Had another rainbow from those cloud “warriors” we call Cumulonimbus on the Catalinas. But, “If traces are your thing, Catalina is king!” as we recorded but a trace of rain again while soaking rains poured down just a couple of miles away on the Catalinas, to form a sentence with too much punctuation and a sentence within a sentence1.
More interesting perhaps to some, this modest rainbow formed just after 5 PM yesterday toward the Charouleau Gap, as seen from Catalina, and was still in almost the same spot after 30 minutes. Have never seen that before since both the sun and the showers are drifting along and so the rainbow should change position.
First, in today’s cloud story, the strangely believe it rainbow part:
5:12 PM. Rainbow first spotted toward the Gap. Cumulonimbus cloud not sporting ice at top; ice is below flat top due to weak updrafts that allow the ice crystals to subside while the top remains mostly liquid appearing. The smoothness on the side of the cloud above the rainbow is due to ice particles5:42 PM. While the observer has moved some few hundred yards, the rainbow has stayed pretty much where it was after 30 min. A course in optics would be required to explain this and that’s not gonna happen (accounting for the sun’s movement, the rain, and the observer’s movement).
The whole day represented several phases, the early, spectacular eruption of clouds on the Catalinas as it started to warm up under clear skies, those low bases topping the mountains again indicating stupendous amounts of water are going to be in them when they grow up, the rapid appearance of “first ice” just after 10 AM, the heavy showers and cooling on the mountains and here (little thunder heard), the clearing due to the cooling, the warming, the rebuilding of the Cu on the mountains, and new showers–the rainbow was part of the second growth phase, and then the gradual die out of the Cu as sunset occurred.
Huh. I just realized that what happened to our temperatures yesterday was like a mini-sequence of the earth’s climate over the past 200,000 years or so, the prior Ice Age in the morning temps, the warm Eemian Interglacial as it warmed up, the last ice age when the cooling wind from the mountain showers hit, then the warm Holocene when the clearing and warming started up again in the afternoon! Cool, warm, cool, warm. Below, the Catalina temperature record that emulates earth’s climate over the past 200,000 years, beginning with next to last “ice age.” I can’t believe how much information I am passing along today! What a day you had yesterday!
Mock climate change for the earth’s past, oh, 200, 000 years or so as indicated in yesterday’s Catalina/Sutherland Heights temperature scale. But, we have a LOT of days like yesterday’s in the summertime, but only now after 7 summers has it hit me how it mimics our earth’s “recent” past climate.
Cloud Alert: Yesterday might have been the last day for summer rain here. U of AZ mod from last night has plenty of storms, but we’re on the edge of the moist plume, and those storms take place just a hair east of us it says. So, while they may be on the Catalinas today, unless we get lucky, they’ll stay over there. Drier air creeps in tomorrow, too.
Here is the rest of our day in clouds, from the beginning, even if its not that interesting. In the interest of efficiency, you’d do a lot better by going to the U of AZ time lapse site to see all the wonderful things that happened yesterday, instead of plunking along one by one as you have to do here. (PS: Some functions in WordPress not working, would not allow some captions to be entered as usual.)
9:21 AM. This tall, thin Cumulus cloud was a reliable portent for yesterday’s early storms on the mountains. It just shot up!
11:57 AM. Thunder and downpours are widespread on the Catalinas.
2:46 PM. After the long clearing, Cumulus begin to arise on the Catalinas again.5:46 PM. A pretty, and isolated Cumulus congestus with a long mostly water plume ejecting toward the NW. Some ice can be seen falling out of that ejecting shelf. Now here’s a situation where an aircraft measuring the ice output from such a cloud can miss it because its formed as the turret subsides downstream, and most of the ice is substantially below its top, and under the shelf. If you cruised along the top of the shelf, you would miss most of the ice and measure ice particle concentrations that are much lower than what the cloud put out.6:17 PM. This same quasi-stationary cloud with its long shelf, still shedding ice just downwind of the cloud stem, is about to disappear. Note, too, that the ice fall quits after awhile going downstream even though cloud top temperature is the same for quite a distance. The ice was actually formed at lower temperatures in the protruding turret, not at the temperature of the shelf, which apparently were too high for ice to form. Also, cloud droplet sizes shrink from those in the protruding turret as evaporation takes a stronger hold. Larger droplet sizes are associated with greater ice formation at a given temperature.6:12 PM. Like aspen leaves in the fall, but every day, our clouds change color as the sunsets. Here’s another memorable site, not only due to the color, but how tall and thin these Cumulus clouds are, showing that the atmosphere was still extremely unstable over the depth of these clouds, probable 2-3 km deep.
The End.
——————————-
1Hahah-these are just a couple of the grammatical gaffes I actually know I’ve done!
Yesterday, in the wake of TD Odile, it was about as Hawaiian a day in Arizona as you are ever likely to see. First, the high dewpoints, ones that replicate those in HI, mid and upper 60s (69-70 F in HNL right now), cloud base temperatures of around 60 F, and with misty, even drizzly warm rain around at times. The only thing we didn’t see was a rainbow, so common in HI they named a sports team after them.
If you thought the clouds looked especially soft-looking yesterday, I thought they were, too. That soft look that also characterizes clouds in Hawaii and other pristine oceanic areas arises from low droplet concentrations (50-100 per cc), characteristic of Hawaiian clouds.1 Both low updraft speeds at cloud base, and clean air result in low droplet concentrations in clouds.
The result of these factors?
