The weather ahead – Page 19

“Keep them storms a rollin’, ‘maw-del!'” (add crack of bullwhip here)

Title properly sung to “Rawhide¹“, a western theme song for a TEEVEE show known by heart by all us TEEVEE viewers of old, and how it might be sung today by a weather-centric cowboy, one that lived in “a area” of drought, like us.

On with the story…

There was a couple “stray” model runs (hahaha) yesterday, ones that dried up all the storms but the BIG ONE tomorrow night and Friday. Those runs were quite bad ones; looked like the CDO wash today.

It had been penned from this keyboard recently, if you can say, “penned” in the context of a keyboard, that a SERIES of storms were on their way to Catalina after the drencher Thursday night into Friday, so I had a vested interest in not showing those runs.

I know, too, when you read that C-M person had said that there were a lot of storms coming that you were probably ecstatic. Maybe thought the drought might be vanquished by “a few good storms” over the next two weeks to a month. Maybe you did something fun that day after you read what I posted about a lot of storms ahead; maybe called in sick and went to Ms. Mt. Lemmon to see if you could see some precursor clouds off to the west.

Therefore, having written about all those storms in my last post, I had the responsibility to ignore the later model runs with no rain in them (after Friday) and wait for those other rains to re-appear. (Its funny, but it happens.)

I am pleased to report, after not telling you about those dry model runs, that the series of rain days the model had before have magically re-appeared, though no as “juicy” as before, and I can resume telling you about them! This is so great!

Here are a couple of examples from last night’s WRF-GFS run from data taken around the world at 5 PM AST, the first for Sunday morning, 5 AM AST. The two panels below are posted in smaller sizes because they have less credibility being as far in advance as they are; click on them for a larger view.

What about the drencher coming in tomorrow night and Friday? Let’s let the highly paid TEEVEE weather practitioners take that today. They’ll be all over it, and they’ll do fine. I’m sure… They’re all pretty good.

0001gi — Sunday afternoon, the 19th, new rains approach.

00012N — Morning of the 27th. Good fantasy rain here; too far out to count on, but. “hey” its something to write about!

Yesterday’s sunset

What would a C-M be without a sunset picture, this of Cirrus clouds.

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¹Frankie Laine remindner here; a great song with a lot about weather and flooding in it; cuss word, too, bold for those days. Had Clint Eastwood in it; whodda guessed he’d be still making movies 100 years later?

The nine panels of rain; the regime change is almost here

It doesn’t get any better for a desert in southeast Arizona than this; a model run with NINE panels of rain, including rain on Christmas morning, and here they are from last night’s 5 PM AST global data, our best computers in action. Remember the bad old days just a few weeks ago when no rain was foretold in the models for 15 days ahead, and that dry forecast was seen day after day for another 15 days?

Those days are gone. The “mean”, as in average position of, mean (as in bad, angry weather) trough is here now. You are in it. You can’t escape. “Trough bowl” in progress!” We’re going “weather bowling”! OK, enough exclamatory statements. This doesn’t mean every day is bad, but storm days will keep recurring beginning next Friday.

Here are a couple of those forecast panels from last evening, the first for Friday’s major rain about which a news release was released. This is so great. What’s even greater is that the Canadians, with their more accurate model, are on board for a big Friday rain, too! Two models with rain, as we know, guarantee a rain!

Friday the 14th 2012121000_CON_GFS_SFC_SLP_THK_PRECIP_WINDS_108 — Friday morning the 14th at 5 AM AST.

Canadians onboard 00_054_G1_north@america@zoomout_I_4PAN_CLASSIC@012_108 — Also valid for Friday morning, the 14th at 5 AM AST. See lower right panel for rain areas over the prior 12 h.

Here’s another one on Christmas Day (left out some other rain days):

Storms will be dropping like bowling balls, one after another, like down a water slide, moving southeastward every few days out of the Pacific over the next two weeks, likely longer since once patterns get established they persist. In fact, “persistence” is one of our greatest forecast techniques, just saying what’s already been (say, cold and wet), will be what’s ahead. Its great!

An example of how you could have become quite the neighborhood weather guru last October and November. As a cloud maven junior, you would have already gained some prestige in your neighborhood. Now imagine adding to that status if your neighbors had come up to you in October at some point and asked about the winter. You would ONLY have had to have known about the weather you had already had for the past week or so to state, with furrowed brow, “I foresee much the same weather OVERALL as we’re having for the next two weeks, maybe a month” to your neighbors! And the majority of the time, you would be right! Think of all the right forecasts you would have made day after day in October, November, into early December!

