Today’s cloud lesson is in a quiz format. Find the ice in the photos below. As you know, ice in clouds is nearly always required before rain can fall out of clouds here in, well, all of Arizona, not just here in Catalinaland. Can you see some in the photos of of moderate Cumulus clouds below?
If nothing else, these shots show the kind of pretty skies we have now days. A few isolated Cumulonimbus clouds remain on the far horizon, NW to NE, as our summer rain season goes on, but barely. You can see those in the photos, below, if you have some binoculars.
3:20 PM.
Also 3:20 PM, but over this way some more.
4:43 PM. Anything of interest over there by Prescott?
6:32 PM. Seems to be getting darker earlier.
6:33 PM. The moon.
BTW, I would suggest a hike/horseback ride into the Catalina foothills because there is currently an amazing profusion of morning glories in their full glory. Here are a couple of examples of what was seen last Saturday in a hike up the “Middle Gate” up into the foothills. It was STUNNING! They were not just along the trail, but extended into the brush like poppies do in the spring. So pretty. Took too many photos, was it 200? (202). But every few yards up there on the east side of the Sutherland Wash was so seductive.
In case you missed it, this eye-candy from last evening as a crepuscular ray highlight some lower Altocumulus below the main layer:
6:40 PM. Lower patch of Altocumulus is under lit by a ray of sunlight. Higher layer would be termed Altocumulus opacus. This was quite a dramatic scene and had to sprint up a hill from a neighbor’s place to get this and the next shot.6:42 PM. Was gasping after sprinting up hill in an obsessive-compulsive pulse to get this shot. But it was worth it.
11:19 AM. Small Cumulus were erupting nicely over Mt. Lemmon and the Catalinas, but oddly, due to the southeasterly winds aloft, they were larger in an extended cloud “street” downwind. See next shot taken at the same time.11:19 AM. That cloud street went for miles!
Now, for the rest of the day. The Cumulus clouds with tops flattening into Stratocumulus were a bit disappointing, their tops, in a few places, did reach the level where ice would form in them and virga and a few light rainshowers fell out. Remember, gotta have ice to have precip is Arizona, mostly.
1:21 PM. Larger patch of Cumulus, spreading out due to a “stable layer” has reached upward to begin forming some ice. That fallout of ice is causing the base to look a little too smooth. If you can detect this, you have reached the pinnacle of cloud maven-ness. Its just beginning to come out, very hard to detect at this point, more obvious in minutes. Even I wasn’t sure at this point, but hedged an opinion about it to myself.
1:42 PM. Same patch trailing ice, though barely. Still a difficult proposition to see it. Its just SLIGHTLY frizzy/fuzzy at the bottom, a look due to low concentrations of single crystals and a few snowflakes.2:08 PM. Now the presence of ice is obvious. You have a wonderful itty-bitty rain shaft reaching the ground, and an ice veil around the edges (upper left) of this cloud. Even a little baby could see that there was ice now. But as little and as long as it took to form and fallout, you would guess that the top was marginally cold for ice formation, a superb scenario for research aircraft. From last evening’s TUS sounding, looks like they were barely ascending past the -10 C (14 F) level, maybe to -12 C to -13 C here in those tops that overshot a little inversion at -8 C. Those flat-topped Altocumulus clouds that rolled in during the evening as the sun set had tops around -8 C, just a little too warm for ice to form in them.3:27 PM. But that TUS sounding was not indicative of the air just a 100 or so miles south of us where large and deep Cumulonimbus arose. Can you see a Cb calvus top in this photo? It was pretty exciting to think that air capable of producing large storms was so close after it looked for awhile like a longish dry spell. The moisture was returning faster than models foretold a few days ago.3:27 PM Zoomed view of distant Cumulonimbus calvus top, far easier to see without the smog of the day before!
Today, the inversion is gone, and dewpoints are increasing all over southern Arizona as we start into a real tropical push. So chances of rain here in Catalina are zooming upward. Should be some nice “Cbs” around.
Tropical storm Lorena is headed toward the tip of Baja and its remnants will come into southern California and Arizona over the next few days. Hang on for some potential mighty rains, something to bring our summer rain season totals to more respectable levels here in Catalina. Very excited, as are all local weather folk!
Also, no end to summer rain season yet appearing in mod run extending out for two weeks (from last evening’s global data crunch). Still seems to hang on, for the most part, through the 20th of September. Excellent.
