 4220 0.00 0.00 0.16 0.16 0.79 Rancho Del Lago approximately 1.8 miles northwest of Vail 4250 0.00 0.04 0.39 0.43 0.94 Pantano @ Vail Pantano Wash 1.5 miles southeast of Colossal Cave Road 4270 0.04 0.04 0.24 0.24 1.06 Salcido Place 6 miles north-northwest of Mescal 4280 Site temporarily removed due to road construction Cienega Crk @ I-10 Cienega Creek at Interstate 10 4290 0.04 0.04 0.20 0.20 0.91 Mescal 2 miles northwest of Mescal 4310 0.00 0.00 0.55 0.55 1.22 Davidson Canyon Davidson Canyon Wash 0.25 miles south of Interstate 10 4320 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.12 0.43 Empire Peak Empire Peak 4410 0.00 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.75 Haystack Mtn. Haystack Mountain
Green Valley Area 6050 0.00 0.00 0.47 0.67 1.61 Santa Cruz@Continen Santa Cruz River at Continental Road 6060 0.00 0.08 0.16 0.20 1.22 Santa Cruz@Conoa Santa Cruz River at Elephant Head Road 6080 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.12 1.34 Santa Cruz@Tubac Santa Cruz River at Tubac 6310 0.00 0.00 0.20 0.24 0.98 Keystone Peak Keystone Peak 6320 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.08 1.18 Tinaja Ranch near Caterpillar Proving Ground 6330 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.08 1.10 Anamax Mission Road north of Continental Road 6350 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.12 1.18 Elephant Head Butte near Elephant Head Butte 6390 0.04 0.20 0.35 0.35 2.80 Florida Canyon Florida Canyon Work Center
There were numerous storm totals over 2 inches throughout the State, mountain ones that can be seen in the USGS rolling 24 h archive here (amounts will diminish due to the continuous updating that goes on, as with the PC ALERT gauges), and in the rainlog network from the U of AZ, and in the CoCoRahs reports for Arizona, the latter two sites do not have complete 24 h totals ending at 7 AM AST until several hours after 7 AM AST.
Southern California rains exceeded 10 inches in several mountain locals over the past few days, almost 14 inches at one mountain site in Ventura County. So, SC’ans are quite happy, today anyway.
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Wow; those sunset clouds!
Good grief, there was quite the spectacular mammatus display late yesterday. Even resembled the great mammatus ahead of the El Reno tornado in OK last May. Then, as the sun set in a brief clearing to the west, the downward protruding bulges became lit, and the yellow-orange color of the fading sun light (as it passed through a great distance through the lower atmosphere and the shorter wavelengths of blues get scattered out) lit up the ground and foothills of the Catalinas. It was almost too gaudy to be real and not “shopped” as we say today.
6:51 AM. Sun burst on Stratocumulus bases.4:22 PM. Incoming Cumulonimbus mammatus. The core of this shower was far to the S beyond Pusch Ridge.
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!
First, yesterday’s sunrise rainbow, in case you missed it.
5:56 AM. Virga/RW– (very light rain shower) from Altocumulus opacus (‘thick”) leads to an early morning treat. The rainbow faintly extends all the way up to cloud base, indicating that the freezing level was at or above cloud base. The TUS morning sounding indicated that this layer was based at 14,000 feet and about 0 C. Some sprinkles did reach the ground, but shadows from terrain or other clouds prevented the bow from reaching the ground.
“Dumps of the Day”:
12:57 PM. North of Saddlebrooke, this cloudburst. With bases as low as they were, LTG, indicative of stronger updrafts in the storms yesterday, likely an inch or more fell in this one. If anyone drove under this with a gauge, I’d like to hear from you, get some ground truth. Also note how obscured this tremendous Cumulonimbus is by the layer of Altocumulus, showing that on really moist days, it doesn’t have to get real hot and sunny to generate big storms.