This is because, as all weathermen and weatherwomen know, the jet stream and the storms it carries gets stuck in groves like the water in rivers for weeks at a time; but then suddenly jumps the banks into a new pattern. So, using retrospective forecasting techniques, your going to be right a majority of the time. To paraphrase so many internet ads, “this is a little known secret that weather forecasters don’t want you to know.”

But today you’d be so WRONG with that retrospective forecast technique! Change happens.

The “stream” is “jumping the banks” right now–some kind of tipping point has been reached somewhere and the new, cold and wet pattern is about to begin in the West, its just ahead beginning with that big rain here on Friday into Saturday.

But how do you know that one storm is the beginning of many, not just a breakthrough fluke in a continuing dry pattern? Confidence is added by having some spaghetti, not just examining the many panels of rain. Here, 10 days out, we are in the trough bowl! Little doubt about it; count on it.

And because our rains are associated with cold air invasions, there’ll be snow birds heading back to Illinois and Wisconsin pretty soon, wondering why they came to Arizona. Of course, the ski birds will be quite happy with the pile up on top of Ms. Mt. Lemmon.

What’s the real unknown here?

How much precip will our cold wet regime really bring? While we’ll have a number of opportunities for drought denting storms, they could also be a stream of minimal, relatively inconsequential ones. That’s the real bugaboo here in this monumental pattern change. The exact trajectories the storms take is going to be pretty unknown today. We could end up with frequent storms and cold days, but only average rainfall or even a little below after two weeks. Or, as in the first slug on Friday and Saturday, a total in one 24 h period that gives the December amount into respectable levels just by itself.

C-M has a gut feeling that we will see above average rains here over the next 30 days (two inches or more). “Gut feelings” are pretty worthless, but, there you have it.

Remember our logo, “Right or wrong, you heard it here FIRST!” :}

Trough Bowl to occur in West

Being the time of football bowl games, and with 35 just ahead, it seemed an appropriate thing to say. And, let’s face it, there are never enough bowl games¹.

You can see this “trough bowl” phenomenon in a 5-day average of the contour heights at 500 millibars (around 18,000 feet), courtesy of the Washington Huskies Weather Department, whose company team is actually in one.

Below is where we started at the beginning of December. Remember how floody it was in northern Cal and Oregon? That’s what can happen if a trough bowl stagnates just to your west (but not too far), since most of the rising air is to the east of the “bottom” of the bowl (where the arrows point roughly).

And, being away from the core of the jet stream at this level, us Catalina-ites experienced day after day of zephyrs moving 75-80 F air around in the afternoons. Not bad really. But change is good.

where we started_2012120118_000 — Arrows denote bowl troughs, where the “average” position is. There might be one there in central Asia, too.

Well, them days of stagnation, a “Snow Bird” paradise, and really wasn’t that bad if we coulda only had some rain, is gone. Here’s what ahead:

annotated where we are headed_2012120800_108 — Arrows denote roughly the bottom of trough bowls where storms collect.

Weather will change, as you already know from our TEEVEE people who make a LOT of money, from stagnant to vibrant, winds and storms from time to time as the trough bowl develops in the West.

Trough bowls are like repositories for storms, and around the globe there are typically 4-5 of them, waves in the westerly jet stream whose apexes mark the “bowl”. Storms dip down into them from the northwest and then shoot out to the northeast, usually with lots of precip, after reaching the “bottom”, the most southerly extension of the bowl.

As you can see, we are a bit toward the west side of this bowl and that means the storms will be cold ones coming from the Pacific Northwest, at least to begin with. Also, coming from that direction, they’ll be a bit rain challenged for us.

Mods still have a trace of rain on the 13th associated with the first storm to “fall” into the Bowl from the northwest, preceded by a dry cold front passage tomorrow. Bundle up, it’ll be a very noticeable dry front passage with good northerly winds here in Catalina.

In the longer term, the “bowl” shifts farther to the West and there are actually some rain days showing up in the 10-15 day period. But, as we know, unless they are supported by some spaghetti, those predictions are dicey, and they’re not well supported =s not too reliable. Still, hope springs eternal, or at least until the next model run.

The End.