A great immediate sign yesterday of the later cloudscape, if you were outside and not working in a room with no windows, was the early Cumulus rising off Ms. Lemmon. Some places got half inch to an inch, but only a trace fell here amid hours of thunder. Here’s the day:
9:29 AM. It would have been good for you to have pointed out the early riser, then told your neighbor, maybe breaking out in song, “I think its going to rain today”, by Randy Newman; “Broken windows and empty hallways, pale dead moon in a sky streaked with gray.” Well, pf course, you know this song. Well, if you’re friend hasn’t shot himself after you’ve finished that sad song, you might also have added, “there could be a lotta thunder with that rain, too.” Well, there’s always a lot of thunder here in the summer, but it sounds prophetic to add that.11:18 AM. First thunder on The Lemmon! Was pretty pumped as anvil overhang overspread me and The Heights. Was thinking “rain moving off the mountain this time!” And little itty bitty spritzes did, over and over again all day and thunder crashed and boomed around for hours. The result was one of the heaviest traces of rain ever I think to Sutherland Heights. Public service message: Overhangs like this can spit out a spark down to the ground, WAY out ahead of the rain area, visible on the top of Ms. Lemmon. Its not good to be out under it standing on a knob, pretty much the highest point around, taking pictures like this. I went out as soon as I heard thunder; would never just go out without knowing where it was in the charging cycle. Still, you probably shouldn’t even do that since that charging cycle can rev up, too. Silly me.11:50 AM. Anvil overhang from The Lemmon with new Cumulus piling up north of Saddlebrooke, as they often do. This indicated storms were going to also form before long over the lower terrain. Sometimes, as you know, they can’t. When they do this, it means we have a chance to get a core, as does everyone out in the hotter lower elevations.1:26 PM. A real beauty north of the Gap. The darkening blue sky that goes with autumn really brings out the contrast between these immaculate white tops of a…..Cumulonimbus calvus (“bald”) on its way to the fibrous “capilatus” stage (when the ice phase up there is clearly evident). It may have been this one or the next one that dumped a half an inch around Oracle town.3:07 PM. If you look carefully around this TEP Co power pole, you can see that heavy rains, indeed, got out into the lowlands. I hope I have made my point about poles and wires. They have no business being above ground in the 21st Century.3:12 PM. A little mammatus showed up, too, maybe from a collapsing, “overshooting” top upwind.6:47 PM. Overhead wires and just a trace of rain are forgotten about as this luscious sunset unfolded down below where i had to walk to avoid the overhead wires being in the photo.6:46 PM. Expanded shot of same scene, so fabulous, one of the best!
Looks like a similar day today, just eye-balling the maps and stuff, clouds piling up on The Lemmon, drifting NW over Sutherland Heights and Catalina, chance of thunder, some sprinkles or light showers. However, drier air is filtering in from the east as I type, meaning cloud bases will likely be higher than yesterday, and we probably won’t see such an early start to Cumulus forming on Ms. Lemmon as we did yesterday. And not as much cloud cover.
Supposed to dry out tomorrow and Friday further but then moisten up again on football viewing days, Saturday and Sunday as a tropical storm/depression works it way up the Baja coast. Could be a great weekend.
Below, a remarkable storm report from yesterday from around the Prescott area, brought to my attention by climate folk hero, Mark Albright at the U of WA:
First about the rainfall around Arizona yesterday….
Jack is happy. Got 1.21 inches yesterday afternoon. Nice! No doubt some of our friends, fellow lowlanders, who can’t take Catalina-Sutherland Heights when the temperature rises above 82.5 F unlike you and me, experienced that cloud downspout that occurred at to Happy Jack Ranger Station in Pine, AZ, at almost 8,000 feet elevation.
For additional rainfall reports beyond those provided at “Happy Jack”, of course, we have to go to about 3 dozen other places because no one has managed to cull ALL of the rainfall reports we get into ONE daily list. Well, maybe the NSA has them all… Here are a few more links to rainfall data:
Not to mention the many “school net” and TEEVEE station-established rainfall reporting stations, and those folks who monitor rainfall at home but don’t report it to the rest of us who want to know about it. Maybe NSA can help out there, too. Hahahahaha, sort of. (BTW, I have nothing to hide to whomever is reading this; well, mostly nothing.)