A little later, this masterpiece of a cloudburst, without doubt one of the most dramatic I have seen in five summers here, or anywhere really. Here’s the sequence:
1:57 PM. Nice looking shower, but kind of so-so at this point. Drifted away from the “action” for about 15 min, and came out, jaw dropped when I saw what had happened over there! You just cannot take you “eye off the ball” here in the summer for even that long without some “volcano” going off. Check out the next shot.2:13 PM, just 16 min later, we have a serious cloudburst over there somewhere near Railway Ranch mining operations next to the Tortolitas. Easily 1-2 inches in 15 minutes kind of rainrate1. Was losing control here and took a lot of shots, just in awe of how nicely shaped it was, the lighting, the lightning, lots of it, feeling lucky to be alive and living here in Catalina and seeing something like this, and on and on. But I had to remember that sights like this are only seconds in duration. So much water is falling out at this second, and smashing into the ground, that the air has to get out of the way, and this columns like these flare out on the sides, and, it can rain out in minutes if the updraft isn’t continued somewhere else. In this case it was on the right side, and new dumps kept falling out as it propagated north. Took some video to prove it, too.2:14 PM. One minute later. Look how the blast at the ground is spreading out already! Unbelievable sight! So pretty, too.2:35 PM. New splash-downs occurred as those dark bases in the earlier photos, representing the updraft portions feeding the storm, gave out, first with fine fibers, if you looked closely, then the whole dump. With each new smash down (does that expression come from wrestling vaudeville?) new updrafts are launched adjacent to the dump and the cycle is (usually) repeated. About this time gusty NW winds from this storm hit Saddlebrooke and Sutherland Heights, but, alas, no new Cumulus formed above it. Must have not been enough of an upward shove, and/or our air too cool.3:05 PM. Eventually, all of those dark Cumulus bases got rained out and no new ones formed, leaving this “debris” cloud to continue raining itself out. At this stage, little if any new precip is forming up there. If you flew in it, what you would find for precip is giant snow flakes, amid lots of other tiny ice crystals, and some residual small cloud droplets, all of which are disappearing. Those large snowflakes melt into normal-sized raindrops (not ones splashing 3 inches off the pavement as would be in the “dump”). The rain here is more and more beginning to resemble the rain that falls in our winter storms. Seeing an absence of new Cumulus near us made me kind of sad at this point after the euphoria and hope just two hours earlier when I thought maybe the outflow winds that roared through would launch new Cumulus over ME. But no, it was all over at this point, with no chance of appreciable rain in “The Heights” (of Sutherland). We did get a sprinkle from a similar dying gasp of a storm that crept over the Catalinas from the east a little later.
Looks like today, absent the latest mod runs and using older material, always a little risky, looks very similar to yesterday, except as yesterday compared to the tropical day before that, our cloud bases are heading upward overall as the level of moisture declines.
Also, like yesterday, there’s very little steering wind for our storms, and so they tend to sit and die, unless the outflow winds can launch new buildups that blow up into Cumulonimbus clouds. Those outflow winds are chaotic, and where that happens, well, you’ll have to be watching. Though Ms. Lemmon, our nearby friend, did not produce much of anything yesterday, you figure that’s going to change today.
The good news ahead is that there is no clear cut end to our summer rain season yet, though there will be greater and lesser days of activity, as usual . Eventually the westerlies aloft will sweep down into Arizona and clear it out once and for all, but that’s not in the cards yet over the next 15 days.
Being Saturday today, NCAA college football day in America, I hope you will be able to separate yourself at least once from the TEEVEE at least once during the day, preferably after 11 AM, to view our too soon-to-end summer clouds. Remember, you can watch football until February 2014, but you only have maybe two weeks more of big Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds and lightning spectacles. Think about it.
The End.
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11-2 inches has been measured in hourly recording gauges in 15 minutes here in AZ. When that happens, you don’t have beads of water running off the roof, you have pretty much a solid waterfall.
For those less weather-watchfully-endowed as a CM or CMJ is, these from last evening between 6:02 and 6:10 PM:
6:08 PM. Its raining on me, too, and so I am IN somebody’s rainbow! How cool izzat?