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¹Maybe more teams should get to go to bowl games,not just the elite teams….as was posited long ago for the NCAA basketball tournament by Jesse Jackson in a presidential candidate debate of 1988 on NPR’s, “At Loggerheads.” Here, Jesse and George Herbert Walker Bush, debate how many teams should be invited to the NCAA basketball tournament. Harry Shearer moderates: At Loggerheads

Cirrus, old and young

Our deep blue sky, loaded with interesting Cirrus clouds yesterday, and generally low in contrail impact, makes southeast Arizona a haven for Cirrus cloud watchers. Though no one site is completely immune from them, a sky like this, so free of contrails, is impossible on most of the Atlantic Seaboard due to air traffic. It was just so pretty here yesterday with so few contrails! Here are a few shots:

The weather ahead: cold front’s a coming

Its been well predicted for 1-2 weeks that a cold front would pass through our area on Dec 9th-10th. At times the models had substantial rain here, but it’ll be a dry blast from the north Sunday night. What makes us here in Catalina a little different in experiencing this frontal passage is that the high pressure behind the front pushes air along the Catalina mountains from the north here, and we often get quite a windy episode, 15-30 mph likely Sunday night. But, because we have no official weather reporting stations, and the Catalina Mountains block that north wind from Tucson so that they don’t get it, so us here in Catalina are about the only folks that know its quite windy, with a chill in the air.

This cold front is part of a large scale pattern change in the jet stream that is taking place, one that will vastly increase our chances of rain in the weeks ahead as storms barge into the Pacfic Coast farther south than they have and head this way. No longer will we be in a stagnant condition where day after day the weather is almost exactly the same; not much wind, temperatures above normal. Instead there will be occasional windy episodes as storms get close, temperatures closer to normal, and we hope, one that gets far enough south for a good rain.

Some rain is showing up now overnight on the 13th-14th. In our rain frequency chart, the peak rain days in December were the 11th-13th, deemed a statistical fluke from this keyboard in the 35 year record.

But, here’s a rain threat materializing in the very window. Hmmmm. Further, if you look at the spaghetti plot for this time period, a trough is guaranteed in this region on the 13th-14th, though getting circumscribed by the jet stream that is, its south of us as the trough goes by is what’s marginal with this trough situation, a requirement for almost all winter rain here.

The End.

Looking for rain in all the wrong places…

Like in our best USA! models.

Pretty upset this early AM to find that the US’s Weather Forecasting and Research-Global Forecast System (WRF-GFS) model run, a model costing millions of dollars BTW, ingested last night’s 5 PM AST global data, BUT then threw up an identical twin that matched the Canadian Enviro Can model output that came out 24 h earlier! It was unbelievable to see this, humiliating really, something akin to a reverse nose job.

Recall that the USA! model had rain here and a big cold trough right over Catalina on the evening of December 9th into Monday morning the 10th. The Canadian model had that SAME trough over Cornhusky Stadium, Lincoln, Nebraska!

The Canadian model was right.

Here’s are the two forecast maps made within 24 h and each for for the SAME DAY AND TIME by our own WRF-GOOFUS model: on the left, the rainful run from the previous day that made me so happy (until I had some “spaghetti” and saw it was likely a bogus output). The panel on the right is the sickening output from last night, both rendered by IPS.

annotated valid for december 10th 5 am 2012120400_CON_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_156-1 — Valid for Monday, December 10th at 5 AM AST. Sweet!

annotated valid 12z dec 10 2012120500_CON_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_132 — From last night, also valid at 5 AM AST, Monday, December 10th. Horrible, unbelievable amount of change between the two. Makes you feel sad for weathermen and weatherwomen that have to deal with these things.

I really wanted Enviro Can to eat some crow with their forecast of MY trough over Nebraska. But no! “Bow down to Canada”, as heard here if you substitute in your mind the word, “Canada” for “Washington.” Hey, its got the lyrics at this site and so it should be pretty easy for you to sing along with it.

BTW, the Canadians (Enviro Can) don’t feel they have to show “spaghetti” plots to reveal how bad their numerical forecasts might be because they are always so right (in the 144 h time frame available from Enviro Can). “Don’t need no spaghetti.”

Can we say the same?

Doesn’t seem like it. We need “spaghetti” so we can see how bad our model forecasts might be. Calling Obama now…. not “happy with crappy”, to quote some overseas manufacturer’s creed, here. OK, our models aren’t exactly “crappy” but they aren’t as good as they should be.

Too, I have to deal with Canadian relatives that will be gloating today, I am sure. Maybe this spectacular example of “model divergence”, as we would call it, Canadian vs. US, is the talk of Canada today, and that’s what makes today’s wrf-goofus output sting so much.