——-EDITORIAL OUTBURST——
How strange it is that we cannot go to ONE friggin’ site and get all of the rain reports for the whole State! Would it be due to a lack of…….inter agency cooperation and competition, even among non-profit organizations???? (Insert creepy organ music here)
——-END OF EDITORIAL OUTBURST——
Back to rainfall observations…..
Douglas, AZ, if you haven’t heard from your favorite TEEVEE meteorologist who makes a lot of money1, has experienced its wettest June through August ever, with 13 plus inches, with about two weeks to go! This is for the purpose of generating a thought about a trip, a weather vacation, for you. That whole area down there, with its historic heavy rains this summer MUST be seen! Your weather diary will be sadly lacking without some notes about the vegetation, ponding and stream flows in that area. Damn well know I’m going again. There is a treasure of scenes, maybe new lifeforms, down thataway that won’t happen again in our lifetimes. The specifics below from the NWS:
SXUS75 KTWC 130105
RERTWC
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TUCSON AZ
605 PM MST MON AUG 12 2013
...DOUGLAS ARIZONA RECORDS WETTEST METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER ON RECORD...
RAINFALL OVER THIS PAST WEEKEND AT BISBEE-DOUGLAS AIRPORT PUSHED
THEIR 2013 METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER TOTAL TO 13.23"...WHICH ECLIPSED
THE OLD RECORD OF 13.07" FROM THE SUMMER OF 1964.
METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER IS THE PERIOD FROM JUNE 1 TO AUGUST 31ST.
THE 13.23" IS ALSO THE TOTAL FOR THE 2013 MONSOON. THIS RANKS AS 2ND
WETTEST MONSOON ON RECORD...STILL WELL BEHIND THE RECORD OF 15.90"
FROM 1964.
LASTLY...THE 2013 CALENDAR TOTAL OF 14.10" CURRENTLY RANKS AS THE
19TH WETTEST YEAR ON RECORD.
$$
On to clouds, yesterday’s:
As a CMJ, you should have noticed the harbinger of better things ahead for late yesterday afternoon and evening when we had “thunder on the Lemmon” beginning at 2 PM, about 4-5 hours earlier than the two prior days. Earlier is better.
Also earlier were the first scruffs of Cumulus clouds forming over the Catalinas, in this case about 2 h ealier than prior days, another “earlier is better” scene for rain here in Catalina-SH. Here are some scenes; hope you seen’em. Oh, my, another outburst of creativity.
First, before Cumulus, these “strangers”:
8:11 AM. Billow clouds, Cirrocumulus undulatus, if you want a tech name. They weren’t around very long, just a few minutes, hope you scene’em. Best seen as action figures in the U of AZ time lapse film for yesterday.
11:13 AM. Cloud street streaming off the Lemmon is pretty advanced for this time. Cloud bases, too, a bit lower than the day before. Lower is better (for rain amounts).1:43 PM. First ice on top of Ms. Mt. Lemmon. Should be in your diary. Can you see it? Answer in next image. I’m trying to learn you up on these things…dammitall. Note lack of a rain shaft at this time1:43 PM close up of glaciated turret showing above the cloud mass above Lemmon. There’s some writing on it. Thunder b
While this early TSTM fabove aded quickly, dropping only 0.28 inches on Mt. Lemmon, the “Dump of the Day” (say, those within 5 miles of here) erupted suddenly just after 5 PM over and to the south of the Golder Ranch development at the foot of the Catalina Mountains. The cloud-to-ground strikes came within seconds, not minutes from this dynamo, though like its predecessor, it did not last long. Still, parts of it moved far enough north to give SH (Sutherland Heights) 0.12 inches. Here it is:
5:16 PM. “Dump of the Day”, looking toward the Golder Ranch development from the parking lot at the top of Golder Ranch Drive. LTG was too scary to leave car.
And, of course, the day finished out with another one of those dramatic sunsets, and the lighting on the clouds at that time of day that makes us so happy to be here, that we can take temperatures above 82 F without having to depart for higher ground. Last evening, this beauty:
7:03 PM. Looking north beyond Saddlebrooke, and along with it, another fabulous evening of lightning. Doesn’t happen like this as a rule in that colder, high terrain that our “temperature refugees” head for. Much better down here for evening and nighttime LTG.
