Sunsets – Page 3 – Cloud-maven

Hurricane force winds strike the Sutherland Heights!

If you don’t believe me, and slept through it during the power outages when it was COMPLETELY dark last night, here is a MEASUREMENT of the event from a private weather station, The arrow points to the event, 58 knots, which is about 67 mph. This is the greatest wind measured by the PWA in seven years, here and a few down there on Wilds. The measured (here, the max one-minute speed) wind is, of course, LESS than the actual greatest 1s or 2s puff, likely well over 67 mph. Unless you have a fancy ultrasonic anemometer, too much inertia in the cheaper ones to get those instantaneous puffs.

NEW: Got to 100 mph on Mt. Sara Lemmon before tower on which an ultrasonic anemometer was installed blew away.

Hope your trees are intact:

WInd measurement from Davis Vantage Pro Personal Weather Station located right here somewhere in Sutherland Heights. — WInd measurement over the past 24 h from a Davis Vantage Pro Personal Weather Station located somewhere in Sutherland Heights. (Remember in Israel, that popular top 40 radio station that said, “Braodcasting from SOMEWHERE in the Medeterranean” and every one knew it was that ship located a half mile or so offshore of Tel Aviv. Played Springstein, that kind of thing for all to hear.

Only 0.17 inches tipped by the Davis Vantage Pro, but with wind blowing as it was, you KNOW that’s going to be substantially low. We really can’t measure rain that accurately in any thing but perfectly calm conditions. The more accurate measurements are made if your gauge is sheltered by vegetation that is about the height of the gauge top right near the gauge, but then increases like the inside of a bowl as you gradually move away from it in all directions. No trees, please, too close! Preferably your gauge is on the ground not up somewhere, too, which would exaggerate the losses from wind.

Now, I will go outside and measure the rain in two ground mounted gauges, one a NWS-style 8-inch gauge, and the little toy 4-inch gauge from CoCoRahs, that national group that wants your measurements! Sign up now. Here are the other totals:

NWS gauge, 0.22 inches

CoCoRahs gauge, blew over, no total! Dammitall! Wasn’t as protected in the weeds as I thought. That total “likely” was around 0.24 or 0.25 inches. CMP had privately predicted, 0.28 inches for this storm, whilst a major forecast professor from CSU who lives in Catalina predicted an INCH¹!

Brutal out there, too. Temp only 43° F, still windy.

The weather way ahead

Sorry to say no rain for Catalinaland in our latest computer forecasts through the middle of February as the Big Niño hyped so much here and elsewhere is turning out to be big poop so far.

Cal rains only great in the far north of the State during January, and in the northern Sierras.

Sucked in by the Big Niño thoughts here, CMP was predicting quite the mayhem in Cal during the last 15-16 days of January, and 25-30 inches at some locations during that time here is a table for that period from CoCoRahs. Note Shelter Cove, near the King Range, has the most. Totals are sorted in descending order, Jan 13-31.

No doubt your curiosity was piqued and peaked by seeing how much rain could fall on you if you lived in Shelter Cove, on the Lost Coast of California. Well, here’s what its like there. Has an AP, too!

A view of Shelter Cove, showing airport and control tower. Yep, you can fly right in!

Another view of Shelter Cove. King Range is in the distance. NO DOUBT, rainfall up there WAS more than 25 inches if about 22 fell at Shelter Cove!

May try to get some more of that Cal precip since Jan 13, finding a modicum o direct verification of that huge amount of rain prediction.

No Mavericks surf competition yet, though larger waves have been battering the Cal coast over the past two-three weeks. Below, surf for today.

4:04 PM. Nice lenticular, devolving into flocculated Altocumulus downwind. The cells the form downwind from the smooth upwind edge are likely due to the latent heat released when condensation occurs, causing weak up and downdrafts to develop father downwind.

5:58 PM. Dusty sunset, and once again I point out that this would be a great name for a western singer. No worrisome dark spotting on sun. — 5:58 PM. Dusty sunset. No worrisome dark spotting on sun.

The End

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¹Maybe the “Ivory Tower” has not only protected him from the hiccups of the “real world” due to tenure and that kind of thing, but also from discerning what real weather will be like. hahaha. Just kidding. Sort of. Recall CMP was NOT tenured, but just a “staff” meteorologist with a “light” at the end of the funding grant tunnel, year after year for about 30 years. So, I am pretty mad about “tenure”. Hahahaha, just kidding maybe.

“Tenure” was a recent subject of a Science Mag editorial (“Wither (wither) Tenure“), too; costs everybody, especially students, a LOT of money, it was said.

