While waiting for the remnants of former H. Simon to pass over us during the next couple of days, bringing some rain, starting overnight, got distracted while looking to see how many rainfall measuring stations they have in Baja Cal, and found this about the Great O from NASA. Its a pretty fascinating read I thought, which you will also find fascinating. Sure, intense hurricane O’s floody remnants missed us here in Catalina/Tucson, but it did produce some prodigious rainfall on its path across Baja and points northeast from there into NM. NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) radar estimates that over the ocean off southwest Mexico that about 33 inches fell over a ten day period while O was meandering around down there with some other disturbances, probably raising sea level that bit. And up to 5 inches per hour was falling in rainbands as it entered Mexico from the Gulf of Cal! O was deemed the strongest hurricane (tied with 1967’s Olivia) to ever hit southern Baja since sat images became available.
You will also see reprised in the “Diary of O” the huge rainfall totals that were expected in the TUS area but rains that missed us, the sad part of the story for some folks, who we will not mention. But, as Carlos Santana said, “Those who do not know history, are doomed to repeat it.”
For that reason, in view of the prodigious rains predicted in southern AZ again, but to the west of us, I thought we should be prepared for disappointment by recalling O’s “terrible” miss for TUS.
Here are some graphics from our very fine U of AZ Weather Department’s Beowulf Cluster computer outputs from just last evening at 11 PM AST, ones that can be found here, in case you don’t believe me again, a seeming theme around here. First, when the computer model thinks it will start raining, Figure 1, and in Figure 2, the expected gigantic totals expected along and near the US border where we really shouldn’t go unless you 1) go in an armored vehicle of some kind, 2) make prior arrangements with the appropriate ruling Mexican drug cartel for that part of the US that you just want to visit some rain, nothing more:
Figure 1. Valid for 2 AM AST tonight. The leading edge of the rain has reached Catalina. You might want to stay up for that. That wet desert aroma as rain begins is so awesome!Figure 2. Valid for 3 PM tomorrow afternoon. One small, mountainous area around Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is forecast have more than TEN inches by then, likely slowing the amount of incoming drugs. Organ Pipe Cactus NM is a US national park that you are warned not to visit, or if you do, you might be shot or have some other untoward happenstance if you go hiking. So you probably shouldn’t drive down there to see this once in a century rain. How sad is THAT?
Right now, as of 4 AM AST on Thursday, this model thinks Catalina and vicinity will get less than half an inch. Be prepared for more, though, rather than less. Note the streamer of heavy precip associated with Simon in Figure 2. Well, recall that O’s heavy precip streamer was going to be right over us, but then shifted eastward in the models and in real life at the last minute. The above prediction would only have a bit of a “westward bias” (the real streamer is EAST of where its shown now) to give TUS and vicinity a memorable, drenching October rain. This is what occurred with O’s streamer of torrential rain which was expected to pass over TUS, but ended up a little east of us. So, anyway, given all the little uncertainties in model predictions at this point, the watchword here is “watch out” which is actually two words. The view from here, incorporating a positive rain bias as you know, is somewhere around an inch for Catalina. The grassy green is gone, most annuals in serious wilt or crispy now, but could an inch bring some green back? Clueless on that score.
Yesterday’s Clouds
6:06 AM. Nice Cirrus sunrise, maybe some Cirrocumulus at far right, and off on the left horizon.
5:05 PM. Altostratus translucidus with an Altocumulus layer on the horizon.
5:07 PM. A “classic” view of Altostratus translucidus (sun’s position can be discerned through it), and here, an all ice path to the sun. Liquid cloud elements would appear as dark flakes, or would obscure the sun’s position. Sounding indicated that this layer was 26 kft above the ground in Catalina!
Went on an hike yesterday to see what the water levels had gotten to in the Sutherland Wash, located at the base of Samaniego Ridge, during our historic downpour. I began at the Cottonwoods at the Baby Jesus Trail head and worked my way down the wash about a mile, to where the fence is that demarcates the Coronado National Forest boundary and the State Trust Lands. It appeared that the flow in the Sutherland Wash had reached depths of 4-6 feet in the narrower parts, and about 3 feet deep, and 80 feet wide (!) near the south fence. Had crossed that part of the wash by that fence many times on horseback. I had seen little streams of water in it a number of times, but nothing close to what apparently had happened on Monday morning; it must have been a stunning sight. The peak of our storm appeared to fall on the Sutherland Wash watershed.