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1I dream about being a TEEVEE weatherman making a LOT of money. I could then take those weather vacations I’ve dreamed of, never mind the State Department Travel warnings, to Cherrapunji, India, where they once measured over a thousand inches of rain over 12 months; to the Island of La Reunion in the southern Indian Ocean where tropical storms have sat and dropped, and your jaw will also drop, 72 inches of rain in ONE day, and 66 inches in 18 hours in a DIFFERENT storm–before that one let up.
Worn out from yesterday, which resembled the day before with the late “bloom” of fabulously photogenic Cumulonimbus clouds, much lightning, and an equally fabulous sunset. Took too many photos (200 plus I think) kind of out of control, due to excessive excitement again; hard drive filling up. Locating brain now in this cup of coffee.
First, before the cloud photo diary for yesterday, this wonderful, uplifting look at the weather way ahead from NOAA’s spaghetti forecasting machine last night, calculated from global data taken around the world, to be redundant, at 5 PM AST last evening, valid for 5 PM AST Friday, August 30th:
Isn’t this great?! One of the best maps I’ve seen this summer. Looks like the summer rain season1 hereabouts will be in pretty good force through the end of August now after abosrbing this NOAA check of chaos theory. Maybe Sutherland Heights will catch up to our average rainfall for July and August by the end of the month, 6-7 inches. Now sitting on only 3.2 inches since July 1st.
Yesterday’s clouds and storms
Here’s how it all started:
10:38 AM. Cumulus specks began to appear over Ms. Lemmon an hour or two earlier than the previous day, always a good trend.11:21 AM. Early sign of an aroused atmosphere, one ready to produce deep clouds. Thin, spindly clouds shooting upward rapidly, sometimes, as here, in the formation of an obscene gesture.12:57 PM. And before 1 PM, this early Cb (calvus) off the mountains to the NW! I was really preparing for giant storms ALL day in the area. But, that’s NOT what happened. They faded soon after this. Ms. Lemmon, never mind the raging heat, became devoid of clouds. It was nothing less than astonishing that it could be cloud free in the middle of the afternoon with such an “auspicious”, if rude, early start of Cumulus clouds.
3:08 PM. Its 106 F in Sutherland Heights. This view of piddly-pooh Cumlus clouds over the Catalinas didn’t seem possible, in a sense, an amazing sight. All the day’s early promise was somehow gone, drier air was moving in, and that thought made the heat even more intolerable, though I don’t mind it myself, adding a personal note here.3:25 PM. Its a 107 F; cloud drought over the Catalinas continues. May seem silly, but this was just an incredible sight I thought.5:51 PM. Within half an hour, the Cumulus began to perk up. Could the same thing happen, that sudden explosion of Cumulus into Cumulonimbus like yesterday occur AGAIN? Yes
5:51 PM. “Muffin” Cu congestus, center, has top high enough already to produce ice and precip!6:13 PM, 22 min later. “Muffin” Cu cong has grown into a small Cumulonimbus with this pretty rainshaft. But LOOK at how the clouds have filled in toward Sutherland H.!
6:53 PM. By this time more clouds were building upward, joining the fray, as here, and the whole sky was filling in. There was some stupendous cloud to ground lightning strikes with this one, but didn’t capture them.
7:05 PM. Hard to put into words how pretty a sight this was, and so dramatic, full of portent.
7:18 PM, 13 min later, the dump has come. This was the cell that produced almost continuous lightning toward the west into the early evening.
7:14 PM. In the meantime, this cloud base was expanding in the upwind direction toward Saddlebrooke-Charoleau Gap, eventually to be our rain-producer last evening just after 8 PM AST.
Today’s weather? You’ll want to see Bob’s view and, of course, that of the TUS NWS, or your favorite TEEVEE forecaster’s. U of AZ experts though today would be better than yesterday!
The End.
——————————-
1Sometimes confused with the “monsoon” of India and south Asia, which is really a MONSOON with a giant low center circulating air around it for millions and millions of square miles. Hey, Jabalpur had 17 centimeters of rain yesterday, 6.70 inches, and the rain is supposed to get heavier in the next couple of days!
“Alas”, now there’s a word to don’t see every day…probably a little stiff from laying around so long.