Too, often young bright researchers are blocked by senior professors having tenure and making large amounts of money that hang on well past their productive years.

Cloud Maven Person: Resigned from the U of WA Cloud and Aerosol Research Group due to feeling he wasn’t earning his high “Research Scientist III” pay anymore, brain dimming, though there was a pile of money that he could have continued on with. Title of resignation letter: “Time to Go”. This free-ed up monies for staff folks that remained in our group, too.

Com’on decrepit tenured faculty, give up! Resign now!

PS: My friend tenured fac is STILL active, gives talks/presentations around the world still, even though he’s quite a geezer now, as is CMP.

Forgetting about our mud for a moment; thinking of the danger to others as seen in future weather maps

Have had 1.75 inches here in the Heights last few days. Horsies are tromping around in significant mud.

But, to resume a theme about others from the prior entry, those in California, they’d better be paying close attention to the weather a week and more out. In this weather watcher’s opinion, which should count for something, California may be in for an unforgettable January.

Why?

Recall how those “ensemble-spaghetti-Lorenz” plots had an unusually constrained (contours of flow, red and blue lines that were unusually bunched together all the way from Hong Kong to ‘Frisco even 10-15 days out? That indicated a high confidence forecast of where the jet stream would be.

USUALLY, the contours are pretty wild, scattered all over the eastern Pac after about 10 days or so, and Cloud Maven Person got overly excited about this esoteric part of weather forecasting, and decided to write a partially decipherable tome on it.

Well, that constrained jet, blasting into Cal from the subtropical latitudes with a terrible ferocity, has continued in model run after model run now, and CMP’s excitement has been further elevated, maybe to penthouse level now, hard to elevate it more.

Way below are a few examples from just last night’s model run based on global obs at 5 PM AST, showing a few sample of the jet stream predicted pattern at 500 millibars, or around 18, 000 feet (from IPS MeteoStar, as usual).

THESE are extraordinary maps, and extraordinary maps mean extraordinary storms, AND they are appearing with extraordinary consistency.

They are also compatible with what we saw in those ensemble-spaghetti plots of a few days ago. So, like the “Frankenstorm” of 2010 that hit California, this series of strong storms hitting Cal in just over a week, will be considered to have been “well-predicted” by those crazy plots.

Is FEMA ready?

I think they will be involved at some point.

But, too, this is a forecast series where we (those in Cal) have lots of time to get ready for big, destructive events.

Like what?

For Cal, the usual.

1) Huge waves smash the coast, some home roll into the ocean. With a jet having a gigantic fetch from the Pac, huge waves are a certainty, surf will definitely be up, if that’s what you do because the surface winds will ALSO have a huge fetch to build those giant rollers.

2) Winds. At some point, hurricane force winds blow stuff around in one of more of the low centers generated by such a powerful jet stream. Looking at the pattern, I think one within this storm series may produce 100 mph winds or more somewhere in Cal.

3) Flooding. Can the nearly empty Cal reservoirs we’ve heard so much about be filled up in a series like this, something that might go on for one to two weeks? I think so, some anyway. But this is a truly wild thought, and as you can see, CMP is kind of out of control here.

It is certain that the rains with one or more of the low centers that slam the West Coast during this series will produce rains of 10 or more inches in a day in the hill and mountain regions of Cal.

Also, the series begins with a strong, but maybe not exceptional storm about 8 days from now, this after a pretty good rain has already occurred, so the ground is going to be pretty wet when the Big Series hits.

The jet stream pattern strengthens and shifts farther south with each day after this first major storm, and that’s when the real onslaught will hit.

I don’t want to get people overly excited like I am, but I am terming these, and the whole recent series of unbelievable jet streams bashing into Cal, and even Baja!, “the California calamity maps.”

2016010900_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_240 — Valid, Monday, January 18, 5 PM AST.

Skipping ahead:

2016010900_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_312 — Valid Thursday, January 21st, at 5 PM AST. EGAD! WHAT a monster!

2016010900_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_336 — Valid 5 PM, January 22nd. One blast is finishing up, but look at the jet entering on the left/west side. Once again, “egad!”

Skipping ahead some more….

2016010900_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_384 — Valid at 5 PM AST, January 24. Upper cut to jaw of Cal from the Pacific. This one would be quite bad in rain, wind, floods.

Now the timing of these things WILL VARY as the mod runs keep churning out results, but in CMP’s view, the pattern that will cause CA havoc is locked in now, promulgated ALMOST without doubt by our Big Niño.

Here is another amazing map from a prior run, that just makes your jaw drop due to what the models are sensing is “out there” for Cal and the West Coast:

This is looks like it was for another planet, the jet SO POWERFUL and heading into Baja!