First, nice sunrise yesterday. Hope you caught this.
6:01 AM.9:10 AM. Rocky surfaces on the Catalinas glistening from water. I thought maybe that water might be still be flowing in the Sutherland Wash, up against the foothills, but only in one little spot was it running.10:41 AM. Investigative work begins in the Sutherland Wash at the Cottonwoods near the Baby Jesus Trail head.10:41 AM. Using the investigative technique of looking for scour marks, debris piles, and mashed plants, the investigation began. In summary, I could find no evidence that the Sutherland Wash had ever had a higher flow in it than what occurred on Monday. Imagine the flow here, enough to push over that young tree!Imagine the volume of water going over this old cement wall, just south of the Cottonwods!
I suddenly realized, when viewing the mashed plants, pig weed and such, along side the untouched ones, that the concept of mowed lawns was likely introduced to early man since he would have seen how nice and orderly the flattened areas looked after floods compared to the wild, stalky, unkempt look of the untamed natural vegetation. Thinking about writing this hypothesis up, submitting to the J. of Amer. Cultural Anthropology…. Man always wants to tame things.10:50 AM Debris pile.Somehow these morning glories made it through the mayhem.More debris. It got to be kind of fascinating, started looking for the biggest ones, really getting into it.10:56 AM. Wash must have been about 4-5 feet deep here, judging by that neat, nice looking mashed down area on the bank.Certainly an implication of water violence here!Pretty marbled swirls due to multicolored sands. Almost hated to walk on it.More interesting swirls.Really getting fascinated by the drama presented by a debris pile. Hope you are, too.The wash has widened considerably here, but the violence is still evident. I thought this was a pretty dramatic viewpoint.The debris in this young tree suggests the wash was five or so feet deep here, pretty amazing when you add the velocity to that.At the end of the hike, here past the fence and where the equestrian trail enters the wash, measuring from bank to bank showed that it was 80 feet wide, and about 3 feet deep!But somehow, this little guy survived the scouring rampage.
The weather ahead….
Still looking like an upper trough along California will scoop up soon-to-be Hurricane “Odile” (not “Opal”, as suggested here yesterday) and send its remains into Arizona and with that, another blast of tropical rains. Another four or five inches added to our current water year total would make it look pretty good (hahah). Right now, Catalinans are looking at 14.56 inches for this WY (Oct to Sept). Average is 16.82 inches over the past 37 years.
The End.
PS: There was some ice in heavy Cumulus clouds off to the north toward Oracle Junction yesterday, BTW. Hope you noted it.
6:05 AM. Pretty ripples in Cirrocumulus below some Cirrus. What a fantastic and subtle scene this herring bone pattern was!9:34 AM. Pretty much a whole Cirrocumulus morning, punctuated by a few Cirrus clouds. Why isn’t it Altocumulus? Granulation is too tiny; no shading. BTW, no ice evident though this layer was colder than -20 C (-4 F).10:30 AM. An aircraft has punched this very thin Cirrocumulus layer and left a tell-tale ice trail that looks like natural Cirrus. Same cause for that second, white ice patch farther to the west. Its almost impossible to detect something like this since the ice trail from the aircraft is almost exactly in the form of a Cirrus uncinus. The absence of natural Cirrus is a clue about what happened.10:34 AM. The aircraft-induced Cirrus is passing overhead, and if you look VERY closely you can see that tiny “supercooled” cloudlets of Cirrocumulus are still there around it. The ice crystals fell below the Cc layer and disappeared over the next 15 minutes.2:27 PM. Later that day….widespread natural Cirrus overspread the sky, with a very thin patch of Altocumulus on the right (granulation is a bit to large for Cc).3:44 PM. Those Cirrus clouds thickened and lowered some, trending (as we would say today) toward Altostratus (translucidus–the thin version).
Today’s clouds
Today our passing cold-core trough is overhead and in the middle of it, the moisture is low enough to trigger Cumulus and small Cumulonimbus clouds as the middle and high clouds exit “stage right.” Should be an interesting day since these cumuliform clouds will be so high-based (above the Lemmon summit) and cold that lots of ice will form, producing virga, and in some places, sprinkles. A hundredth or two is possible, but that’s about it. Heck, I guess there could be some lightning here in southern Arizona as well.