I really want to call President Obama on this and tell him about it; I know he would add it to his list of things that need to be fixed in our country. Even if you have only a tinge of jingoism, you HAVE to be upset that the Canadians in their big little country, have a better weather forecasting model than we do! I think I am going to have to lie down for awhile…calm down.

So, what is ahead in our weather?

Of course, we have to look at the Canadian model first to get the most reliable one to see if they have anything for us… (hahahahah, sort of). I always do look at that one first, but I don’t brag about it. The summary of last night’s Enviro Can run, out to 144 h: they got nothin’ for us, just some cooler air over time. Cirrus clouds will be floating by from time to time as they do on most days. Did you know that Cirrus is a precipitating cloud? Yep, little ice crystals are always settling out leaving those pretty trails. Mt. Everest would know this…

Yesterday’s Cirrus clouds, sunrise to sunset

Feel another song coming on…. key lyric, “I don’t remember getting older…”

Hope you had some good log entries describing the varieties and species of Cirrus… If you did, you’ll be getting closer to getting that Cloud Maven Junior Tee.

Let’s look at December and the beginning of the second Catalina rain season

A day of pretty Cirrus and a nice sunset yesterday:

Now for some more of that Catalina climo, featuring December

(Most of these data below are due to the folks at Our Garden right here in Catalinaland just off Columbus._

First, the rainfall frequency chart for December. Not much going on. Chances of rain on any day about the same as any other, no trend up or down during the month, except for that one peak. Below this chart, in the monthly averages for the October through September “water year”, you’ll see that the average rainfall has jumped up considerably in December from November. Yay!

But will it rain at all in December 2012?

Let’s check…and also look, just for the HECK of it, whether any trough/storm is headed here in the 11th-13th rain frequency peak shown in the first plot…to see whether the atmosphere “likes” to have a little rain in Catalina in that time frame this year.

Below, the USA WRF-GFS model output, again rendered by IPS MeteoStar, from the global data taken at 5 PM AST valid for Monday, December 10th at 5 AM (close enough):

Astounding! A strong trough with rain IS predicted in about that time frame where the chance of rain in our 35 year record peaks, though a bit early. If this map verified, rain would be ending at about the time of this map, 5 AM AST on the 10th, it would be very, very cold, probably in the upper 30s in that rain. Amazing.

But let’s check with the superior Enviro Can model from the Canadians, our friends to the north, because-its-built-on-the-Euro-model-where-they-have-more money-for-big-computers-and-better-models-than-we-do.

(PS: You’ll be pretty upset when you read this–Model comparisons Science-2012-Kerr-734-7 —about US and Euro models.)

Not even close to the prediction by the USA model!

Unbelievable difference, in fact. In the USA model, the apex of the trough is over us in Catalina and in the superior (or will it be?) Canadian model, its over the “‘Braska” Cornhuskers, Lincoln, NE, maybe ONE THOUSAND miles farther east!

Unbelievable2. This is a phenomenon, BTW, which does happen from time to time, that is called, “model divergence”, to put it mildly.

So where do we check to find out where the truth lies, if the truth can lie at all (to borrow a line from Harry Shearer)?

The NOAA spaghetti factory, which I have annotated for you below:

Outstanding forecast reliability is indicated in the Pacific, off Asia, but who cares?

Sadly, only mediocre reliability indicated here in the Great SW USA, as shown in the wanderings of the blue lines.

But will a trough be close to us?

Pretty much count on that because so many blue lines feint to the south in interior of the western US. I think we’ll surpass the Canadians this time…

There’s still a chance of rain on the 9-10th, but its pretty slim. Having cold air invade us, to varying degrees is pretty much guaranteed even if sans rain because that nearby trough will drag cooler air this way as it goes by.

Its the AMPLITUDE that matters here, and in our USA model, that is not so well known. In fact, the blue lines, with so many of them north of us are telling us that the actual forecast map from last night’s global data is an outlier model run; can’t count on it. It will likely come and go on the future model runs.

Enough!

The End.

Nice day, OK clouds

Here they are, left column:

The weather ahead

A huge buckle in the jet stream is forecast to form right off the West Coast in about a week, and its a pretty spectacular interruption in the pattern of a jet stream whizzing by far to the north of us that we have had now for sometime. Below is an example of ‘now” in the jet stream winds, and below that, a forecast panel (from IPS Meteostar) showing this striking change a week from now. There’s a big (“high amplitude”) trough in the eastern Pacific, a high amplitude ridge (hump in the jet stream toward the Pole) in the West and another big trough in the East.