Crespuscular rays due to light rain from precipitating Stratocumulus (i.e., “praecipitatio.”, if you want to impress your friends.)

Pretty good sunset color. The clouds? Stratocumulus.

Weather station and mountain sunset color. You don't see that too often.... — Weather station and mountain sunset color. You don’t see those together too often. Mountains topped by non-precipitating Stratocumulus clouds.

How will SE AZ do?

Seems like passing rains will hit during this CA bludgeoning period, but floody weather not expected.

Since we’re pretty much at our average total for the month of January right NOW, CMP is going out on a limb and predicting an above normal total for the WHOLE month.

The End

Augustober weather continues on October 18th

Truly LATE breaking news, untimely really, but Augustober 18th was too special a day to ignore:

Giant clouds, dense rain shafts, frequent lightning in the area throughout the afternoon, dewpoints in the high 50s to 60 F; can it really be after the middle of October? Or, is this some kind of preview of climate change we can look forward to in the decades ahead, that is, if you’re thunderphilic?

5:05 PM. An amazing scene, and thunderstorm with such powerful updrafts that when those updrafts are blocked by the inversion at the base of the Stratosphere, they force the winds at that level to slow or backup and the anvil protrudes upwind (center left), something that is common with severe thunderstorms. This was significant here because the winds at 40,000 feet were around 50 kts, far stronger than anything we have here during a typical summer rain season. Summer Cumulonimbus cloud anvils can splash outward easily against weak winds up there in summer when they hit that barrier at the top of the tropopause. This just in from Mark A: severe thunderstorms, I have just learned here on the 20th , were observed in the PHX, and the NWS has a great link going describing all the mayhem it produced. I did not know this until just now in the middle of writing this first caption when I read Mark’s e-mail.

: 1:56 PM. Anvil of the Cumulonimbus over west Tucson, drifts overhead of Catalina, and in three minutes, rain drops started to hit the ground. This is amazing because those drops had to fall from at around 20, 000 feet above the ground (estimated as bottom height of this thick anvil) and could only have happened if those isolated drops had been hailstones ejected out the anvil, something that also only occurs with severe storms with very strong updrafts in them. So, if you saw those few drops fall between 2 and 2:05 PM you saw something pretty special.

6:26 AM. Early portent: Cu congestus, aka, “heavy Cumulus) piling up this early.

6:29 AM. Mammatus of the morning., an extraordinary scene for mid-October, pointing to the possibility of an unusual day ahead with strong storms. as was the scientific basis for giant clouds on the 18th in the amount of CAPE predicted, over 1,000 units of Convective Available Potential Energy, later that day from computer models. That is a lot for mid-October, take my word for it.

3:45 PM. Strong storms did not form over or near the Catalinas yesterday, but they did get something. As you can see the top of this guy (Cumulonimbus calvus) is very subdued compared to the giants that formed elsewhere.

5:53 PM. Peakaboo Cumulonimbus calvus top east of Mt. Lemmon provided a nice highlight after sunset. And to have convection like this going on this late was remarkable. Some heavy showers and a thunderstorm formed downwind of the Catalinas about this time,, too.

5:51 PM. Pretty nice, summer-looking sunset that day, too.

The weather just ahead, and this might be it for precip for the rest of October

A nice-looking upper level trough is ejecting over us from the SW this morning but the computer model says its going to be a dry event. A second low center forms just about over us in the next day. AZ model doesn’t see much rain for us throughout these events, and rain doesn’t begin here until after dark today.

I think that is WRONG; bad model. Watch for some light showers this morning, then a break and rain overnight (which the models do predict). Due this quite bad model forecast, as seen from this keyboard, I feel must interject for the blog reader I have, an improved rain prediction for Catalina over that rendered by a computer model.

Feel like guesstimating a minimum of 0.25 inches between now and Thursday evening, max possible, 0.60 inches, so the median of those two, and maybe the best guestimate being the average of those two, or 0.425 inches here in Catalina. When you see a prediction of a rainfall total down to thousandths of an inch, you really know that the person predicting it knows what he is doing…..

Below, your U of AZ disappointing, but objective, take on the amount of rain based on last evening’s data and one that is the result of billions of calculations. One must remember that cloud maven person’s calculation of the rainfall amount for Catalina is only based on three.

From the 5 PM AST run executed by the U of AZ Beowulf Cluster. Billions of calculations were involved with this model prediction; it should be kept in mind that cloud maven person's prediction is only based on three when he opines that this is not enough for us here in Catalinaland. — From the 5 PM AST run executed by the U of AZ Beowulf Cluster.