This will be the last interesting cloud day for awhile, as you likely know.
Below, your weather map for 5 PM AST when there should be plenty of ice action all around:
…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.
Started to rain here in at 3:45 AM…have 0.01 inches so far. :{
So far in AZ, Flagstaff area leading the way Statewide with about 0.90 inches. You can check out those amounts in real time here from the USGS, and here for Pima County. Also you can look at those amounts reported in real time at PWSs (personal weather stations) throughout Arizona on the Weather Underground “Wundermaps” as this exciting, much awaited day develops.
Point forecasts from the U of AZ “Beowulf “for today, based on 11 PM AST data, here. (Graphical version not yet completed.) You’ll see that a mighty amount of over 4 inches of water content is forecast for the top of the Lemmon (Summerhaven) from this storm. These calcs are usually a little high, but even 2 inches would be fabulous up there. Catalina, per se, does not appear in the point location list, but Oro Valley is expected to get around half an inch. We should do better than that here in Catalina/Sutherland Heights.
———-SC rain doings———
Forecast “10 in 24” at Opids Camp; got about 8, same for favored locations in Ventura County. Working on 10 for storm there as I write; another round of pounding rain moving into the LA Basin now. NWS tornado warning for east central LA expires at 4 AM today. (They saw rotation in a severe thunderstorm around Covina earlier this morning.)
BTW, go here to see how excited the Los Angeles branch of the NWS is today. You’ll see that their domain is a kaleidoscope of colors for warnings and advisories of all kinds! Ninety five percent of the time, they really don’t have that much to forecast in southern California, pretty boring really, so this is a great time for them to show their stuff, be excited, “show the colors.” (Me, too!)
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Some of yesterday’s cloud scenes
6:46 AM. Sunrise on the C-Gap.6:57 AM. Two levels of ice clouds, an rare site. The darker on just above the mountains is some icy remnant of an Altocumulus cloud that converted to ice. The whiter clouds are at Cirrus levels, likely some spot of droplets before almost instantly glaciating. The different colors give away the different heights, and also the difference in movement; one level moving relative to the other tells you this, too.8:37 AM. Microversions of Cirrus uncinus suddenly blossomed overhead; almost missed ’em. What was unusual was how tall the vertical parts were with tiny hooks at the bottom. That vertical part indicates a layer of air with no wind shear, a phenomenon almost always observed at cloud tops. The wind shear may have been “mixed out” by the up and down motions associated with cloud formation and dissipation.8:37 AM. Close up view of those tiny Ci unc.9:12 AM. “Webby” Cirrus. Has no official name that I know of.9:35 AM. Though the natural sky is slightly marred by a contrail, in general it was a thing of beauty all morning in particular with the high visibility, complex goings on in the cloud structure, deep blue sky, moderate breezes and temperatures in the 70s. This view, toward the Charouleau Gap, shows more of that “webby” Cirrus, and on the horizon, left of center, the rarely seen Cirrus castellanus which I report seeing almost every week here in AZ.10:37 AM. Less complicated Cirrus fibratus/uncinus patches moved in, followed by the development of small Cumulus clouds. Still very pretty though.2:50 PM. Your afternoon. The Cirrus thickened into a solid layer with gray, transitioning to Altostratus with these small Cumulus (“humilis”) below. TYpically thickening is due to the bottoms of clouds lowering (in this case, where the ice crystals falling out evaporate is perceived as cloud base) while the top stays about the same height. As the air moistens during the approach of a storm, the crystals fall farther toward the ground and the cloud thickens downward.
Note redundancy in title. A “meteor” is already going down, so you don’t need the word “down.” Hahaha.
They were small drops, some were as small as drizzle-sized (500 microns in diameter or smaller) and too far apart to be called an occurrence of “drizzle”, but they fell throughout Catalina allowing Catalinans to register a trace of rain yesterday, a trace that was not predicted by the best model we have around these parts just hours before the “rain” occurred. It’s not clear what the benefit of a trace of precipitation is, but we are sure some ants and other insects were made quite happy yesterday as a virga from a higher level snowstorm spit out a few drops.
Drops that reach the ground in these kinds of situations are due to melted aggregates or clusters of single snow crystals locked together that most people would call “snowflakes.” Single crystals can never make to the ground on a day like yesterday. And, “yep”, that “fog” you saw drooping down on the Catalinas from time to time yesterday afternoon was due to light snow.