Yes, Virginia, it did rain on the Lemmon yesterday, and that very light rain crept across SH-Catalina just after 6 PM yesterday, eventually crossing Oro Valley with a little baby sprinkle.
Drops were pretty numerous, pretty small, and fairly uniform in size, making me think about what was up there doing it. The shaft was always thin coming down the mountains toward us, and being thin means the top ain’t too high, as you know. Maybe, it was one of those rare ice multiplication days that happens here every so often, ice that forms at temperatures not terribly far below freezing. Going to movies now to see if the U of AZ time lapse can shed light on the buildup–thinking aggregates of needles and sheaths that melted into raindrops and ice multiplication in a top only as cold as -10 C or so.
OK, looked at movie, can’t see a protruding high top and so I am concluding that I am correct in the assertion that an unusual event happened in AZ, ice formation a plenty at temperatures of -10 C. It happens, but requires larger cloud drops in our clouds than usual, maybe some drizzle drops that froze, became graupel (soft hail).
Now I will look at the TUS sounding for yesterday afternoon and see that it confirms my thoughts, tidying up a nice story of cloud microphysics. After looking at it, will post it since it is supportive of the above conjectures, otherwies I would not have posted it. From the Cowboys this for Tucson yesterday afternoon:
The afternoon sounding for TUS, launched around 3:30 PM AST. This profile DOES support the thought that ice formed at high temperatures. Amazing! I really was thinking needles and sheaths as the drops came down.
Gotta go now, ride a horse, more later maybe….looks like we have those pesky Altocumulus clouds, though ones not as thick as yesterday’s which took into mid-afternoon to burn off, and kind of wrecked our rain chances.
Needles and hollow sheath ice crystals only form when the temperatures in cloud are warmer than -10 C (14 F). Normally in AZ we do not see ice forming at those temperatures because the conditions for their formation, generally involving very large cloud drops and drizzle drops in clouds at those temperatures are rare. This is because we usually have high concentrations of cloud droplets and those higher concentrations lead to itty bitty drops, ones less than 30 microns in diameter at temperatures higher than -10 C. So, another thing that we can guess about yesterday’s clouds is that the droplet concentrations might have been lower than usual, and that the drops in the clouds got larger than 30 microns in diameter.
Thought maybe a nice distraction from yesterday’s rain disappointment would be looking at some file boxes from the University of Washington’s Atmos. Sci. basement. This shot taken a couple of days ago.
Enjoy thinking about what might be in these boxes, and what you would do with the contents. Have some extra coffee, talk it over with friends, think about how much you might offer if one of these boxes was something on a quiz show, and you had one thing you knew what it was, but had to take your chances on what might be in one of these boxes1? Or if saw them in storage locker you were bidding on. How much? Lots of possibilities to think about.
———weather part——
You started to get a bad feeling about yesterday, in spite of the juicy clouds on Samaniego Ridge, bases around 15 C, extremely warm for AZ, meaning full of extra condensed water compared to our normal clouds, when the north wind began to blow, and the temperature was struggling to go beyond 80 F.
Usually, when the cloud bases are low, it doesn’t take a LOT of heating to power them up into Cumulonimbus (Cbs) clouds because the condensation itself releases heat. But struggling to reach 82-83 F here was just too little heat.
Late in the afternoon we did have a nice, if weak, Cb on the Cat Mountains (no thunder, of course, it was that weak). They did get half an inch on top of Mt. Lemmon and a couple of other places, so at least SOME rain fell near us.
And, not only did we have the “juice”, high amounts of water in the atmosphere over us, but also a nice cyclonic swirl passed overhead yesterday, too, something we normally look to cluster Cumulonimbus clouds into large groupings with major rains. From the U of WA, you can see it go by here.
To finish off thoughts of yesterday, some mood music to go along with those thoughts, I would like you to now hear covers of “pretty songs” by the Circle Jerks.