The End.

TSTMS overnight and this morning drop 0.11 inches

Well, it could have been more I suppose; some areas of central and northern Arizona have gotten between a half an inch and an inch of rain overnight. Nevertheless, it was great that a passing thunderstorms (“TSTMS” in weather texting) happened here in Sutherland Heights overnight, fabulous, really. Dropped 0.28 inches on Mt. Lemmon, btw.

More scattered showers, and maybe a thunderstorm or two, should develop today. Keep cameras well-oiled for some great cloud scenes.

Yesterday’s clouds

8:04 AM. In the beginning….. Unlike the day before, our shower clouds didn’t move in, but rather had to start from something akin to poppy seeds. Still water highlights on Samaniego Ridge.

12:06 PM. Cumulus increase in size and number. No ice yet.

2:14 PM. First minute amount of ice begins to show up underneath downstream cloud portions. You’ll have to be awfully good to find it!

3:37 PM. Ice, and now well-developed virga, is plentiful in many of these shallow clouds.

4:00 PM. Numerous light rainshowers and glaciating shallow Cumulus clouds dot the horizon to the SW,

6:58 PM. Shows the fine structure of virga, trails that can be only 5-20 feet wide as they drop out of a cloud. Seems like a nice scene, too. — 6:58 PM. Shows the fine structure of virga, trails that can be only 5-20 meters wide as they drop out of a cloud. Strands like this are usually soft hail, or what we call “graupel.” Snow virga like this tells you that cloud bases are well below freezing, and on a warm day are very high above the ground. Yesterday’s late afternoon cloud bases were up around 14 thousand feet above sea level, at about -5 C (23 F). The virga melted into raindrops behind the cloud below it.

7:04 PM. A light rainshower advances on Catalina. Where the pinkness disappears below the main cloud base is where the snow virga is melting into less visible raindrops.

7:06 PM. Another fiery sunset highlight involving a Cumulonimbus cloud. Cloud tops were beginning to deepen noticeably by this time.

The End

El Niño Risin’, “Cal Niño” persists; another comet passes over Tucson?

“I think a year ago I sent you the early alert that Eel Ninyo is coming!!! Well, I think I was about 1 year early … the real deal seems to be gearing up for a more major appearance this year … check it out: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml

“My fingers are crossed for a much more typical event for 2015/16, but then again we seem to be in a very similar place as we were last year at this time (caveat part of e-mail) only a bit warmer in the tropics.”

“We shall see!”

—-from Nate M., NOAA SW Fisheries Center El Niño expert, personal communication, received just yesterday! Excitement abounds!

But, we will see as well…

Below, a different SST anomaly visual from NOAA:

Global sea surface temperature anomalies from NOAA, as of March 30th. The eastern Pacific and eastern equatorial waters are aflame, figuratively speaking, of course. Both the “Classic Niño” (off Peru) and “The New Niño” regions, the latter in the mid and eastern Pacific, have above normal water temperatures!

There is a LOT of warmer than normal water out there! As we know now, the newly discovered “California Niño” helped tropical storms whisk into Arizona late last summer and fall stronger and wetter than they normally would be by providing warmer waters than normal over which they traveled while heading toward AZ. Think of something like the highly-caffeinated “Jolt Cola” in sea surface temperatures for those storms.

Slackening onshore winds along the West Coast last spring and summer created the Cal Niño, something now known to occur from time to time over the decades. And that warm water wasn’t much perturbed by strong storms during the winter, ones that can mix colder water to the surface. The Cal Niño means that IF any storm strikes the West Coast, they would be a little wetter than usual since the air holds more water in it when its warmer.

In the meantime, the much-heralded El Niño of a year ago¹ deflated like a New England Patriots game time football into a pile of nothing, wrecking the expectations of frequent late winter and spring rains in the Great SW. Thankfully we had that ONE great, several inches rainstorm at the end of January² and a couple of vegetation-sustaining rains thereafter.

What does all this mean for our immediate future? Will the late spring be wet? Will we have a great summer rain season?

I don’t know.

But, next winter could be great!

Today’s clouds and weather

Rain is expected to be around today, sprinkles, maybe some thunder due to a weak low aloft passing to the south of us. Cloud drift is supposed to be from the east off the Catalinas, and with the unusual warmth, the day will LOOK like a day in July or August, nice Cumulus building off the mountains in the later morning, reaching the ice-forming level fairly quickly, and then, as you know, out pops the virga and precip. So, it will be a nice photogenic day for you. Check this nice graphic of the expected temperature profiles today from the U of A.