Patterns like this are usually associated with extremes in temperatures; warmth in the West; cold in the East. It is certain when this pattern materializes in about a week, some high temperature records will fall somewhere in the West and some low temperature records will fall in the East. In the West, warm air is drawn far northward, aided by low pressure centers spinning around in the eastern Pacific, while in the East, cold air zooms down with high pressure centers from northern Canada.

Why bother talking about a forecast a week in advance?

Because it has a lot of “credibility” in our ensemble (spaghetti) plots. Here is last night’s “ensembles of spaghetti” plot produced by NOAA for one week in advance. Look below at these “ensemble members” the different blue lines, ones that are loaded with slight errors at the beginning of the model run, to see how strong the forecast a week ahead is.

Those bunched blue lines in the eastern Pacific (see arrow) inspired this whole spiel about the coming change because its a nice example of when the plots show something reliable in the way of a longer term forecast, and in this case, a forecast that also shows a big change in the weather patterns over thousands and thousands of miles, from eastern Pacific to the western Atlantic.

If you’re looking around this whole plot, you’ll see the lines are also very bunched in the extreme western Pacific and westward across Asia. Those blue lines are always bunched over there because there is little variance in the flow in that region; its locked into a pattern by the geography, unlike in the central and eastern Pacific and into the US where the jet stream is MUCH more variable. A simile: imagine a fire hose turned on at the hydrant, the part of the hose at the hydrant stays in place while the end of the hose flops wildly around. Its something like that; western Pacific to eastern Pacific.

Our weather?

Well, after all that gibberish, not much change will occur here; its everywhere but here! Seems we’re doomed to another dry seven to 10 days ahead with occasional periods of high clouds and great sunsets as weak disturbances from the sub-tropics pass by, ones that can only produce Cirrus clouds.

Model rain evaporating

Whining here a bit….

These are sad times when you can’t find a model run with at least some AZ rain in it. The last two USA model runs, compiled from global data taken at 00 Z (5 PM AST) and 06 Z (11 PM AST) don’t have ANY rain in Arizona. Prior two runs did, ones that came out during the day yesterday.

The rains in yesterday’s model outputs were late in the month and into early December. I exulted all day yesterday because the “ensembles of spaghetti” were strongly suggesting those rains were associated with “outlier” model runs, more extreme ones that couldn’t be counted on.

But, those rains kept reappearing. I unilaterally decided, i.e., had a “hunch”, that the “ensembles” themselves were, in a sense, “outliers”, lying about no rain in AZ. They were missing something.

Looks like I’ll get burned on that “hunch”, as would be expected by an objective scientist. Now I will talk about something else…

Maybe the costly and more accurate Euro model, which could save thousands of lives by being free and warning poor people of big storms and winter cold way in advance, has rain here in it here, but I am too poor to afford to look at it. The Canadian Environment Canada model¹, built on the Euro one, only goes out to 144 hours, not the 5000 hours ahead that we seem to need to see a rain predicted in Arizona someday.

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BTW, as an example of that Euro model’s non-availability, if you go to the University of Washington’s model outputs web page, you will see the daunting words for the Euro-UK MET model, “restricted.” The letters are in RED to make sure you know you can’t get it. Don’t hit the latest run link to the right, you will be asked to enter your ID and password, and because you don’t have one, you are punished by not being able to go back to where you started. Rather, you end up in an endless loop asking for your password and ID to make sure you don’t come back again and mess around thinking you might “get in.” You will have to close your browser. If you have a password and ID, then post that model somewhere, oh, man, you are in for fines and, who knows, maybe some jail time.

Its a sad forecasting world out there.

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Here are the sad (lotta “sad” today) conflicting rain/no rain model outputs for the SAME time and day, the first panel from yesterday morning when I was happy, and the second panel below, from the very latest run:

0001WR — Rainy AZ prediction for November 28th based on yesterday’s (11-19) 5 AM AST global data. See green pixelation in Arizona; that’s model predicted rain. Was happy to see this late yesterday morning.

0001SU — 18 h later, the model run from last night’s data at 11 PM AST also valid for November 28th. Look at that huge dry region in the whole West that has replaced a substantial storm! Unbelievable. There a friggin’ high pressure center almost exactly where there was a big low pressure center! We call this, “Forecasting hell.”

Today….

On to happier things, should have some gorgeous clouds and skies today as a tropical system skirts SE AZ. Virga likely. Keep cameras ready for a great sunset.

The End.