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Here are your clouds from yesterday, I know you’ll want to see them again, mope around some more about what could have been. We will begin our review of yesterday’s clouds with today’s morning rainbows:
6:00 AM. Sloping rain shaft tells you that the drops are very large, rain not too heavy.6:02 AM. Bow over the Oro.11:03 AM. Those oh so promising Cumulus congestus clouds lining the Catalinas!4:19 PM. Finally a Cumulus congestus that looked like it would exit the juvenile stage and mature into an adult (Cumulonimbus).4:36 PM. And it did grow up. This is what produced the half inch on Ms. Lemmon.
No real chance of rain now for a few days. Oh, me.
The End.
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From 30 years ago or so…. Wonder what historians would say now?
1Example of a quiz show where you bit on a mystery box if you want, or take the thing that’s offered in front of you.
I guess we can be happy for them… Here’s how the day went.
9:39 AM In case you missed logging this special cloud, Cirrocumulus undulatus, waves in the atmosphere.9:40 AM. I guess you could have been distracted by the first Cumulus rising off Mt. Ms. Lemmon.12:07 PM. Nice progression to our Catalina cloud street off’n Lemmon, but slower to grow than the day before. Reason to be concerned.
3:08 PM. The local picture begins to improve as a Cumulonimbus with a strong rainshaft forms N of Catalina and Cumulus congestus arise away from the Catalinas.4:23 PM. Now this is really looking fantastic! Its going to dump for sure, and while this Cumulus congestus base is to the N of us and moving away, the ensuing outflow winds from the falling rain might well cause clouds to back up against the wind and new heavy Cumulus might form over us!4:33 PM. “Dump, der it is”, paraphrasing the popular ditty from “In Living Color” that emerged at ball games, “Bloop, there it is”… Now, lets see what the outfloiwng wind does. Can it move that dark region this side of the rainshaft thisaway? I sped off to Sutherland Heights district to get a closer, electrifying look.4:43 PM and 20 photos later…. This is looking fantastic, at least, over there by Saddlebrooke.4:50 PM. Someone’s getting ver wet over there. A Pima County ALERT gage reported 1.06 inches under this. But, the dark cloud base on this side has thinned (take a look above the partial rainbow). Its over for Catalina as far as outlfow winds pushing up a new base.5:15 PM. While pretty to look at, the tattered clouds to the left of the rainshaft are telling you “its over.” Now, the only question that remains is whether there will be a nice sunset?6:50 PM. And the answer to the sunset question was yes.
You probably don’t believe me, but at 2:08 PM, a few drops came down from this Cumulonimbus debris cloud, one that drifted off the Catalinas. Likely you were inside watching fubball or something instead of checking on a possible trace of rain. Oh, well. I understand. You had more important things to do than see if it was raining and note it in your weather log book. You are keeping one aren’t you?
2:08 PM. Rain is falling. Most of you will notice that this cloud is full of ice, so it COULD have rained out of it since ice means precip.
The proof?
Here, on the “trace detector”, a 1985 Corolla four-door, hatchback mini-SUV, mileage like a Prius before ethanol, some drops. BTW, yours for $12,000, comes with University of Washington Husky “W” insignia, also shown here, because I worked for the University of Washington and was a loyal company employee, i. e., supported all the company sports teams. Its just who I am.
2:09 PM. This photo was taken in case people didn’t believe me that it had rained yesterday. After all, this is the internet and you never know for sure what’s true.5:31 PM. Late afternoon Cumulonimbus spawns a rainbow for desert.
BTW#2, the Pima County ALERT raingauge at White Tail, near Palisades Ranger Station, just off Catalina Highway on the way to Mt Lemmon, had more than an inch of rain yesterday from our isolated Cumulonimbus clouds! It seems to register the highest rainfall time and again. It might be a fun Sunday drive to go there and see what all that rain has done. They must be over 10 inches for just August alone!
Today?
U of AZ mod (11 PM run) is predicting an uptick in thunderstorms this afternoon, then dry tomorrow. Hoping for one more dump…. You never know when the last one will be this time of year.