The weather WAY ahead

Recall that today and tomorrow, at one time, as was mentioned here, we were going to experience one of the greatest storms ever observed for this time of year. Well, today’s situation is what’s left of that forecast, a coupla puny showers around, and, sure a trough is here all right, but what a disappointment!

In the meantime, forgetting about the perpetual disappointments for big rains foretold about two weeks in advance, we are once again excited by another great rain here in the far model horizon of just two weeks from now, in mid-April!

Valid at 5 PM AST, April 14th. Could put a real dent in our usual April dryness! — Valid at 5 PM AST, April 14th, only 348 h from now! Could put a real dent in our usual April dryness! Colored regions denote those areas where the WRF-GOOFUS model has calculated through VERY sophisticated means, where precipitation has fallen in the prior 12 h! This from global obs taken at 5 PM AST last evening.

Yesterday’s clouds and more

From two days ago. Another comet passed over. Didn't read anything about it, though. — From two days ago. Another comet passed over. Didn’t read anything about it, though. I guess the astronomers have seen enough comets. Probably a little jaded by now by so many of them.

Close up. You can see its trailing ice and dust, burned off by the sun. Its great to live in a place where so many comets go over! I think that’s two or three in the past year!

Awful green here in Arizona. I wonder how many people know how green it is here? I think a LOT of people have no idea how green it is here (at this time of year).

5:58 PM. Thought for a fun shot I would show you some castellanus from yesterday.

6:45 PM. Sunset. — 6:45 PM. Post sunset, Altocumulus under patches of Altostratus, or, Cirrus spissatus if you like.

The End

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¹Not just here, but by people that know more than I do, like the CPC.

²Water is still coming down from the mountains from that 4-6 incher in the Catalina Mountains, water that can be seen still pouring over great boulders in the higher reaches of our mountains producing the morning “glistening rocks” phenomenon. “Glistening Rocks”…. That would be a great title for a love song, a sad one, because as we all know, sooner or later, we won’t see the water producing glistening rocks anymore from the big January rain. So it would have to be about a love that starts out so strong, but then fades over time, finally disappearing altogether.

Yesterday’s clouds; and an April Fool’s Day storm to think about

Kind of a dull day yesterday. Not much to look at. Some Altocumulus with an interesting, slotted wave pattern to start was about the only interesting thing in the morning.

Then some small Cumulus that continued to agglomerate into masses of dark Stratocumulus, with a little rain to the north of us. You probably didn’t see it. The darkness of the clouds was likely due to higher than normal droplet concentrations, which in clouds, causes the bottoms to be darker because the smaller droplets associated with high droplet concentrations causes more sunlight to be reflected off the top of clouds. But you knew that.

You probably also know that the brief, and weak shafts of rain to the north of us in the afternoon meant that cloud tops were barely reaching the ice-forming level, certainly were mounding ones, analogous to the rolling hills of Ireland rather than ones protruding upward very much like Kilimanjaro or something like that.

Sunset was OK, not great.

A stupendous storm showed up in the fantasy part of the model run, out two weeks, or on April 1st. That’s a little late for a stupendous storm, but it was fun seeing the computer maps of one.

Today, and not just because I am lazy and have to go right now to feed some horses, I thought I would just insert all these images in whatever way WordPress decided they should go and let you puzzle them out, e.g., name clouds, figure out what time was the photo taken, or, just look at them as a review of your cloud day.

Btw, whilst out on dog walk yesterday, saw that in the Cottonwoods area by the Baby Jesus Trailhead, several 6-9 inch diameter cottonwood tree branches were blown down during Sunday’s windstorm, one younger tree had been topped. Looked like a very small, supergust burst had done it, maybe less than 50 yards in diameter.

I figure today’s weather is pretty well presented by the NWS, and your favorite weathercaster, so why duplicate good efforts?

10:47 AM. Altocumulus perlucidus undulatus (has waves in it). — 10:47 AM. Altocumulus perlucidus undulatus translucidus (has waves in it; is thin).

The End, of one of the easiest blogs yet! Maybe will practice more WordPress chaos in the future!

Catalina embraces a second day of rain

Drops, that is. There were about 140 or so the night before last, noticeable only if you left your dusty car outside, and TWO drops yesterday between 4:08:22 and 4:08:51 PM, as the last remnant of a shower cloud moved overhead from The Gap (the Charouleau one).

You HAD to be outside running around to encounter them, I do mean “running”, to increase the sample volume and your chances of detecting a drop in marginal rain situations. You have to “want it”, to be the best you can be about traces, that is. And I wanted to report another trace real bad. I love to report traces of rain, the most underrepresented rain event of all, the poor relative of measurable rain.