The droplets in the clouds are larger than they would be forming in air with more aerosols (having “cloud condensation nuclei”, or CCN) and stronger updrafts at cloud base. Yesterday, you could have remarked to your neighbors late yesterday morning, as the rain and true drizzle began to fall from that Stratocumulus deck out to the SW-W, that the droplets in those clouds, “….must’ve exceeded Hocking’s threshold” of around 38 microns diameter. Lab experiments have demonstrated that when droplets get to be that large, which isn’t that large at all, really, that they often stick together to form a larger droplet, which in turns, falls faster and bumps into more droplets, and collects them until the original droplet is the size of a drizzle (200-500 microns in diameter) or raindrop (greater than 500 microns in diameter) and can fall out the bottom of the cloud.2
6:10 AM. Light drizzle or rain due to collisions with coalescence rather than due to the ice process falls from yesterday morning’s Stratocumulus deck (fuzzy, misty stuff in the center and right; eyeball assessment). Quite exciting to eyeball. 9:46 AM. So clean and pure looking, these clouds during a brief clearing yesterday morning. These might well have been seen off the coast of Hawai’i. 10:23 AM. One of the Hawaiian like ambiance of yesterday was both the low clouds, the humid air, and the green texture on the mountains highlighted by the occasional ray of sunlight. Fantastic scenes!
11:31 AM. Being a cloud maven, I wasn’t too surprised to see drizzly rain start to fall from our Hawaiian like Stratocumulus clouds, but I was excited!
11:41 AM. Stratocumulus clouds mass upwind of the Catalinas. Hoping for a few drops at least.
12:07 PM. An especially tropical looking scene I thought, with the very low cloud bases, the humid air; the warm rain process likely the cause of the rain on Samaniego Ridge.
6:08 PM. As the day closed, this fabulous scene on Samaniego Ridge. Clouds might be labeled Stratocumulus castellanus.
6:25 PM. As the air warmed in the clearings to the southwest and west of us, King Cumulonimbus arose. Expect some today around us.
Mods still coming up with cold snap at the end of the month, even with rain as the cold front goes by. How nice would that be to finish off September? Still have a couple of days of King Cumulonimbus around as tropical air continues to hang out in SE Arizona. Hope trough now along Cal coast can generate a whopper here before that tropical air leaves us. Am expecting one, anyway, in one of the next two days, probably our last chances for summer-style rain.
Speaking of Odile….
the thought that inches of rain might fall in Tucson, something we all heard about two eveings ago WAS warranted by the gigantic amounts that occurred as Odile slimed its way across extreme southeast AZ. In modeling terms, the error in its track was pretty slight, but the predicted amounts that we COULD have gotten were pretty darn accurate. I did not see these amounts until after writing to you yesterday. Note those several four inch plus values around Bisbee, and the one in the lee of the Chiricahuas. That one 4.45 inches over there suggests to me that the Chiricahuas like got 4-6 inches. Check’em out:
24 h rainfall ending at 7 AM AST yesterday for SE AZ (courtesy of the U of AZ rainlog.org site).
The End
———————— 1Except those affected by Kilauea’s “VOG” which have much higher concentrations, and look a little “dirty.”
2A thousand microns is a millimeter, in case you’ve forgotten, and that’s only about 0.04 inches in diameter. Most raindrops are in the 1000 to 3000 micron diameter range, though the largest, measured in Brazil, the Marshall and Hawaiian Islands, can be about a centimeter in diameter.
Unless the younger folks watch Turner Classic Movies or something like that, they will be clueless about what ther the reference to “dialing” is in the title. Oh, well. Heck, who even remembers what a Walkman was these days?
The heavy cloud shield of TS Odile is moving in with some light, spotty rain hereabouts right now. It will be interesting to see if today’s rain amounts to anything. Seems it could be a very Seattle-like rain day with those heavy layer clouds over us (Nimbostratus/Altostratus) and intermittent very light rain all day. Boring! (Is “boring” with an exclamation mark an oxymoron of sorts?)
NWS is excited about Odile, as any meteorologist not having snow in his veins would be, and have posted some daily rainfall records for this week. Of course, we’ve already set some rainfall records for September; can it happen again? They seem to be concerned about that possibility. Many of those September records, as many of you will remember I am sure, were associated with tropical storm Norma that busted into Arizona in early September 1970 as you will see1. Workman Creek got 11 inches in one day back then. You can read about Norma’s doings here and whether the NWS forecasts were adequate.
The meteorological situation was very different with Norma, and that may be why we precipophiliacs could be “disappointed” by rain amounts with Odile–Norma had help from the configuration aloft; Odile not so much. However, in the days following Odile’s passage, that upper level trigger does fall into place over southern Cal, and we’ll have to watch out for some big thunderstorms in the couple of days AFTER Odile goes by when that upper level trigger (trough) still has some tropical air to work with. So, some really “interesting” weather ahead, the kind of weather we’ve forgotten can happen here in the many droughty years we’ve had lately.
Here, just hoping for some nice steady rains, not just sprinkles, that add up to something significant like a half an inch or more, keeping the desert green that bit longer, and maybe, some good scattered thunderstorms for a few days after the big cloud shield of Mr. Odile fades away. That will pretty much do it for our summer rain season I’m afraid.
Now, since we don’t like to do work that can be done better by others, these ones and this one, for example, so on to yesterday’s pretty cloud pictures. (Can’t get over the thought I might be disappointed in Odile’s rain here, expectations not real high, so don’t want to express them and make you a little sad; keeping a lid on thoughts of a big Odile rain for Catalina, don’t want to get too manic, etc.) Will just lay back and enjoy it…whatever comes.
Yesterday’s clouds2
10:00 AM. Cumulus development looked promising in the mid-day hours, but none over the Cat Mountains produced ice. Was surprised that didn’t happen. Note glistening rocks dur to the recent rains.
11:59 AM. Towering Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds begin lining the International border. Warning: adult commentary included in photo, the kind you see every day on TEEVEE.
1:18 PM. High cloud shield from Odile’s advance creeps over Tucson from the south. Cumulonimbus clouds can be seen in the extreme distance. 4:06 PM. Cirrus and Altostratus have overspread the sky, and the darkening to the S-SW looks ominous in view of Odile’s approach after wrecking southern Baja.
Followed by a great sunset, one deserving of more than one example. No details, just enjoy.