No Catalina, Arizona, rain in US mod forecasts through the next 15 days (!–just horrible) as the US models continue to evaporate rain chances on the 6th-8th. A few days ago the system going by then was supposed to bring a substantial rain to most of Arizona. Now its just a dry trough passage in the model, like at watering trough1 with a hole in the bottom. Phooey.
Oddly, the Canadian model, which first calculated a bust for rain here on the 6th-8th when the US model had lots, now has MORE rain in it near us here in Catalina on the 6th-7th than the lugubrious US model. The US model has NO RAIN whatsoever in the WHOLE State of Arizona ending on the morning of the 7th! How odd is that?
Below is the salubrious Canadian depiction for Arizona rain by the morning of the 7th, a rain that could be good for health of all of us and our desert:
Valid at 5 AM February 7th. The upper level trigger for clouds and rain, a trough, is already past us and in western New Mexico, but the Canadians believe that widespread rain will have occurred in Arizona as it went by during the prior 12 h ! See lower right hand panel green and blue areas; use microscope.
Its interesting how you still can remember with fondness those people who affected your life so much, even if for a short time.
Below, after an important aside, your cloud day picture jumble, one that began with a brief, but memorable sunrise “bloom”, and one that also ended with great sunset color on the Catalinas.
7:23 AM. Sunrise over the Catalinas.3:14 PM. Dog and virga.9:43 AM. A brief clearing of a couple of hours duration led to pretty scenes of Altocumulus floccus trailing virga. 8:21 AM. Altocumulus floccus/castellanus trailing long trails of snow virga trails.
5:57 PM. Color on the Catalinas.4:03 PM. Snow on the Lemmon.
The End.
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1Images of watering troughs, in case you’re from out-of-state and a city person and unfamiliar with western culteral expressions and don’t know what a watering trough is.
7:16 AM. Altocumulus castellanus virgae. Has light snow falling out of it in tiny filaments, Aircraft measurements show that those filaments, snow fibers, that are falling out right below the base are only 10 to about 30 yards (meters) wide. “Floccus” would be OK, too. Notice that there are two turrets, one is older, has holes in it on the left, while the younger one on the right side looks more solid, firmer. The younger one has not yet formed a strong virga trail, but will as it ages. These are Cumulus to Cumulonimbus transitions in miniature and in slow motion.
Today’s sunrise of the day
7:20 AM. Altostratus.
About up and down…
That giant low pressure center, so needed by us droughty folks here in the SW, has materialized in the western Pacific, shoving gigantic amounts of heat and clouds poleward (up) toward Alaskans. We like to call them Eddy or Eddys; they keep the poles from getting too cold and the Equator too hot by shoving air around. This low in the western Pacific has forced a big northward bulge in the jet stream up that way where it had previously been pretty much a west to east flow. A region of higher pressure is created aloft when there are injections of warm air into the northern latitudes by storms1.
When air surges northward and builds a region of higher pressures in the jet stream like that, it buckles and turns southward on the downwind side of the high pressure (or ridge) almost immediately. In this case, and lucky for us, the buckle is toward the south over the western US and ultimately down into Mexico, but not too far, we hope.
What goes “up” in latitude must go “down”, more or less.
Surface weather map with satellite imagery for 11 PM AST last night.500 millibar map for 11 PM AST. Ridge pilling up in AK-Bering Sea, about to turn jet southward into the western US.
So, that inconsequential looking area of clouds and low pressure which appears to be jetting across British Columbia and Alberta in the first map, will suddenly begin enhancing and expanding southward, new low pressure centers will form in the Great Basin area. It will get windy here for a time. Very exciting.
I guess what I am trying to say, too, is that old timey weather folk like this writer would look at a map like these above, even without the satellite imagery, and think, “Oh, my”, “Change gonna come“, as Sam Cook so sweetly sang so long ago, a drastic change for the area downstream of the giant low and its heat plume.
Things are out of balance at this “map moment”; weather “Koyannisqatsy“, too much swirling low in the west part of the Pacific and strangely quiet downstream over the US at the SAME latitude as that giant low is reaching down toward out there far to the west of us. “This will not stand”, as someone once said about an invasion of a Middle East country. And the “quiet” in the West won’t stand, either. Balance in latitudes affected by storms is a key proviso of weather, a kind of conservation law2 we used to talk about a lot, and still do in undergraduate courses.