Those Cumulus that shot up over the Catalinas early yesterday morning were a magnificent sight, and so full of promise. And while thunder was heard here just after 11 AM here in Sutherland Heights-Catalina, the showers just did not get off the mountains around here as hoped, though there were a few big boys (or “gals”, to be gender neutral) around to the NW-N and down to the S-SW during the afternoon. Here are the Pima County ALERT totals for the past 24 h. Lemmon had a good drop of 1.46 inches; that’ll surely keep those mountain streams going. But as you will see, not much elsewhere. Just a trace here, our mode for this summer in Sutherland Heights-Catalina area it seems.
BTW, all available model outputs (U of AZ 11 PM run not available at this time) show fewer showers than yesterday, though to CM, it looks like a very similar day to yesterday in sat imagery and such1. So, it would seem we have a another day with a chance for a good rain in the afternoon or evening, about like yesterday when some showers did form off the mountains and could have landed on us. Besides, even without rain, it was a pretty day anyway. Its all great.
Here is yesterday’s cloud history with its early promise, ultimately only fulfilled only on the Catalinas around here:
6:35 AM. Our usual broken layer of Altocumulus clouds. But, being composed of droplets, are especially subject to dissipation as the sun comes up, irradiates them, and ground plumes begin rising to help finish the job off.
10:32 AM. EVery single and married cloud-maven junior should have been EXTREMELY excited and filled with anticipation at the sight of these towering Cumulus clouds, these early risers (Cumulus congestus erectus). They demonstrate that that the atmosphere was “loaded” for action, that is, was really unstable, ready to produce deep clouds and heavy showers. Above the Cu, the remnant of the morning’s Altocumulus layer.
11:36 AM. Has been thundering on the Lemmon for about half an hour. These next two photos show the risk of being under a nice, darker cloud base with no sign of rain coming out, and then 3 min later (from a video I took), the mountains are obscured in blinding 1-2 inch rainrates per hour.11:41 AM. A couple minutes after the shaft dropped down. This was another really good sign about this day, the dark bases weren’t going to be “Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders2” so-to-speak in terms of alternative music of the 1980s, but rather, the “real deal”; were shooting up to….the level of glaciation and precip formation! I probably did not have to tell you that last thing when you saw shafts of precip coming out eventually, but suddenly, out of every darkened base.
12:12 PM. “Twin towers”, able to escape the mountains.
12:51 PM. These beauties. Topmost turret on the left is loaded with ice–can you tell? This is pretty hard to do at this stage. In a couple of minutes, the results of that ice began to show up at the base.
12:53 PM. Shaft beginning to appear below base. This is the most exciting place to be if you’re under it, since the drops are huge, have made it through the now collapsing updraft. Lightning had already occurred by this time, so you have to watch out for these early stages of thunderstorm formation since, underneath it, you might not see the ice forming, and know that the electrification process is well underway.
12:57 PM. Puttin’ the hammer all the way down.
7:24 PM. Scattered Altocumulus with Altostratus above (a bit too thick to be just “Cirrus.”
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1BTW, if you want a really GREAT forecast by a true expert, rather than a “shoot from hip” kind of one that CM so often offers, you have to read what Bob has to say today when he posts it. U of AZ experts also often refer to his careful analyses.
2Here they sing about something we probably don’t want to happen to Catalina, Arizona.
Great rainshowers pummeled a few nearby areas yesterday; Horseshoe Bend just NE of Saddlebrooke, got 0.75 inches yesterday with another little pulse of water coming down the CDO later. But once again Nature bobbed a rainy apple in front of us, only to jerk it away, to mix metaphors royally. BTW, has there been a baby yet?
I wonder, too, if you saw in yesterday’s sad weather “play”, the colliding outflows NE of Saddlebrooke? Or the the ideal, dark, expansive, flat cloud base indicating a great updraft was feeding the rain shafts just to the north of us, ones that were propagating this way, riding the rain-cooled outflow racing toward Sutherland Heights, that wind shoving the air up as it pushed S, forming new clouds over it?
All this looked so promising to the non-cynical observer. As a meteorologist I was, of course, videoing these events to the north LONG before they happened since we often see this sequence develop to the north of us. But after you experience so many disappointments, as we have here in SH, you begin to expect bad no matter how promising they look at first. Its kind of like being a Cubs fan. You KNOW nothing good is going to come of the season. So that’s where I am now, pretty much like a hopeless Cubs (or a Seattle Mariners) fan.