The End
————————————–
1The present Arthur was in Durango starting his first job as a weather forecaster for the great Colorado River Basin Pilot Project, a randomized cloud seeding experiment, when Norma’s remains hit and flooded the Animas River there. I was inside a vaudeville theater listening to the rain pound on the roof, the audience of that melodrama, too, distracted a time or two, and also being distracted by Durango school teacher, Janet James, whom I had taking a liking to. She was there that night, too, but not with me. Wonder what happened to her?
2 Caution: one photo is annotated with adult humor.
We saw some great shafts yesterday, and their content did not disappoint where they landed; 1.61 inches fell at a Saddlebrooke Ranch site, though only 0.06 inches in The Heights. Also, this piece contains a footnote.
8:15 AM. The usual summer Altocumulus perlucidus deck.
10:56 AM. Cumulus begin to form under a layer of Altostratus translucidus. Now some people would call that higher layer “Cirrus”, but remember that in our cloud definitions, only one variety of Cirrus can have gray shading in the middle of the day, and that’s Cirrus spissatus, which besides is in much smaller patches that this. I know its crazy, but there it is.2:19 PM. Some darkening of the sky to the S–SSW toward Tucson. Its best if you don’t look at radar to see if there’s anything down there if you want to enhance your cloud interpreting skill set. Just let it come, if it is. Maybe its a spiral band around H. Norbert! (There was a big line of echoes heading this way….) Not much was going on over the Catalinas.3:01 PM. Earlier darkening not disappointing! “She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when she comes”! What a great and dramatic scene this was.3:28 PM. Things are happening fast as the rain shafts from this system tumble down Samaniego/Pusch Ridges! Winds in those shafts likely exceeded 50 mph where you see them racing down those slopes, Nice, promising base forming on this side of the mountains, too.3:56 PM. Stupendous shafts slide along Sam Ridge, while gusty SE winds blow in the Heights, pushing clouds up over and to the north of us.4:05 PM. One of the new cloud bases cut loose, but just to the NE of Sutherland Heights. Oh, me, so close.6:43 PM. Day clouds with an OK sunset on the several layers of debris clouds leftover from those great storms.
The weather ahead….
Just glimpsing the mighty U of AZ mod seems to suggest that there are two more days with substantial rains in the area ahead. Great! So, more great clouds and shafts to shoot, to be a little alliterative there at the end. Charge camera battery. Check weather service and what Bob has to say as well. Haven’t got time to make a good forecast…. hahaha, sort of.
The weather WAY ahead
In the long range, I found this important plot from last night interesting, and I know I speak for you as well:
A true “spaghetti” plot from the NOAA factory based on last evening’s global data. Its valid for Sunday, at 5 PM AST, September 21st.
Now it does appear from this plot that there is a ridge in the future along the West Coast, manifested1 (what a great word) by that hump in all those multicolored lines along the West Coast), a trough in the East (MANIFESTED by the dip in those same lines east of the Rockies). That means that the summer rain season, might actually be extended some instead of ending completely with the current rejuvenation. The summer moisture can extrude farther to the north when a ridge is present in the West. In the daily forecast maps, showers do return to this area after the present tropical regime ends, and that scenario is that bit reinforced by what “spaghetti” says.
The End
————————————————–
1To sound more erudite, you might use that word today when discussing the outcomes of yesterday’s NCAA college football games with your sports friends. An example: “The Washington Huskies defense is not as good as we had hoped it would be as MANIFESTED by the FIFTY-TWO points in gave up to the Eastern Washington Eagles, a lower division team.”
3:56 PM. A little dessert, another shaft for you, a real good one over there on the Gap.
A measly 0.01 inches is all we got here yesterday in a Seattle-like rain from an overcast that sputtered drops drown over a couple of hours, one that could barely wet the pavement, if we had any here in Sutherland Heights. Of course, we surely drooled at the close call that drained Saddlebrooke yesterday afternoon (see below). Probably washed more golf balls into the CDO wash like that storm did last year…
Also, 0.75 inches fell, too, where Ina crosses the CDO wash yesterday, “so close, and yet so far away”, as the song says. Oh, well, another missed rain that I have to crybaby about1. Will get some final pictures of the 2014 summer greening today before it fades away in the many dry days ahead to help make me feel better now that its over.
Here’s your cloud story for yesterday. It was pretty neat one, full of hope, even if that hope was eventually dissipated unless you lived in Saddlebrooke… The U of AZ time lapse film for yesterday is great, btw.
6:31 AM. I am going to say these are Altocumulus castellanus clouds, though they are a little low and large for that genera.
6:33 AM. This was a pretty scene… Here an isolated Ac cas rises up. Distant small Cumulonimbus clouds, weak ones, can be seen on the horizon.
9:18 AM. Before long, those pretty Cumulus clouds were springing to life off the Catalina Mountains, the sky so blue behind them.
9:19 AM. A rare “High Temperature Contrail” (HTC) slices through some very thin Altocumulus perlucidus. This aircraft phenomenon has also been called, “APIPs” for Aircraft Produced Ice Particles.) Recall that Appleman (1953) said that an aircraft couldn’t produce a contrail at temperature above about -35 C. But, he was WRONG. They can do it in a water-saturated environment at much higher temperatures, even as high as -8 C (see Rangno and Hobbs 1983, J. Clim. and Appl. Meteor., available through the Amer. Meteor. Soc. for free, an open journal kind of thing.)11:48 AM. Before noon, all thoughts of past glory were gone as the Big Boys arose in a hurry. What a dump here! The cloud, since it is not showing an anvil nor obvious fibrous appearance, still pretty cauliflowery even though the discerning CMJ would not be fooled by its icy composition, it would be a Cumulonimbus calvus (“bald”).3:40 PM. Probably THE most hopeful scene of the day. A large complex of Cumulonimbus clouds was emerging from the Tucson mountains, heading in this direction. But more importantly, were the cloud bases forming over Oro Valley ahead of it, likely, it seemed to be pushed upward by the outflowing winds ahead of the distant cells. Also, that cloud bases were forming and extending westward from the distant cells offered another rain-filled scenario that could happen as they approached from the SW.