Some more visual ice cream, this morning’s pretty virga:
Any winter storm that drenches the Catalina area, including Saddlebrookians, Oro Valleyians, with more than an inch of rain in 24 h has to be one of the greatest. Haven’t seen this much winter rain in since the so-called “Frankenstorm” of January 2010 when we got over 2 inches of rain in two days. Here are the gaudy 24 h totals from the Pima County Flood Control District, ending at 3:34 AM this morning, about 24 h after the rain started Pima rain. Other interesting rain totals can be found in the network established by the rainlog folks at the U of AZ here. These totals are a bit smaller than those I culled from the Pima folks since the ob time for the rainlog network is at 7 AM LST, and here, 0.41 inches had fallen in the first few hours yesterday, and then 0.99 inches for the rest of the storm (0.01 inches just now!), for a total of 1.40 inches here in Catalina. So, the storm totals at rainlog are broken up into two days (the rain pretty much fell in the 18 h from 3 AM yesterday to about 9 Pm last night). BTW, a nice way to look at the comings and goings of the local rain is via the Weather Underground’s maps with animations of the TUS radar superimposed on a regional map showing our many “personal” weather stations (e. g., here). Its interesting that many of you do not have a personal weather station. Well, the holiday season is here, and the economy can always use some impulsive buying and so maybe now is the time to pick one up before more storms hit. And they will, as our models continue to show. BTW2, a rainbow landing on a personal weather station. Think about it.
In just 36 h from now another low center barges into Arizona from the NW. Due to its long overland trajectory, it’s going to be a lot drier than “Frankenstorm Junior”, once again, as another in a winter long series, stagnates in our area as a “cut off” low spinning around flinging rain around its margins for a couple of days (Friday and Saturday mostly). So with luck, we might pick up another quarter of an inch or so. Here is a quick look at that whole sequence, and one of the panels below, valid for Friday afternoon at 5 PM LST, for your viewing pleasure.I like this format with the four panels since you got yer upper map in the upper left hand panel showing yer cut off, and you got yer precip in the lower right hand panel, all in one jpeg; more cumbersome in the US model presentations I’ve found to have this much info in one jpeg.
So, what about our drought status after all this early winter rain (see below)?
Well, as I have learned from the State Climo office in 2010, not much changes due to a couple of months of wet conditions here, such as we had in 2010 when water was flowing everywhere in southern Arizona later that winter. Seems for those folks that designate whether an area is in drought, there have to be almost years of wet conditions for the designation of droughty conditions to be removed from their maps. Its pretty discouraging. Perhaps it takes wide tree rings to indicate the drought is over (hahahaha, sort of) ((just kidding!)) (((Really))) ((((Not being sarcastic at all))))
Below is the latest drought map from the Drought Monitors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as of December 6th, when they last released a map, we here in southern Arizona were still in an “extreme drought” in spite of all the rain in November and early December. It will be interesting to see how this map changes after our “Frankenstorm Junior” of the past two days, and with all that rain that has, and will be occurring in the droughty areas of NM and TX. The longer term model forecasts punish (delight?) those areas with widespread heavy rains over the next two weeks. Will it remove any of the “extreme” and “exceptional” drought designations for them? Stay tuned.
At LEAST we have avoided the Climate Prediction Center’s fall forecast of intensifying drought here in AZ over the period of November-January. Seven weeks into that forecast, we have dispelled that notion, anyway. It ain’t happening. It would be hard to take another NDJ like that of 2010-2011 when only December had any rain at all!
Well, Mr. Cloud Maven person had better post some CLOUD photos if he is to remain that and stop squawking about drought…
Here are a couple from the storm. The Catalina Mountains are so wonderful when draped in precip and snow! I would like to report that I am very happy living here full time in Catalina.
The End, though the image organization will be a mess for awhile, will “publish” now anyway.
6:58 PM. Ghostly-like late blooming Cumulonimbus calvus and Cumulus congestus clouds rise up against the falling temperatures. Pretty neat sight.[/caption]