Have, of course, in five summers, seen this happen before, that is, “The Great Dissipation”, when rain is but yards away, moving down from the N and then doesn’t make it. You probably have, too.
Part of the reason, maybe a large part, is that the wind rushing south from areas north of Saddlebrooke, and especially out of the Charoleau Gap, is going downhill. This means that the upward shove out of the rain shaft is being compromised by downslope motion at the ground. Often, in spite of this downslope motion at the ground, the upward shove is still enough to keep a respectable cloud base going, feeding more precip into the rain shafts that develop above. So, while there have been other situations where strength of the “incoming” is weakened, there was still an upward shove strong enough that we still get drenched.
But not yesterday.
The cloud bottoms/updrafts, necessary for new rain to form and reach here, broke up just as they arrived over Sutherland Heights, with one last gasp rain streamer, the end product of the last decent cloud base/updraft, landing only a mile or less away to the east before giving out completely. Man, that was tough to see.
Here’s a photo diary for yesterday, which, BTW, was one of the most photogenic summer days ever IMO (took around 300 shots (!), though part of that excess was because my camera malfunctioning and had to repeat many):
5:24 AM. Cumulus turret beyond the horizon casts a shadow on Cirrus clouds as the sun comes up behind it. Very pretty..
8:34 AM. Now here’s a great sign, a fingerling Cumulus shooting up from the Catalinas this early!9:39 AM. This is really looking good due to the bulk and towering aspect of the clouds.9:43 AM. So pretty, so isolated, and shows that even the Tortolitas can launch large clouds early yesterday, another great sign for an active day.9:51 AM. Clouds continue to be quite aroused over the Catalinas, nearly reaching the glaciation level already! I was quite excited myself and took a lot of photos of these.10:12 AM. Rain! (from a Cumulonimbus capillatus–looks fibrous in its upper portions due to ice crystals and snowflakes11:12 AM. Within an hour, Lemmon was rumbling, as was this giant off to the N of Saddlebrooke.11:26 AM. The unusual scene of two outflow winds colliding, just behind the dark base in the foreground. Things were looking so great because you knew there would be an out rush of wind at us, maybe maintaining that big dark base that’s necesssary to keep the rainshafts going its the bottom of the chimney feeding the Cumulonimbus turrets, getting them up there where they cold enough to form new rain/hail/graupel. Its only a few miles away, too!11:39 AM. Learning module. Here’s where your hope for a great rain should begin to fade, a wave of sadness washing over you. RIght here you begin to suspect something’s wrong, that big fat dark base looking a bit disorganized, not as large and flat, though still has a strong upshoot on the right side. Maybe the disintegration of the base will continue; once started it always does.11:49 AM. This is the trash base that made it over the house. Going to put on “The Who” now; you remember them: “Won’t get fooled again. New base same as the old base. Won’t get fooled again.” One of the great weather songs of all time.Dong, twelve noon. That diminishing base at 11:39 AM above had enough upward zoom in it to produce this narrow rain streamer as the base disappeared, got rained out. If you were out, there was a very close lightning strike at this time in Sutherland Heights.4:24 PM. But the day wasn’t over yet was it? BY late afternoon, new Cumulonimbus clouds had arisen, now drifting from the west that produced this unusual scene of spaced rainshafts.7:31 PM. The day ended with another one of our multi-colored sunsets, the ones we love so much in the summer.
Now to get through the dry, HOT few days ahead…. Will be tough.
However, take a look at this radar-derived precip map for the US for just the past 7 days, and just look at how the droughty areas of the SW and Plains States have been hit with tremendous rains during this period. So great to see so much, especially here in AZ and NM. From WSI:
Total precipitation as inferred by radar for the seven days ending today. Fantastic!
7:01 PM Virga from Altostratus clouds is illuminated by the setting sun.
Took time out from a bazillion chores concerned with moving to a new house here, and other doings for a U of WA archive project to savor another great sunset here in Catalina:
The weather way ahead
Before looking ahead, look outside now (6:20 AM) There are some gorgeous patterns in Altocu and Cirrocu!
The models have gone real bad on us, taking away rain that was once predicted here in early May. Sure, its unusual, but it could have happened. Now its pretty much gone (for now).