4:14 PM. When the southwest wind arrived, it did in fact cause the clouds overhead to swell up like aphids on a Seattle rose bush, but as bad luck would have it, they were piling up just to the north of us and over Saddlebrooke where they all all those amenities and don’t really need a lot of rain.
4:40 PM. After the first base dropped its load a little beyond Saddlebrooke, another cloud base darkened and expanded over Saddlebrooke, but this time, began to unload there. Here, like the seldom seen pileus cloud, these strands of the largest drops being to pour out of the collapsing updraft. You have about two minutes to see this happen because if you look away, the next time you look there will be nothing but the “black shaft.”
4:45 PM. A remarkable transformation. How can so much water, you wonder, be up there in a cloud?
6:05 PM. As the threat of any significant rain faded away, there was at least some “lighting” excitement, produced for just seconds as the sun shone on this….Stratus fractus cloud. Again, you must be watching at all times to catch these little highlights.
6:58 PM. Time to say goodbye to Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds like these, until maybe next summer.
The End. Probably will go on a hiatus now.
——————–
1Its good to remember that there is a little crybaby in all of us, isn’t there?
Been looking around at quite a number of model runs (well 2, anyway) trying to find the best one for you. Here it is. Its yesterday’s WRF-GFS run that was based on 11 AM AST global data. Has some great rains for us here in Arizona. Those rains, and that incredible hurricane that saunters up the coast of Baja in about ten days, aren’t depicted as well in later model runs, so there’s not much point in showing them. If you want a great, OBJECTIVE forecasting, you know, go to Bob, or the NWS, or wait for Mike L’s detailed one from the U of AZ later this morning! You’re not going to find “objectivity” here when it comes to forecasting rain for a desert region1. Let’s look at two examples of weather excitement in that now-obsolete-run-but-doesn’t-mean-it won’t-happen-anyway-just-because-its-a little-older-run”1: 1) Lotta rain in Arizona (that’s a different near-hurricane over there in the SW corner of the map, one that in one model run from Canada, formerly went over Yuma! Sorry Yuma, and all of Arizona, both of which would have gotten, in that event, a bigger dent in the drought than shown below. Oh, well.
Valid on Thursday at 11 AM AST. Green pixels denote those areas where the model thinks rain has occurred during the prior 6 hours. Most of AZ covered in green pixies! Sweet.
2) Fascinating near-hurricane just off San Diego on the 29th of August, likely surviving so well due to the California Niño mentioned here lately. BTW, this particular hurricane is predicted to be exceptionally large and intense out there when it revs up in a few days, maybe a Category 4 at its peak, looking at some of the model runs. “Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ how….” The Beach Boys, 1962, sayin’ it like it was for us near-beach bums way back then when the summer hurricanes in the Mexican Pacific sent huge waves poleward on to our southern California beaches, as the one below will2.
Valid in ten days, Friday, August 29th at 11 AM AST. Near hurricane brings rain to San Diego. Colored regions now denote where the model thinks it has rained in the prior TWELVE hours (coarser resolution because its not going to be that accurate in the placement of highs and lows anyway, so why waste time over-calculating stuff?
Yesterday’s clouds
What an outstanding, if surprising day it was! After it appeared, in later model runs available late yesterday morning, that the late afternoon/evening bash from the high country wasn’t going to happen after all (producing local glumness), we had a remarkable in situ explosion of cloud tops. Those clouds just erupted from an innocuous, patchy group of Stratocumulus that invaded the sky around 5 PM. Still, even with the early turrets jutting up there, it didn’t seem possible, at 7 PM, there would be much more growth into showers, let alone, thunderstorms with frequent lightning lasting several hours that happened. Eventually rain even got into Sutherland Heights/Catalina, with 0.17 inches here, and 0.12 inches at the Golder Bridge, and that didn’t seem possible since the rain shafts were so locked onto the Catalinas, and east side for so long. Dan Saddle, about 5 mi S of Oracel, counting the mid-afternoon thunderstorms that locked in upthere, got a 2.68 inches over the past 24 h! That should have sent a little water down the CDO. BTW, a location in the Rincons is reporting 4.09 inches in the past 24!
5:50 AM. Day started with “colorful castellanus.” Hope you saw this.12:26 PM. After a late morning start, the Cumulus congestus tops were streaming away from the origin zone of Mt. Lemmon to over the north part of Saddlebrooke and the Charouleau Gap. No ice evident yet, but it was just about to show itself. BTW, the “51ers” have a nice baseball team in Vegas (of course), this brought to my attention by neighbors recently, showing that a degree of strangeness permeates American life, as also shown in these blogs.
12:44 PM. Ice virga now seen in the right hand side falling out as I passed the budding wildlife overpass now being constructed on Oracle Road. I guess scents and signage will be used to direct wildlife to the overpass.
1:49 PM. Took about an hour more of rain and development for the thunder to start from these locked in turrets that kept springing on The Lemmon.
4:54 PM. Long before this, it was “all over’, the rains no doubt up there had helped to put the fire out, so-to-speak, and with no anvils advancing toward us, there was even hardly any point to remain conscious. It is finished.6:54 PM, 2 h later. Shallow grouping of Stratocumulus provided a nice, if boring, backdrop to the setting sun’s light on Samaniego Ridge.7:04 PM. Only ten minutes later, and I’m out wondering around in the backyard looking for a nice sunset shot, when I see this shocking sight for the time of day, a protruding turret far above the other tops. Still, I pooh-poohed anything happening but a ragged collapse in the minutes ahead. It was too late in the day for heating or anything else to generate rain in situ from these lower clouds (now topping Mt. Lemmon). Nice pastel colors, though.