We could go back all the way to the Middle East to see the roots of the storm that blew up in the western Pacific. It was already a strong upper level wave that showed up in the Middle East as the snow situation there was beginning to take place. As a strong upper level feature, it was the trigger for the stupendous low that formed when it exited the Asian continent, found heat and temperature contrast that are the building blocks for strong storms.
The clouds and storm ahead
Models have been wetting it up more and more here, sometimes the US model have no rain at all as the trough and its clouds passed too far to the SOUTH of us. But lately, that US model has been increasing the amount rain here, not taking the low so far south. The Canadian model has had rain here in every run for days, so its been more consistent on this pattern, not taking the low too far south.
Valid at 11 AM Friday from IPS MeteoStar, December 20th. The colored regions are those in which the model has calculated precip over the prior 6 h. Note heavy band over Catalina! (Dried up a lot on the next run at 11 PM AST, though.)
Due to the variable nature of the precip amounts seen by the mods, you have to figure there’s an awfully wide range of amounts that can occur here in Catalina from a tenth of an inch on the bottom, to as much as .75 inches if everything goes really well. U of AZ mod will have more to say about this in the next 48 h.
Of course, as cloud mavens, we’re interested in the sky as well as the storms. Lots of precursor high clouds today again like yesterday, and if the usual trend continues, those clouds will lower some as the day goes on from just Cirrus, Altostratus, sometimes augmented by Altocumulus. These kinds of clouds can lead to some fantastic sunrises and sunsets, so have camera ready. You only have a couple of minutes to capture the peak of the “blooms.”
The End.
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1Remember, low density air (air filled with warmth and humidity), if deep, leads to a small change in pressure as you go up in the atmosphere, and so by the time you’re at 50,000 feet, you’re in a HIGHer pressure region than those regions where the air is not so warm. How odd. So surges of warm air and clouds from the Tropics build regions of high pressure aloft, and that’s what we’re seeing now.
In case you missed the pretty sights of yesterday:
7:05 AM. Sunrise on the Altocumulus. Two layers are evident.8:42 AM. Kind of blasé except for the rarely-seen-in-AZ (faint) halo. Altocumulus with Cirrostratus above.3:30 PM. Pretty patterns; Altocumulus perlucidus.
4:45 PM. Cirrus fibratus (not hooked or tufted at top) and Altocumulus (droplet clouds at right with darker shading). Lower gray portions beyond Pusch Ridge and extending to the horizon is probably best termed Altostratus.4:56 PM. Nice lighting on Samaniego Ridge.5:21 PM. Your sunset. Nice underlit virga (light snow fallout, likely single ice crystals, not flakes) from patchy ice clouds. Could be termed Cirrus spissatus or Altostratus, if you care. What kind of crystals, you ask or didn’t? Bullet rosettes.
The clouds and weather just ahead
Expect more Altocumulus, Cirrus, and Altostratus today, patchy and gorgeous. Would expect some nice Ac castellanus (one with spires) as an upper level low off Baja starts to move toward us. Some measurable rain likely tomorrow in the area, but probably barely measurable, maybe a tenth at most since it will fall from middle clouds with a lot of dry air underneath them. (Enviro Can mod still sees rain around here tomorrow.)
Middle clouds might get large enough to call the (small) Cumulonimbus clouds, with a slight chance of lightning tomorrow, Thursday, as this low moves up and over us.
So both today and tomorrow will have some great clouds!
WAY ahead; watch out!
After a quiescent period of gorgeous, misleading days, where the temperatures gradually recover to normal values and you’re gloating over the nice weather you’re experiencing by coming to Arizona from Michigan, blammo, the whole thing caves in with strong storms and very cold air heading this way.Yesterday’s 18 Z WRF-GOOFUS model run for 500 millibars (rendered by IPS MeteoStar), was, if you like HEAVY precipitation throughout Arizona, well, truly”orgasmic.” You just cannot have a better map at 500 mb for Arizona than this one from that run. That low center over California, should this verify, would be filled with extremely cold air from the ground on up, cold enough that snow in Catalina would be expected as it goes by. So, there’s even a prospect of a white Christmas holiday season. Imagine.