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Why would they name their organisation, “Environment Canada” when you already have to go to a Canadian site to look at it?

Future weather has a lot of AZ rain, but its more uncertain using US models

Here’s is the latest model run from our USA WRF-GFS (aka, “goofus”, as the Europeans might call it, looking down their noses at our inferior weather predicting model compared with their “ECMWF” model as described (here) in the November 9th issue of Science.

It was an upsetting read, BTW. Seems the Euros use bigger, faster computers than we do, ones that they were able to afford by charging a lot of money to see the results. Very bad.

In case you want the meat of that Science article: “From the BEGINNING (this writer’s emphasis) ECMWF has been the world champ in medium range forecasting. Today ECMWF forecasts remain useful into the next week, out to 8.5 days. That leaves the rest of the forecasting world, inculding the U. S. National Weather Service with its less powerful computer, in the dust by a day or more.”

What have our guys (includes women) been doing all these years? (Just kidding, maybe.)

OK, onward with what we have to work with…..

This WRF-GFS run is just from last nights 11 PM global data crunch, the VERY latest as of this writing. I picked it out from earlier runs to show because this run latest has a lot of rain in Arizona. Namely, it was a subjective call to display a few snapshots from it. Displaying the results of this run has nothing to do with scientific objectivity. Enjoy; it might not be real rain that falls to the ground, only real in the model’s calculations. Still, its great to see and think about.

Instead of showing the full size of these model outputs as I normally would do, I thought I would size them in proportion to their credibility based on the Science article. We can’t see the better ECMWF-British model results unless we pay a lot of money, so this will have to do. Unless you click on these below, you’ll have to use a microscope…

0001xz — Valid for November 29th, 11 PM AST, only 264 hours away!

0001MY — Valid for 11 AM AST, November 30th, 12 h later

0001QK — Valid for 11 PM AST, November 30th–off and on rains now for TWENTY-FOUR hours!

0001yK — Valid for 11 AM AST, December 1st. Still raining around here.

0001LI — Valid for 11 PM AST, December 1st. Rain still falling in the 12 h ending at this time.

So, once again, our late November-early December storm has returned to the model fold. Its been coming and going. For example, the 5 PM AST global model run had NO RAIN in AZ, so I didn’t want to show those results.

But just ahead….this

In the nearer future….. Seems the Environment Canada computer model, built around the SUPERIOR ECMWF model, has rain here in about 48 h from now resulting from a tiny, weak low that ejects from the deep tropics right over us. Cool, though the air itself would be warmer and more moist than we usually see at this time of year in a rain situation (higher dewpoints). Must regard this as a serious rain threat now. Here’s a snapshot of that rain day from Enviro Can (see lower right panel for 12 h rain totals and areas covered–would fallen overnight tomorrow night into Wednesday morning. The whole better than the US model runs is here.

Yesterday’s clouds

Another fabulous early winter day in Arizona. Out of state license plates picking up in number. Can’t blame ’em. Here’s a sample of yesterday’s skies and another great sunset:

Next rain in 9-10 days?

The NCEP model, using last evening’s global data, produced some green pixelation in Arizona (light rain areas are green in the model run output) for Monday night into Tuesday, November 19th-20th. However, look below at the NOAA ensemble of spaghetti plot for that day. I don’t see any rain here. Do you?

Cloud-maven juniors would be so scoffing at the thought of rain in Arizona in a computer prediction that is associated with a spaghetti plot like this for that same day! For confidence in rain that far ahead here in Catalinaland, we would need a plot that shows something like you see over Japan (upper left); the lines all squeezed together. But you don’t see them here, do you? They’re a mess, indicating the model is generally clueless about what will happen here in 9-10 days. So, while it could still happen, it has to be considered a very long shot.

MOnday Nov 20 spag_f216_nhbg — Forecast map for Monday, 5 PM AST.

Here’s the WRF-GFS model output, rendered by IPS Meteostar that shows rain in AZ, a model run in that had this green pixelation (areas where rain is forecast to fall in the preceding 12 h) for overnight Monday into Tuesday morning, the 19th-20th. Nice, but wrong. The entire model run, is rendered here in case you think I am lying about this.

I’ve added an arrow to help locate Arizona for you.

So, in view of the ensemble of spaghetti, can’t count on green pixelation remaining in Arizona in future model runs. Not starting out as a good day today.

Yesterday’s clouds and skies overall, how nice.

First, the “stratiform” clouds that were still “sprinkling-its not drizzle” as daybreak came. Then the blue skies dotted with Cu.