In the meantime, sometime very unusual is forecast for the central and southeast US. Can’t remember seeing a pattern like this so late in the winter where in really cold upper low center just goes down to Natchez, MS as in this loop. Lots of low temperature records likely to be set for early May if this pattern comes to pass.
Valid for mid-day, Tuesday, May 7th.
This continues a trend, too, this spring of well below normal temperatures in the Plains States in the middle portion of this forecast loop. They had one of the coldest springs ever in the northern Plains, and the latest measurable snowfall ever just happened in Wichita, KS. Just yesterday, the latest freeze date in the 91 years of records was established at Wichita Falls, TX, when the temperature dipped to 29 F, nine days later than any prior freeze day.
Here are some additional details, as provided by climate issues troublemaker Mark Albright, former Washington State Climatologist, and friend, who has been complaining lately that if these were high temperature records, they’d be all over the news, but low ones get swept under the media rug.
Here’s Mark’s statement from a few days ago:
“The coldest baseball game in major league history was played yesterday in Denver where the game time temperature was 23 F. It breaks the record set just last week in Denver. You can watch the video here to see the conditions at Coors Field.
“This story echoes my thoughts exactly. Why aren’t we hearing from the news outlets about the historic spring cold wave gripping the US and Canada in 2013. When it was warm last year we heard all about it.
In Fargo ND 45 consecutive days (10 March – 23 April) have passed without a single day of above normal temperature. In fact, they have yet to record a temperature warmer than 43 F this year through the 23rd of April. March 2013 averaged -10.5 F below normal and April 2013 is even colder at -12.6 F below normal so far in Fargo ND. This sets up a major risk of severe flooding in a week or two when the Spring thaw finally arrives.
Unusual cold has also been seen in interior Alaska where Fairbanks is running -14.9 F below normal in April 2013.”
While it will likely be getting warmer over the next 100 years, we seem to be afraid of reporting low temperatures and cold; that is, while it gets gradually warmer, we seem to be afraid or mentioning that weather will be pretty much doing what its always done, being abnormal a lot of the time, too. Even I get worked up if I think there is a news bias against reporting cold air! It ain’t right.
The clouds yesterday were supposed to be “splotchy”, big clearings between interesting middle clouds like Altocumulus with long virga strands. Instead there was a vast coverage of Altostratus opacus “dullus” with long streaks of virga, with a few drops reaching the ground here and there but not here. There was some mammatus-t clouds, too. Also, the end of the clouds didn’t get here until after nightfall, not in the afternoon as anticipated from this keyboard.
The result was a much cooler day than expected, too. On TV, they were talkin’ low 80s for yesterday, a reasonable expectation given “splotchy clouds”, but in Catalinaland, it only reached 73 F under the heavy overcast. Very pleasant for being out-of-doors.
Oh, well. Maybe I’ll try building model airplanes and talk about those instead. Or make up historical anecdotes that aren’t true, mixing characters up from different eras and see if anybody notices. Now that would be fun! (Naw. Too silly.)
Here’s your day, beginning just before sunrise when some fabulous, fine-grained Cirrocumulus clouds came over top:
6:31 AM. Finely grained Cirrocumulus (Cc) top of photo, line cloud would also qualify as Cc, though the granulation is larger, still not large enought to be Altocumulus. With a little imagination, the top center cloud appears to be hanging down like those house Christmas lights.Also at 6:31 AM. Here are your splotchy clouds. I can’t believe how good the forecast is going after an hour! There some much ice in the center cloud that you’d have to call it Cirrus spissatus, but an hour ago it was likely an Altocu cas, or floccus, one at very low (not “cold”, to be proper) temperatures.
7:41 AM. Clearings between clouds disappearing! Passing by, and from a thick Altostratus opacus cloud, a display of mammatus/testicularis left center (trying to be even-handed here in cloud nomenclature).