And, of course, more shower chances ahead, March 17th through the 20th, as remnant of the upper level trough that produced our last two days of clouds and sprinkles returns to us like a boomerang after producing generous rains in Mexico. It also meshes with a weak trough from the Pac at this time, so its pretty troughy for a few of days. Nice.

Today’s cloud pic archive will begin with the sunset the evening before last, since domestic responsibilities¹ prohibited posting the usual tedious cloud array yesterday.

6:32 PM, March 12th. Rosy glow, a nice name for a female western singer, bloomed late in the day (was less than expected that day). Lots of virga spewing out of iced up Stratocumulus clouds. — 6:32 PM, March 12th. Rosy glow, a nice name for a female western singer, as well as a sunset, that bloomed late in the day (was less spectacular than expected that day, but still something). Lots of virga spewing out of iced up, high and cold-based, Stratocumulus clouds. Since you wanna know more, the TUS sounding indicated bases at -10 C, and tops at -20 C (4 F), that latter temperature explaining all the ice that formed that day.

Yesterday’s clouds

The temperature structure aloft was pretty much the same as the previous day, except that cloud bases were slightly lower and warmer, “only” -7 C or so, with tops again around -20 C (4 F), plenty cold enough for plenty of ice and virga from the modest Cumulus and Stratocumulus clouds that developed later in the morning.

Rainshafts were that tiny bit heavier it appeared, seeming to reach the ground with more gusto than the similar day before.

11:44 AM. Groups of small Cumulus began forming over the mountains.

1:23 PM. Cumulus and Stratocumulus fill in the sky. Slight virga is apparent if you look really hard.

2:29 PM. A light rainshower douses Marana and vicinity. Note the rumpled top of this cloud suggesting dominance of the water phase with just ice underneath. The dark bottom of the cloud is often called a “cloud base” by pilots, but is really the transition zone where the snow is melting into the more transparent rain and is not really a Cumulus cloud base, one composed of droplets forming in an updraft, as in the prior photo.

Rain shaft on The Gap. Can you detect it? Its coming right at us! Here's where the responsible observer realizes that he must be outside, or provide another means of detecting isolated drops. — 3:58 PM. Rain shaft on The Gap. Can you detect it? Its coming right at us! Here’s where the responsible observer realizes that he must be outside, or provide another means of detecting isolated drops as the cloud head begins to pass.

And, below, why we love our mountains and desert, especially on these kinds of days. About this time, the “light show” begins, ending with a dramatic sunset.

6:14 PM. Even the horrible becomes beautiful in the evening light.

The End

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¹I had to take my mom, whose she’s really old and fragile, to the doctor , and then to the supermarket. This personal information posted for the purpose of inducing empathy in case I have a really bad forecast. People will remember that I take my mom places.

Qiet day in “Lake” Catalina; LA Times 1981 climate change quote

Do we really need the letter, “u” in “quiet”? Just checking… “Lake” is for all the puddles around right now in Catalina after the nice half inch to inch rain the day before yesterday.

There used to be actual lakes in Catalina, btw, “Twin Lakes” they were called, as old timers know. That’s why we have a boat store here, and quite a few street names with nautical themes, like “hawser”, the name of a big marine rope for towing boats.

Before launching into the usual tedious cloud discussion and photo barage, those one of you that got to the bottom of yesterday’s blog may have noticed that it linked to a LONG article in the venerable Los Angeles Times reviewing media weather forecasting as it was in 1981. A friend and met man, Mark Albright, actually READ the whole thing, and alerted me to the following INTERESTING quote in that LA Times article, which I thought you should see, too.

I’ll frame this with the old Consumer Reports header, “Quote Without Comment”:

——————-
“Robert Cowen (Christian Science Monitor) says there is too much gullibility in newspapers about the possibility of climatic disaster. Too many reporters listen to people who want to make a reputation with wild predictions. Thus, even the nation’s better daily newspapers periodically publish stories under such headlines as “There’s Doom in the Air” and “The Sun Goes Bonkers” and “New Dust Bowl Could Bring Starvation” and “Ice Age Coming? Chilling Thought for Humanity.”

“Every time there’s a drought or a long hot spell, I get swamped with calls from reporters asking, ‘This means the climate is changing, doesn’t it?’ says Diane Johnson, head of information services for the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “All the media want to know usually is . . . ‘Is there a new Ice Age coming?’,” Johnson says. “They hardly ever want to know the whys or the imponderables.”
—————–

Well, HERE, we want to know “why”, dammitall! At least about cloud stuff.

Next rain not due in for at least a week, so enjoy the puddles while we have them.