7:32 PM. Though “pinkie” in the prior photo did fade, new turrets kept bubbling upward, and in disbelief, this one reached up beyond the ice-forming temperature threshhold (is probably topping out between 25-30 kft, not huge) and a strong rain shaft emerged on the Catalinas. After a little while longer, lightining began to flash to the east as the Reddington Pass area started to get hammered. Eventually in the early nighttime hours. these cells propagated to the west, giving us that bit of rain here in The Heights of Sutherland. How nice, and how mind-blowing this whole evening was!
Today
Got some Stratocu (castellanus in some parts) topping Sam (Samaniego Ridge) this morning, an outstanding indication of a lot of moisture in the air, moisture that’s not just at the surface. U of AZ has thunderstorms moving toward Catalina during the late morning (!) and afternoon from the SW, not the usual direction we’re accustomed to. So, keep eyeball out toward Twin Peaks or so for exciting weather today! Oh, my, towering Cu top converted to ice, must be 25-30 kft up there right now at 7:06 AM! Also, notice nice shadow on lower Ac clouds.
The End
————————————-
1“Truth-in-packaging” portion of web blog statement.
1Its chaos in the models due to errors in them we don’t always know about, chaos that we try to get a handle on with plots from the NOAA spaghetti factory. But you know all that already, so my apologies for repeating myself again and again. I thought I would see what would happen if I put TWO “1” footnotes….
2Of course, in those days, we had little knowledge about how many hurricanes there were down there due to the lack of satellite data and ship reports. But when the “Weather Bureau”, as it was called in those days did know, there was always good surf on the south facing beaches, like Zuma Beach. So going to the beach, unlike now where wave forecasting is so good, was a real crap shoot. You’d come over that first viewpoint of the ocean on Malibu Canyon Road, on your way to Zuma. one that over looked the ocean a little offshore from Malibu, and either go, “Holy Crap!”, or hope for the best. It was a swell time for lightly employed youth. Below, the best “Holy Crap!” view coming around to that viewpoint, early September 1963 (never saw anything like it before or afterwards; swells were never visible so far offshore from this spot, meaning Zuma would be gigantic). Still remember those Zuma waves, so far out to sea, as the height of small telephones…
Nearly drowned that day at Zuma, me and my pal ignoring lifequard’s advice not to go in. HELL, we’d been body surfing the biggest ones we could there for years by then. Fortunately, he didn’t have to come and get me, which saved a lot of face.
Yesterday afternoon and evening were remarkably similar to the day before; great, spectacular banks of brilliant white turrets with black bases approached from the northeast filled with rainy portent, but, as with that previous day, disappointed. Once again, those clouds tended to fade some as they much beyond the Catalina Mountains, southwestward across Catalina, Saddlebrooke, and Oro Valley. Even the rainfall here in Sutherland Heights, 0.08 inches, was almost identical to the day before!
While there were many similarities, one had to be hopeful looking at those clouds as they spread across the valley. They many more Cumulus turrets above them compared with the prior day, had not faded completely to flat stratiform clouds riding an outflow wind. In fact, if you noticed, as they encountered the warmer air to the west of us, ramped up into major storms around I-10 and farther west. They are still going strong, now, a little before 4 AM, approaching Puerto Peñasco/Rocky Point! (This is a peak time of day for rain in the Colorado River Valley, oddly, spanning Yuma to Needles since many of our evening storms here continue on to that area during the night.)
Models still have lots of rain in our future as tropical storms whiz by in the Pacific west of Baja over the next 5-10 days (models have, not surprisingly, backed off direct Arizona hits for now1). Still there’s plenty of time and water in the air to catch up on our normal summer rainfall. At 4.58 inches, we’re not terribly behind the six inches expected in July and August in Catalina, and with recent rains, the desert has rebounded in a satisfying green over the past couple of weeks.
From the afternoon of August 16th. Anyone for “cactus golf”?
Of course, it you were up early yesterday, you may have seen the lightning (LTG) to the south through southwest. We missed a nice complex of heavy rain that brought 1-2 inches in a couple of spots as it passed across Tucson and into the Avra Valley.
Your cloud day
6:32 AM. Miniature arcus cloud leads the way ahead of those heavy Tucson rains. At the leading edges, many of those clouds would be called, Altcoumulus castellanus, mid-level clouds with spires. But sometimes they cluster, as yesterday into clouds too large to be “Altocumulus” clouds, but rather Cumulonimbus ones with mid-level bases.7:03 AM. Rain continues to move westward into Avra Valley and Marana. Note crepsucular rays shining down on Rancho Vistoso or someplace like that. There are quite a few “Vistosos” around it seems.7:36 AM. I loved this little guy, all by itself of up there, trying to do the best it can to be something. Such a pretty scene if you can avoid the snail implication.2:05 PM. Of course, the “Cloud People” like me always want to document “First Ice” of the day in his/her cloud diaries, maybe mention it to neighbors later, and here is that moment for yesterday afternoon in this sprout off the Catalinas. Can YOU find that critical aspect of our clouds in this shot, one not taken while driving, of course? Remember, almost always in Arizona, clouds need ice to rain.4:44 PM. As predicted in the U of AZ model, great banks of Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds roar down from the Mogollon Rim and other high terrain to the northeast of Catalina with the promise of a substantial rain. Looking N across Sutherland Heights and Saddlebrooke5:36 PM. Incoming Cbs (Cumulonimbus clouds) getting really close, but cloud maven person forgets to look up and in a couple of minutes, giant drops are falling by the millions. Kinda reminded me of that time at the Mitchell, SD, airport in ’72 when I was radar meteorologist on a project having four aircraft that were to be sent up to try to prevent hail by “overseeding” them with silver iodide2. Well, it was midnight or so, the radar can’t look up, of course, but rather out, at storms to send the planes toward. Well, the 1-inch diameter hail stones started pummeling the airport from a cell that developed overhead, like that one yesterday afternoon did over Sutherland Heights!
5:41 PM. Surprise! Extra big drops, too, for a brief time, and 0.06 inches. It was so fantastic, as unexpected rain always is!