Valid 264 h from 11 AM AST yesterday morning, or for 11 AM AST, Saturday, beginning of football bowl season, which last until February I think.
Now will this verify exactly like this? Nope, not a chance. But, spaghetti tells us we’re going to be in the Trough Bowl, filled with cold air and passing storms beginning in 8-10 days from now. How much precip and how cold exactly it gets is unknown because these progs will flop around in positioning the troughs that head our way. There will be major troughs passing through, so while the amount of precip is questionable, the cold air intrusion is not. It was just so neat, exciting, mind-blowing to see that such a gargantuan storm has been put on the table for us in that 18 Z run.
Most likely subsequent model runs will take this exact map away, but then put something like it back, until we get much closer to verification day, the 21st. May even shift around on which day is the doozy, too, by a couple of days either side. Still, a really exciting period of weather is ahead.
This may seem odd, but one of the keys to our storms way ahead is the eruption of a huge storm in the western Pacific (and that storm is shown developing in the last day (144 h panel) of the Enviro Can mod.
———–dense reading below————-
That erupting, giant low pressure center will shoot gigantic amounts of warm air from the tropical ocean far to the north ahead of it in the central Pacific. That warm air shooting north, in turn, causes a bugle to the north in the jet stream, a ridge, which deflects the jet toward the north toward the Arctic. As the jet stream does that, there is almost an immediate response downstream from the ridge; the jet stream begins to turn to the south, developing a bigger an bigger bulge, or trough to the south. So, a jet stream running on a straight west to east path across the Pacific can be totally discombobulated when a giant storm at the surface arises and shoots heat in the form of clouds and warm air northward1. In this case, all of this takes place beginning in the Pacific in about 6 days, so that a sudden southward bulge, a buckling of the jet stream, due to that giant low in the western Pacific 8, 000 miles away, happens over the western US. And voila, our big cold and maybe our big storms, too. then.
I’m trying to keep you busy today. Maybe you’re retired and you don’t know what to do with yourself. Well, today you can look at building precipitation totals in Arizona all day! It will give you something to talk about.
In fact, occupying retirees with searches for precip data is why we have so many different sites that record precipitation. We have a lot of retirees in AZ, low temperature refugees, and we need to keep them occupied and out of trouble.
Imagine how awful it would be if we had ALL of these rainfall amounts in ONE place and you could look at them all immediately, or have a map plot of all these sites and amounts? Imagine just CoCoRahs and Rainlog.org being friends and cooperating together and just having one site for their rainfall collections? It would be like the Berlin Wall coming down, precipitationally speaking. Oh, well, that’s not gonna happen.
Oh, yeah, the Heights of Sutherland here in wonderful Catalina, AZ?
Got 0.17 inches overnight. “Main bang” still ahead, quite a long ways ahead, considering the passing showers we have now. Doesn’t look like the major band will get here until after midnight, then pound on us most of the day tomorrow. This prediction from the Huskies of Washington’s Weather Department model seen here.
So being on the toasty side of the cold front, should be a pleasant, mostly day with dry spells in between showers, and maybe, if the low clouds break a little, with fabulous middle and high cloud patterns associated with the powerful jet stream overhead (winds at Cirrus levels today and tomorrow should be over 100 mph!) Have camera ready.
Range of amounts from this front, a little in the withering stage as it goes by tomorrow, here in The Heights of Catalina, 0.4 to 1.5 inches, median guess 0.95 inches. Just too cellular in nature to be sure you get hit with all that’s possible, so you fudge on the downside some.
HOWEVER, just viewed the accumulated precip from our great U of AZ mod and it shows about 1.5 to 2.5 inches here, with the model run ending at 1 PM tomorrow–with more still falling! Wouldn’t that be fantastic! Certainly we’d have water in the CDO.
Precip totals ending at 1 PM tomorrow!
These mod forecasts do tend toward the high side, but I would be very pleased if more than my highest estimated amount (1.5 inches) fell.
As you will see, rain’s piling up like mad in central AZ just to the west of us. Amounts, according to radar, already well over an inch just for the last few hours according to NWS storm total radar loops from PHX and Yuma. Hah, Yuma! How often does that radar see amounts over an inch in winter?
I suppose we’ll be complaining soon about too much rain….
