Category: Summer desert vegetation

Seeing cloud tops over Prescott from Catalina; Douglas tops 16 inches in summer rain

Here they are:

2:53 PM. Cumulonimbus tops with their anvils line horizon northwest to north. The ones that begin this series on the left are in the Prescott area. See radar chart below.
2:53 PM. Cumulonimbus tops with their anvils line horizon northwest to north. The ones that begin this series on the left are in the Prescott area. See radar chart below.  Cumulus fractus clouds are in the foreground.
ann prc-1
2:45 PM AST. Arizona radar echoes yesterday at the time of the photo. Note little green patch SW of Prescott, maybe Peoples Valley area. Radar courtesy of WSI Intellicast. That would be the leftmost tops.
6:41 PM. Nice sunset with "surprise" Cumulonimbus located NW of Sells. Nice little virga patch hanging down from some Altocumulus next to it.

6:41 PM. Nice sunset with “surprise” rogue Cumulonimbus located NW of Sells. Nice little virga patch hanging down from some Altocumulus next to it.  Did not expect a Cb in that direction at the end of the day.  Bodes well for today; having Cbs that are a little closer to us.
6:46 PM. Totally clear skies, moon intact, S-SW, though. Stratified smog layer is at bottom. Smog was much less yesterday than feared it would be after the afternoon invasion of the day before.
6:46 PM. The sky was completely clear, however, moon intact,  S-SW.  Note stratified smog layer at the bottom.

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Our desert greening seems to be reaching its peak now, and so it would be nice for you to get out and see it before football day on Saturday and it could start to wilt that bit under our drier conditions.  Just after sunrise, and just before sunset, there is some great lighting on our weedy summer desert vegetation.SONY DSC

SONY DSC

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The weather ahead….

Canadians1 think the tropical air will hang around SE Arizona for a few more days, with the chances of rain actually increasing that bit on Saturday.  The US WRF-GFS model is not quite so generous with precip here, so we will ignore that one.  But, in any event, we should have pretty Cumulus, and distant Cumulonimbus clouds for a few more days before The End,  after which we have to wait for a hurricane/tropical storm to roar up the coast of Baja and across Yuma to get any real rain.

In the meantime, I am wondering whether you have taken that trip I suggested to SE Arizona to see the  vegetation explosion resulting from this summer’s extraordinary rains they’ve gotten down there? Douglas, for example, has just crossed over the 16 inches mark for this summer a couple of days ago, the wettest summer of the past 100 years down that way.  The summer desert vegetation down there must be extraordinary, too, and it would really be worth seeing.  I will get down there for sure!

It has continued to rain extraordinary amounts of rain in western Arizona.  Here is a depiction of just the past seven days ending yesterday morning (today’s image is not out yet).  Its a great sight, considering our “extreme” and “exceptional” drought designations over that way.

Seven day radar-derived precipitation totals for the US ending yesterday at 5 AM AST. Just look at how Arizona overall has fared during this period. Amazing. Should make a good dent in our drought conditions.
Seven day radar-derived precipitation totals for the US ending yesterday at 5 AM AST. Just look at how Arizona overall has fared during this period. Amazing. Should make a good dent in our drought conditions. And the generous rains in droughty NM are foretold to continue, good news indeed.  (BTW, the excessive precip around Salt Lake City is bogus, due to an error.)  There are holes in mountainous areas due to blocked radar beams, so this map under represents the rain that actually occurred.  Need more radars!

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1The writer exhibits bias here due to his precipophilic personality combined with having most of his relatives living in Canada.  Also, the cruder Canadian model with its larger grid sizes tends to smooth out precip over larger areas than the US WRF-GFS model shown here.