6:02 PM. Its looking “OK”, better than the day before here, with a couple of larger, solid dark bases. But, there are also those “weak” updraft updraft areas denoted by broken light and dark areas. Nice lightning on the left; lighting on the right.
6:37 PM. While one of those bases unloaded with a few cloud-to- ground LTG strikes over there by the old Golder Ranch in Sutherland Valle. The bases to the north of us just could not work thier way S, and pretty much remained in place, unloading on Charouleau Gap
6:49 PM. Hopes for a substantial rain fading fast as the cloud base this side of the Charouleau Gap rain area and estedning overhead of Sutherland Heights began to look chaotic, not firm and smooth. The rain that’s falling on the Gap needs to be replenished by new turrets that convert to ice, and if that’s not happening, then the rain just falls out and the storm ends. Here, that rainy area was just not being replenished by building turrets adjacent to it, and so it got lighter and lighter until it faded away. Also, the rain shafts never had that black, straight sided look that goes with strong convection.
7:03 PM. “Rosy glow” at sunset…yet another great name for a western singer! Where do these come from? But, getting back on task, notice the rain shafts and how wispy they are, with sloping rain. That indicates the tops aren’t too high, the updrafts weak, and the clouds probably just barely made it to the ice-forming level.
U of AZ mod run from last evening’s 11 PM AST data indicates a day today like the past two: coupla small Cumulonimbus clouds on the Cat Mountains by mid-afternoon, then a line of big storms again sweep down from the higher mountains to the NE in the evening. Maybe today we’ll get that big rain finally. If nothing else, the skies will be spectacular and dramatic again.
The End.
——————–
1A peak just now at the 11 PM WRF-GFS run shows that the unusually strong tropical storm not so far offshore from San Diego has been resuscitated. Go here to see this exciting storm and all the rain we’re supposed be getting over the next two weeks. Getting pretty worked up about it again. 2Does seeding to reduce hail work? The evidence is mixed, and is not convincing to national panels or the American Meteorological Society. Still, that type of cloud seeding is carried out in many locations in the Canadian and US grain belts.
The documentary photos, below, of a modest-looking Cumulus congestus cloud yesterday afternoon that lept up to the stratosphere in the 20 minutes that cloud maven person wasn’t watching. Yours truly, while videoing it from start to finish, only got two still shots in those 20 min due to a distraction1; was not taking photos of every cloud every three minutes as the “compulsar”, CMP likes to do:
1:51 PM. zzzzzzzzzzz. Not much likely to happen. Cloud is isolated over a flat area all by itself, no pals to group along with, so its certainly going to fade away after the itty-bitty amount ice on the right (frizzy part) produces, oh, maybe a sprinkle or slight rain shaft. Maybe I’ll take a nap while things are calm.
20 minutes later….something unbelievable has happened: a “volcano” of sorts erupted from this moderate, isolated cloud. I have never been so embarrassed in all my life not to have seen this coming. But it was also so wondrous at the same time.
2:11 PM. Wha? Can it possibly be the same cloud? It was. LOOK at that rain shaft! Also, in the middle,about halfway up, that dark thing almost looks like vortex. Kinda reminded me of the Mt. St. Helens eruption.
Also seen was the rarely seen Cumulus congestus pileus tops here and there indicating strong uprushing currents pushing into the air above the top, and rushing up so fast, the air above the top is pushed up and starts to condense into a cloud before the actual cloud top reaches it. See below:
2:18 PM. Pileus cap cloud tops a rapidly rising Cumulus congestus turret over the Catalina Mountains. If you’re in an airplane with cloud instrumentation, you really want to penetrate this one right hear the top to get high measurements of liquid water, maybe two or three grams or so.5:14 PM. This thunderstorm was almost in the same exact area as the “volcano.”5:14 PM. It looked like a promising situation was propagating down from N of Charouleau Gap, but the new bases ahead of outflow winds crept closer to the mountains instead of extending out over the lower terrain and Oro Valley. This led to a dramatic rainshaft scene that CMP missed because he didn’t bail on a dinner situation at a restaurant. I guess it was quite a show when it cut loose a few minutes later, with a great rainbow, I hear.7:06 PM. Did catch the lastbit of the show in these Cumulonimbus mamma clouds. So, something to show for having a good time with friends at a local Goose Plaza restaurant.
For the full day yesterday, see the U of AZ time lapse. Its a rolling archive and so it will gone if you read this after today.
Time of the hurricane, and of the California Niño
Those model generated ones, that is, that are shown to come close to Arizona; “close” being within 500 miles or so, which, astronomically speaking, is incredibly close.
This time of year, we look forward to the possibilities that one of the many hurricanes that affect the Mexican Pacific will rush up Baja coast, angle northeastward and cross the border into Arizona. Remember that one in 1976 that hit Yuma with 76 mph winds? Yeah, like that one. Go here to read about it if you don’t believe me that Yuma experienced hurricane force winds from a hurricane. Mt. San Jacinto in southern Cal got over 14 inches of rain, too.
While the computer models have a tough time generating hurricanes in their right places too far in advance, they are remarkable in how many they generate, considering that those hurricanes pop up out of loose-looking cloudy masses, with weak areas of low pressure associated with equally, loosely-organized upper level features. To have a tropical storm leap out of that cloud mass, the upper air pattern has to spread the air aloft over those clouds so that more air can come into the developing storm at the bottom. And, as more thunderheads (though they don’t usually thunder much) pile upward, more warming aloft occurs, and that helps the air spread away even faster.
Today, we have a coupla interesting predictions, one by our Canadian friends, showing a tropical storm roaring up the coast of Baja just next Thursday. This from their 5 PM AST model run yesterday. The remnant of that TS goes into southern California! This is just 5-6 days away, which, in model time, is not that far off and usually is fairly reliable.
But, USA model (WRF-GFS) from 5 PM AST last evening, has no such feature! See below. Boo-hoo.