Seems like undercutting dry air has ruined our chances for Cumulus-style isolated shower today. Currently there is an elevated layer of Stratocumulus, tops above Ms. Mt. Lemmon. That layer will make for a nice sunrise, so be ready. Other than that, just a few pretty, and small Cumulus, hold the ice, today.

Yesterday’s clouds and why

“Balloon Over Fog” yesterday after sunrise, that was about the most exciting thing that happened yesterday. No ice-in-clouds seen, which was a disappointment; no ice, no precip. Tops never reached our usual ice-forming level of about -10 C (14 F), as you know; mainly hung around -5 C, according to our TUS weather balloon soundings. For people not familiar with weather balloons, that’s not a weather balloon over the fog in the photo below, btw.

7:35 AM. A hot air balloon floats peacefully over an unusual March fog occurrence in Marana and Avra Valley. Altocu on top. Don’t see the balloon? See speck at sky/horizon interface center of photo.

9:35 AM. Lots of water coming down the mountains again as shown by the glistening rock phenomena. Most normally dry washes and creeks should continue to run with another H2O infusion continuing the flows started by our gargantuan late January rain. Poppies looking good now, too.

Below, just examples of a postcard day in Catalina, AZ, those kind of days that make you glad you had one more day on this planet.

The setting sun produced the normal “colorization” of the Catalinas that we savor, and when you look around in the desert at this time of day, even the treacherous teddy bear cholla has real beauty at this time of day.

The End

A nice cloud yesterday, not a great cloud yesterday; dramatic day ahead

The clouds were somewhat of a disappointment yesterday, not the stupendous photogenic day CM was expecting.

Maybe CM is total fraud, gets Big Oil funding and should be investigated by Rep. Grijalva as other weather folk are, like the great Prof. and National Academy of Sciences Fellow, Dr. Judy Curry, a friend, and about whom I say on a link to her blog here, and from this blog’s very beginning, “The only link you will need.” I said that because Judy² is a top scientist, and is eminently fair in this polarized issue.

I am in real trouble! Will remove that link immediately¹ before our very own “climate thought enforcer”, Demo Rep. Grijalva, AZ, finds it using a spy bot! No telling how far down the influence chain it will go, maybe all the way down to here, where there is virtually no influence!

Back to clouds…….

Only late in the day did the delicate patterns expected to happen ALL DAY appear, again, with iridescence, always nice to see.

Here is your day for yesterday. Its a pretty interesting movie. Two thumbs up!

Oh, today’s weather?

The media, Bob, and our good NWS, of course, are all over the incoming rain in great detail. In fact, it will take you half a day to read all the warnings on this storm issued by our Tucson NWS.

So why duplicate existing information that might be only slightly different than the prevailing general consensus on the storm amounts, and then maybe be investigated for going against a consensus? No, not worth it. Best to be safe, not say things against The Machine. (OK, maybe overdoing it here.)

In the meantime, the upper low off southern Cal and Baja has fomented an extremely strong band of rain, now lying across SE Cal and the Colorado River Valley where dry locations like Blythe are getting more than an inch over the past 24 h. Same for northern Baja where some places are approaching 2-3 inches, great for them. You can see how the rain is piling up in those locations here. In sum, this is a fabulous storm for northern Mexico and the SW US, whether WE get our 0.915 inches, as foretold here, or not! Rejoice in the joy of others. Looking for an arcus cloud fronting the main rainband, too, that low hanging cloud in a line that tells you a windshift is coming. Still expecting, hoping, for thunder today to add to the wind and rain drama.

Also, the present cloud cover, as the trough ejects toward us, will deepen up and rain will form upwind and around here as that happens, so it won’t JUST be the eastward movement of the existing band. This means you might be surprised by rain if you’re outside hiking and think the band itself is hours away. Expecting rain to be in the area by mid-morning, certainly not later than noon, with the main blast (fronted by something akin to an arcus cloud) later in the day. OK, just checked the U of AZ mod run from 11 PM AST, and that is what it is saying as well! Wow.

Finally, if you care, yesterday’s clouds:

6:45 AM. Your sunrise color, thanks to a line of broken Cirrus spissatus. Jet stream Cirrus streak, as a matter of fact. — 6:45 AM. Your sunrise color, thanks to a line of broken Cirrus spissatus. Jet stream Cirrus streak, as a matter of fact, moving along at about 110 mph.

9:47 AM. Ruffle of Sc topped Mt. Lemmon, while strange clouds formed just upwind of them. These kinds of shapes suggest an inversion where the air resists further upward movement and a smoothing occurs at the top similar to a lenticular cloud. Photo taken at the Golder Ranch Dr. cattleguard. which really doesn’t work that well, as the neighbors below here will tell you.