Also at 7:41 AM. More mammatus-t over there, too. My mind has kind of drifted off to mammatus now. Quite nice dispay here. Note: Not associated with thunderstorms, as some urban myths have it. Look, I’m trying to make a dull day interesting. Its hard.1:04 PM. Line of heavy virga from what else, Altostratus opacus, tops at Cirrus levels. Chance of late sun pretty much gone by now. BTW, if you saw a time lapse of mammatus-t clouds, you would see that the “upside down Cumulus turret” look (as in the prior two shots), open up to fibrous little shafts like these.6:50 PM, just before Husky softball defeated No. 2, ASU last night in Tempe, the heart of devil-land. Good sunset, not great, as backside of Altostratus (As) clouds finally comes into view on the horizon. The lower cloud specks at the base of the As layer are those comprised of droplets, not ice, as is the higher As. This shot helps show how different in appearance clouds of the two phases, liquid and ice, are. When they’re together, mixing it up, we call that a “mixed phase” cloud. Because there are so many particles that droplet clouds can form on (typically, in continental settings, there are hundreds of thousands per liter) those clouds have more detail and the drops are too tiny to fall as precip. In the higher Altostratus layer, the concentrations of ice particles that comprise it are probably only in the tens per liter, and those ice crystals/particles are far larger than the droplets in droplet clouds. Most of the ice particles in the As, therefore, are settling downward, evaporating. However, all ice clouds can produce light precipitation to the ground, one of the THREE ways we get precip out of clouds; all ice, mixed phase, and all liquid processes. (Some textbooks I’ve seen only talk about the latter two, BTW.)
If you want, you can go to this loop from the U of WA Huskies Weather Department here and see how the little splotchy cloud thing with that passing upper trough became a big fat thing as it came by. Also in this retrospective, you should examine the U of AZ Weather Department time lapse film. You’ll be amazed at all the stuff going on in a day that looked pretty dull all in all. Also, at the end (after 5 PM AST) you’ll seen the winds aloft change completely in direction as the backside of the trough, the clearing side, approached. I saw stuff I didn’t know was happening. You’ll also see how the mammatus pouches, if I may, open up into fibrous virga. Thank you, U of AZ Weather Department, for posting these great instruction films!
Not expecting clouds for most of today, but will likely see a couple of Cirrus streaming in from the NW late.
The weather ahead
Still no precip in sight, unless you consider lithometeors a form of precip, dust accumulations, that is, such as we had a few days ago. Half inch (of dust) I predicted wasn’t that bad (hahahah). Dust accumulations expected now on the afternoon of the 16th, and again on during the afternoons of the 25th and 26th of April.
C-M alive, local, and… finished with the dust report, now back to the studio.
At sunset yesterday, this rarely seen optical display called a “sun pillar”:
6:58 PM. A sun pillar sprouted from the horizon due to a few plate-like ice crystals falling from those Altocumulus clouds.
Waited for a cute bird or bat to fly above or through the pillar, making it a more popular, valuable photo; instead a helicopter came by. But it “works” as shown below. You’ll have to look hard, but its there.
Also at 6:58 PM. “Sun pillar with helicopter” $975. But, if you call now, you’ll get TWO of these exact same photos for $1,950.
Some of yesterday’s other interesting cloud formations:
4:25 PM. Patch of CIrrus spissatus with flanking Cirrus uncinus.
5:30 PM. CIrrocumulus (center, left, fine granulation) and Altocumulus (larger more separated elements) right side. The whitish veil to the left of these droplet clouds are ice crystals that likely formed within them.6:38 PM. The fine and extremely delicate patterns in Cirrocumulus clouds still amaze.
Today’s clouds
Weak wave/trough passing to the south of us has some great middle and high clouds in it, splotchy ones that are sometimes incredibly spectacular, clouds like Altocumulus castellanus/floccus with virga. Just looked outside now and some of those are to the southwest of us at 5:35 AM. You can see how complex the cloud coverage is at IPS MeteoStar’s sat-radar loop here. They’ll be gone later today so enjoy them while they’re here.
The Weather Ahead
There are many troughs foretold for the Southwest and Great Basin area over the next two weeks. That the good news; it also goes with long term climo patterns that troughs like to nest in the Great Basin. But none extrude far enough southward, that is, the jet stream racing around the trough bottoms does not reach us, to bring precip to southern Arizona. Occasionally precip hits northern Arizona over this two week period, which is good, of course, for them and water supplies. In fact, its not even likely that we’ll see a cloud below 10,000 feet above ground level here if this pattern holds. And with troughs and low pressure centers nearby to the north, periods of windiness and dust will occur as they go by.
Fortunately, I guess, there’s little confidence indicated in these forecasts beyond about 11 days, NOAA spaghetti says, and so there are surprises that can pop up yet.