Still, something interesting has shown up in our own USA model about two weeks out that seems to be due to something unusual that’s happening off the West Coast. A new phenomenon, reported in Nature (!) and akin to the “The New Niño” (the one in Pacific Ocean Region 3.4) and the “Classic NIño” (the one we heard about as kids where the water off Peru gets real warm), has recently been dubbed, the California Niño.
This is an oscillation caused by the slackening of the onshore winds along the Cal coast. Those winds, when as strong as they usually are, cause really cold water to boil up to the surface; when those winds become slackers, the water warms tremendously.
This year the water temperatures offshore of the Cal coastline, are way warmer than usual. No wetsuits needed off Monterey this year (a friend says)! These warmer waters will help tropical storms stay together a little longer when they are directed north and northeastward toward southern California and Arizona. Yay!
This may explain why a hurricane/strong tropical storm is shown drifting to the NW only a few hundred miles SW of San Diego, as shown below, in about two weeks. The eye-popping stat in that model projection, is that the low pressure in the center is still as low as 982 millibars when its fairly close to San DIego! This shows that the models knows about the water temperatures out there (that kind of data is always being fed into them), and it thinks that a pretty good sized tropical low can exist that far close to San Diego with water temperatures as warm as they are.
All we have to do now is wait for the right upper air “steering” pattern, to keep the western motif here, so that those stronger storms are directed thisaway, to continue yet again with the western theme.
The prediction shows that the model thinks that conditions are warm enough to support such a storm relatively close to southern California. What grabs your attention is the 982 mb central pressure in the eye of that predicted storm two weeks from now. Let us not forget the near hurricane that blasted southern California in September 1939, likely having occurred during “Cal Nino” conditions.
Check these predictions out, first from Canada, where a magnifiying glass will be required to view details:
Valid Thursday morning, Aug. 21st at 5 AM AST. The storm is moving N.
Valid for the afternoon of August 29th. This one is moving NW.
The reason for the excitement is that troughs and jet streams are beginning to creep farther south and when they do that, sometimes they can “steer”, to use a western term again here, a storm toward the north and northeast. In June, July, and into much of August, the many hurricanes that form off Mexico and central America drift west and west-northwest only to die over the cooler waters north of the Equator.
More showers and thunderstorms are buiilding on the Catalinas! And late afternoon or evening rains are foretold here.
The End.
——————————-
1Ironically, the distraction was having his computer almost stop working because he had filled up the “C” hard drive with too many photos and almost nothing worked any more! Note: Put photos on a different HD. Leave at least 10 percent of the C hard drive “file-less”, so’s it can work properly.
Yesterday was equal to the most potent cloud day that cloud maven person has seen since moving to Catalina in 2008; from clear skies to thunder before 10 AM! Fortunately, in spite of all the incredible cloud scenes around, fine, tall clouds so early in the day, CMP was able to control himself and only take 190 photos yesterday, and will share only a 100 of the best with you.
Kind of lost interest, though, when the sky went gray in Altostratus opacus cumulonimbogenitus after about 3 PM. Didn’t get any rain here, either, which was a disappointment.
Oh, well, “Today is another day”, to paraphrase Scarlet O. And another chance for an isolated TSTM to land on us.
Saw some of the most intense rainshafts that you can see here, likely producing 1.5 to 3 inches over there on the Tort Mountains around 2 PM and thereafter yesterday. Thunder was continuous from it for awhile.
But, in poor little Catalina, not even a drop. Even though Altostratus opacus cumulonimbogenitus (copied and pasted that linguistic monstrosity to keep things moving) did not rain here, there were a few drops that got to the ground from it around James Kreig Park where CMP taking batting practice for some reason with a friend. The balls were winning.
In spite of the boring cloud scene in mid-late afternoon in Altostratus opacus cumulonimbogenitus, the skies were open far to the west and allowed a sunset display that was pretty much unequaled in CMPs experience anywhere. So, though it didn’t rain here, we got a nice light show. Hope you saw it. Go to the end to skip a lot of excess verbage and less interesting photos.
The end of the day, BTW, was ruined when a TEEVEE meteorologist came on during a local news program told his viewers that “drizzle” was falling somewhere in the area. My faced turned red, I clinched my fist, and pounded the dining room table, veins standing out. This is exactly why I don’t watch TEEVEE. Under my watch, he’d have been fired before he got off his next sentence off.
But that’s me, CMP, a person who cares deeply about educational standards. As a public service, once again I begin this blog with a photo of what’s not “drizzle”, its that important. Remember that guy (actually, a world famous prof) I told you about that asked me to leave his office and never come back right after CMP told him that it had been drizzling outside? Q. E. D. (The occurrence of drizzle meant that all of that professor’s peer-reviewed body of work in clouds was in error. OK. enough past interesting personal history… Well, maybe this; told him there was a lot more ice in his clouds than he was reporting before the drizzle comment. You could see why that prof might be “concerned.”
Evidence of a “sprinkle”, or as we would officially call it, RW–, a “very light rainshower”, July 30th, 2010. “Its not drizzle, dammmitall!”, as we say around here. Thanks to JG for this photo.
Drizzle, of course, is fine, CLOSE TOGETHER drops smaller than 500 microns in diameter (0.02 inches!) that almost float in the air. You can get really wet biking in drizzle, and forget about a baseball cap keeping those drops off your glasses. They can barely fall out of a cloud; you have to be real close to the base to even experience them and that’s why drizzle is commonly experienced falling from very low-based clouds along coast lines.
You can tell how much that erroneous report of “drizzle” falling in Tucson affected me in how I am starting this blog with an educational soliloquy instead of jumping into cloud photos.
By now, you’d probably like to skip to the chase, and going to the U of AZ time lapse is a good way to do that. Unfortunately, as the storm hit the campus, the power went out for a couple of hours and you miss a good part of it and end of skipping from the middle of the storm to, let’s hear it, “Altostratus opacus cumulonimbogenitus.” Its great when you can say big terms like that; it’ll make you sound more educated than you probably are!