The 5 AM, March 1st, balloon sounding for TUS.

9:53 AM. Looks like a crab with four hooks. How funny. — 9:53 AM. Looks like a crab with four pinchers. How funny.

12:23 PM. Shredding tops of small Cumulus like this indicate that the air is very dry just above their tops, and the shreds racing off to the right, indicate how fast the wind increased as you went upward.

2:58 PM. Something is changing here. Notice how the tops are bulging and not immediately being torn into shreds. The air was likely moistening above cloud tops, and the inversion holding the tops back, weakening as our storm gets a little closer.

4:19 PM. A line of heavy Cumulus had formed to the west, indicating more moistening and "de-stabilization" of the air. — 4:19 PM. A line of still larger Cumulus had formed to the west, indicating more moistening and “de-stabilization” of the air. However, the upper low was not advancing toward us any longer and no further development occurred as stagnated, ratcheting up its rainband over eastern Cal and western AZ. The TUS balloon sounding suggested tops were getting close to the normal ice-forming level here, -10 C, the slight inversion on the morning sounding at 13,000 feet above sea level, and the one likely to have caused those smooth morning clouds, was gone.

6:07 PM. Just before sunset from near Oracle where we took mom for her BD. The heavier Cumulus clouds faded with the sun. They will arise today!

Below, just some pretty patterns observed later in the day. Click to see larger versions.

3:36 PM. Twisted, tortured Cirrus (fibratus?).

3:50 PM. Another view of Cirrocumulus. Though these clouds are still composed of liquid droplets, the 5 PM TUS sounding suggests they were at about -30 C in temperature. It happens.

4:00 PM. An incredibly complex array of Cirrocumulus overhead. Due to perspective, its about the only view that you can really see how complex the patterns are.

6:22 PM. Finally, from the "Not taken while driving since that would be crazy" collection, this oddity. Looks like an high temperature contrail (aka, "APIP"). but the trail seems to shoot up into the cloud Altocumulus cloud layer (or down out of it). Have never seen this before. — 6:22 PM. Finally, from the “Not-taken-while-driving-since-that-would-be-crazy-though-it-looks-like-it-was” collection, this oddity. Looks like an high temperature aircraft contrail (aka, “APIP”) in the lower center. And the trail seems to shoot up into the cloud Altocumulus cloud layer (or down out of it). Have never seen that kind of aircraft track before since it looks so steep! “High temperature” here means that it formed at temperatures above about -35 C.

Whew, the end.

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¹Not!!!!!! I thought this was a good read about this deplorable new stage of “climate thought enforcement” now in progress. It was brought to my attention by climate folk hero, friend, and big troublemaker, Mark Albright. Wow, maybe Mark will be investigated, too! Maybe I should excise his name….

²I remember, too, how cute she was when she worked my lab/office at the University of Washington in the mid-1980s, and thought about asking her out, to detract from a serious commentary here. She was a Penn State grad student, not a U of WA employee; still, to ask her out would have been untoward. A human commentary like this, one about feelings and things, help boost blog attendance.

No clouds of note yesterday, so no blog today

But, on second thought, people who have nothing to say, often say it anyway….and that’s pretty much what happens here everyday anyway….to repeat “anyway” again anyway.

Things continue to roll along for a juicy dump of rain, snow and wind beginning here on Monday.

Its windy outside now.

OK, a coupla clouds from yesterday….

8:15 AM. Pretty Cirrus fibratus (has delicate strands, filaments of falling ice crystals).

12:15 PM. "Micro" snowstorms. I bet Boston folk would like to have these instead of the ones they've gotten. — 12:15 PM. “Micro” snowstorms. Look at the snow trailing down! It would be composed of itty-bitty crystals (a couple of hundred microns in maximum dimension), probably “bullet rosettes.” I bet Boston folk would like to have these snowstorms instead of the ones they’ve gotten.

4:00 PM. There were some Cumulus fractus, poor guys never even got to the humble or "humilis" stage. You should still have logged them in your cloud diary, however. — 4:00 PM. There were some Cumulus fractus, poor guys never even got to the humble or “humilis” stage. You should still have logged them in your cloud diary, however. Note the horrific vertical wind shear here as indicated by tops being ripped off to the left, showing how much the wind increased with height from the bottom to the top of even these shallow clouds. I guess I can’t expect you to have a sophisticated comment like that in your diary, but would hope for it.

6:20 PM. Some Cirrus eye candy. Sunset seems to be happening later and later. — 6:20 PM. Some Cirrus eye candy for you. Sunset seems to be happening later and later.

The End