Yesterday’s clouds
So much was happening skyward yesterday! So much so, its probably best seen through the U of AZ Weather Department’s time lapse movie here. Its really great and shows all the complications of a day where clouds are moving in at different levels, and there are lots of wave clouds (lenticulars) over the Catalinas to marvel at.
6:59 AM. Altocumulus patches and pastel Cirrus announce a new day.
7:06 AM. A few minutes later, Altocumulus perlucidus join the color display.
11:07 AM. Once again, the rarely seen Cirrus castellanus (“Cumulus in a Cirrus) that I seem to notice every week here…
11:44 AM. Hover clouds (Ac len) over the Catalina, Altostratus above.
1:14 PM. Barging in from the south, the next lower layer, Stratocumulus and Cumulus; bases touched Ms. Mt. Lemmon. Sky darkened rapidly and almost eerily right after this.4:22 PM. The occasionally seen Seattle June sky, overcast with threatening clouds that don’t do anything, and with mild temperatures. Tops 0f these clouds were right at the normal ice-forming level here, -10 C (14 F), and by evening, virga and light rain began to fall from them as they deepened up a bit more.
The weather way ahead
More rain as month closes out. If you don’t believe me, a theme here, check this image out:
Valid for 5 AM AST, November 30th. Of course, I’m not going to show you the actual rain map, I want you to go from this as a bonafide Cloud Maven, Jr. (CMJ). I’ve noticed that some of you have not yet ordered your sophisticated “Dri-Fit” TM, “I heart spaghetti” tee shirts… What’s up with that?
6:52 AM. Altostratus with modest downward hanging mammatus1 bulges under lit by rising sun above the Catalina Mountains. Altocumulus clouds are in the background. Was a magnificent sight.6:57 AM. Mammatus protuberances more evident here, and quite lovely I thought. I seem drawn to mammatus formations.
The weather way ahead
Well, the WRF-GOOFUS model has lots of rain for us again as November closes out, with the model rain amounts foretold in November for Catalina now totaling over two inches, or about twice normal. Its been great model month of rain for us. Below the latest rains foretold, beginning on the 27th, continuing into the 29th. Here from IPS MeteoStar, these renderings from our best model, based on last evening’s global obs taken at 5 PM AST:
Valid at 5 PM, Wednesday, November 27th.
Vallid on Thursday, November 28th at 5 AM AST.Valid at 5 pm November 28th. Green areas denote areas where the model has calculated that rain has occurred during the prior 12 h.Valid at 5 AM AST Friday, November 29th.
There is some evidence from the NOAA spaghetti factory that churns out those spaghetti plots that a big change happens in the last week of November, so rain at the end of the month, two weeks from now, is not out of the question. This rain pattern results from a stagnant upper low SW of us which you can see here.
What about the weather immediately ahead?
Global pattern shifting like mad today due to what we call, “discontinuous retrogression” caused by low cutting off out of the jet stream in the central Pacific. Troughs/ridges jump westward almost overnight when this happens. Highs disappear overnight as is happening right now over the whole West! Very exciting, except in this case, while a trough blossoms overnight replacing a ridge in the West, its amplitude (how far south the jet stream in the trough gets) doesn’t seem to be enough to provide us with rain here in Catalina now. Remember that winter rain here is nearly ALWAYS associated with a jet (at 500 mb) to the south of us.
This drastic change in pattern often only lasts a couple of days, too, before reverting to “same old same old” as we had, fair and warm. I wanna cuss here.
The foretold development of a trough in mid-month in the West was a huge, and strong signal, you may recall, in our “Lorenz plots” (I am hoping this name catches on; he deserves it), those balls of yarn I show every so often. So the trough and cold air getting here to SE AZ has been “in the bag” for more than 10 days in advance, according to those strange plots.
However, the rain here in the actual model runs has come and gone in them as mid-month approaches, and lately, there ain’t been nothin’ here. At most, a few hundredths it would now seem, and most likely, nil.
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1Gender-specific naming cloud variety convention: if male, as in the case of the writer, this cloud formation is deemed, “Altostratus mammatus”; if female, the proper name would be “Altostratus testicularis.” Its part of an adjustment similar to the one when only female names were used for hurricanes, and doing that, it was felt, lent a kind of stereotype to female behavior/character. So, male names for hurricanes were introduced by NOAA in the 1970s to “even the score”.