OK, after LONG diversionary material, a sampling of yesterday’s fabulous clouds, so many will post them as thumbnails so’s I can cram in more, and, that glorious sunset, too:
7:34 AM. Cu already starting!8:27 AM. I’ve already taken a hundred photos! I am beside myself on how these clouds are growing so early in the morning!8:49 AM. Go, baby, go, make some ice.
9:30 AM. Unbelievable, this tower piling up like that over the low Tortolita Mountains, especially since CMP was clueless about an early start to convection like this!9:32 AM. Cu congestus are converting to Cumulonimbus capillatus, the ice machine is on! See writing on photo.9:46 AM. Sprouts! That background turret is far higher, has reached maybe 30 kft, compared to the one in the prior photo. Thunder on the mountain beginning! Unbelievable. What a day this is turning out to be.10:25 AM. Oh, so pretty. Note ice anvil, but little rain has fallen out yet. Watch out below, its a comin’!10:33 AM. Rain on mountains getting closer to Catalina…10:39 AM. Load has dropped, though mainly from the turret on the left shown in that 10:25 AM shot.1:17 PM. Storms to the left of me, storms to the right, stuck in the middle again.1:46 PM. Storms to the left of me, storms to the right, stuck in the middle again. This is a pretty clever shot where it looks like I’m driving and on my way to James Kreig Park and just kind of holding the camera any which way. This storm is toward the Tucson Mountains.1:59 PM. After arriving at James Kreig Park, I see this massive storm over the Torts. Storms on the left of me, storms on the right, stuck in the middle again! Thunder was continuous at this point.5:13 PM. After a couple of hours of BP, and a few sprinkles, or RW–, the sky went dull as the convective roots died and left all this heavy, ice debris cloud (Altostratus opacus cumulonimbogenitus, of course, technophiles). Thought the interesting part of the day was over. Clueless again! See below.6:56 PM. Self portrait in interesting lighting. Kind of goes along with a tendency of megalomania sometimes seen here.6:58 PM. Not a self-portrait, but rather a celebration of lighting.7:03 PM. Words aren’t enough.7:08 PM.7:10 PM. Landscape view.7:11 PM.
One of nature’s true miracles, one that we Catalinans look forward to every summer, is the “Time of the Ant.” After the first substantial rains, ants burst forth from the ground like little angels with wings, forming tall columns of swirling, joyful creatures that hover above a favorite place above the ground for an hour or two each morning, in acts of conjugation. Sadly, the male participant dies after his reproductive act, while the female and new queen, goes happily off to try and start a new colony, one that may bring us joy in the summers ahead. Its really quite something.
Many nature lovers rush to Arizona from non-flying ant climes to see this remarkable event, which may only last a day or two following the rains. The first episode usually contains the greatest masses of flying ants, and so many come to Arizona at the beginning of July so that they do not miss the “festivities.”
Swarms in the first emergence of the flying ants in summer may number in the tens of thousands, seemingly in a swirling mass of chaos to us. But to them, it is EVERYTHING that they have dreamed of; oh, to fly! Imagine YOU wake up one morning with wings (!), and then had the urge to fly out the door and have sex somewhere, like over someone’s carport! Of course, many would consider this untoward behavior, but I was just trying to get you inside the mind of a flying ant on their wonderful day of emergence, maybe see things in a different light.
After the big rain of the day before, 1.09 inches here, I was ready for them!
7:59 AM yesterday.
I was lucky enough to capture some of the fun-loving, mischievous little creatures yesterday, with some Altocumulus clouds in the background for a good, contrasting backdrop. For your amusement and pleasure, these wonderful shots:
7:59 AM yesterday, close up7:05 PM. This astounding cloudy metaphor of the emergence of the flying ant yesterday evening. “Hail the new insect overlords!”–Kent Brockman, in Deep Space Homer.
Yesterday’s clouds
Did good up around Oracle Ridge, which got a remarkable 2.64 inches in a couple of hours late yesterday afternoon and evening. Cloud details below…. Not much rain elsewhere since the clouds kept redeveloping in the same area.
3:59 PM. After being inactive all day, the Catalinas began to spawn some heavy Cumulus clouds (congestus here), but for a hour or so before this time, they were the essence of “big hat, no cattle” (no rain). But then, blammo, they erupted like a swarm of flying ants out of the ground, reached up to the ice forming level and far beyond just about this time. Here, looking toward the Charouleau Gap. This was to be a monument outpouring, with 2.64 inches at Oracle Ridge, south of Oracle over the next three hours. 1.77 inches fell in ONE hour.4:09 PM. The upward explosion is now underway, and whole cloud scene is changing rapidly, and the first glaciating top can be seen on the left side.4:35 PM. New turrets shot up and kept glaciating over pretty much the same spot. Not a lot of thunder though, so tops weren’t exceptionally high.5:06 PM. The stream goes on, pretty much dumping in the same spot. It was about this time that the Oracle Ridge ALERT gauge had reported 1.77 inches in one hour, but almost nowhere else up there was getting any rain.
6:13 PM. Astounding, after the Oracle complex died away just after 5 PM, it seemed like that was it for the day. Then emerging from the house, I see this! I could not believe it, and it was so pretty in the late sun. But, surely it couldn’t do much. And look, too, how low the cloud bases are, topping Sam Ridge, meaning the moisture regime is still wet and tropical.
6:22 PM. Just 9 minutes later, the tops are surging upward. Can they really glaciate and cause another round of precip on the north side of the Catalinas? Didn’t seem possible, considering the time of day.
7:15 PM. This pastel beauty. A haze layer last evening through which the sun shone helped tint the clouds that yellowish orange, and later, as here, helped amplify the pink hues. Still, it was an unforgettable evening.
7:25 PM. The day ended with some of the most memorable scenes I have experienced here, those pastel colors on those cloud tops. And once again it was raining on the Oracle Ridge area.
