Category Archives: The week in rain

Altocumulus clouds, Cumulonimbus clouds, Cumulus clouds, Definitions, Summer desert vegetation, The moon, The weather ahead, The week in rain

Seeing cloud tops over Prescott from Catalina; Douglas tops 16 inches in summer rain

Here they are:

2:53 PM. Cumulonimbus tops with their anvils line horizon northwest to north. The ones that begin this series on the left are in the Prescott area. See radar chart below.
2:53 PM. Cumulonimbus tops with their anvils line horizon northwest to north. The ones that begin this series on the left are in the Prescott area. See radar chart below.  Cumulus fractus clouds are in the foreground.
ann prc-1
2:45 PM AST. Arizona radar echoes yesterday at the time of the photo. Note little green patch SW of Prescott, maybe Peoples Valley area. Radar courtesy of WSI Intellicast. That would be the leftmost tops.
6:41 PM. Nice sunset with "surprise" Cumulonimbus located NW of Sells. Nice little virga patch hanging down from some Altocumulus next to it.

6:41 PM. Nice sunset with “surprise” rogue Cumulonimbus located NW of Sells. Nice little virga patch hanging down from some Altocumulus next to it.  Did not expect a Cb in that direction at the end of the day.  Bodes well for today; having Cbs that are a little closer to us.
6:46 PM. Totally clear skies, moon intact, S-SW, though. Stratified smog layer is at bottom. Smog was much less yesterday than feared it would be after the afternoon invasion of the day before.
6:46 PM. The sky was completely clear, however, moon intact,  S-SW.  Note stratified smog layer at the bottom.

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Our desert greening seems to be reaching its peak now, and so it would be nice for you to get out and see it before football day on Saturday and it could start to wilt that bit under our drier conditions.  Just after sunrise, and just before sunset, there is some great lighting on our weedy summer desert vegetation.SONY DSC

SONY DSC

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The weather ahead….

Canadians1 think the tropical air will hang around SE Arizona for a few more days, with the chances of rain actually increasing that bit on Saturday.  The US WRF-GFS model is not quite so generous with precip here, so we will ignore that one.  But, in any event, we should have pretty Cumulus, and distant Cumulonimbus clouds for a few more days before The End,  after which we have to wait for a hurricane/tropical storm to roar up the coast of Baja and across Yuma to get any real rain.

In the meantime, I am wondering whether you have taken that trip I suggested to SE Arizona to see the  vegetation explosion resulting from this summer’s extraordinary rains they’ve gotten down there? Douglas, for example, has just crossed over the 16 inches mark for this summer a couple of days ago, the wettest summer of the past 100 years down that way.  The summer desert vegetation down there must be extraordinary, too, and it would really be worth seeing.  I will get down there for sure!

It has continued to rain extraordinary amounts of rain in western Arizona.  Here is a depiction of just the past seven days ending yesterday morning (today’s image is not out yet).  Its a great sight, considering our “extreme” and “exceptional” drought designations over that way.

Seven day radar-derived precipitation totals for the US ending yesterday at 5 AM AST. Just look at how Arizona overall has fared during this period. Amazing. Should make a good dent in our drought conditions.
Seven day radar-derived precipitation totals for the US ending yesterday at 5 AM AST. Just look at how Arizona overall has fared during this period. Amazing. Should make a good dent in our drought conditions. And the generous rains in droughty NM are foretold to continue, good news indeed.  (BTW, the excessive precip around Salt Lake City is bogus, due to an error.)  There are holes in mountainous areas due to blocked radar beams, so this map under represents the rain that actually occurred.  Need more radars!

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1The writer exhibits bias here due to his precipophilic personality combined with having most of his relatives living in Canada.  Also, the cruder Canadian model with its larger grid sizes tends to smooth out precip over larger areas than the US WRF-GFS model shown here.

Altocumulus clouds, Cumulonimbus clouds, Cumulus clouds, Definitions, Stratocumulus clouds, The week in rain

Zzzzzzzz, zzzzzzz….reprise of a soporific summer day

Though the the castellanus twins dropped by yesterday:

10:24 AM. After a hazy start, this pair showed up, two perfect examples of Altocumulus castellanus, side by side. Have never see this before.
10:24 AM. After a hazy start, this pair showed up;  two perfect examples of Altocumulus castellanus, side by side. Have never see this before. Castellanus indicate a layer of the atmosphere where the temperature declines more rapidly than in other moist layers, allowing little baby turrets to extrude from the base that bit.  Sometimes, though, they can reach high enough and get large enough to have virga.  But not yesterday.  You definitely should not have logged any virga from these clouds.

Altocumulus castellanus, that is.  Suggests atmo in this layer ripe for convection, but unless there’s some humidity below these clouds, it can be kind of an old saw that doesn’t work out a lot of times, unless they themselves get overly enthusiastic and begin to shower and thunder.  It happens.

While yesterday had these interesting clouds, and a couple of distant Cumulonimbus tops, the only real excitement was this dumpster NW of us shown below.  Did any one drive over there to get under it and measure the rain it put out?  I would dole out some extra credit if you did.  Otherwise, we’re going to have to rely on radar to estimate how much came down over there.

1:50 PM. Surprisingly dense rain shaft off the NW from a rogue Cumulonimbus. Nothing much else really all afternoon. Boring! Remember how we used to yell, BORING!!!!" in that movie when that guy was talking? You don't find people/whole audiences yelling at the movie screen anymore because something is going on they don't like and feel motivated to comment on. People are more reserved now days.
1:50 PM. Surprisingly dense rain shaft to the NW from a rogue Cumulonimbus. Nothing much else really all afternoon. Boring! Remember how we used to yell, BORING!!!!” in that movie when that guy was talking1? You don’t find people/whole audiences yelling at the movie screen anymore because something is going on they don’t like and feel motivated to erupt with a comment. People are more reserved now days and hold in feelings at movies, probably not the best thing.
4:46 PM. The Lemmon cloud factory was on strike most of the day, and here, that dark blue sky made you think of college football.
4:46 PM. The Lemmon cloud factory was “on strike” most of the day, and here, that dark blue sky made you think of college football.
6:15 PM. Evening clump of Stratocumulus trails a little snow from its bottom. Lately we've had "blooms" energized convection, growth of Cumulus, but yesterday was, well, BORING!!!!!
6:15 PM. Evening clump of Stratocumulus trails a little snow from its bottom. Lately we’ve had “blooms” energized convection, growth of Cumulus, but yesterday was, well, BORING!!!!!  Nice little flourish of Cirrus, though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The week in rain

Since most of Arizona is unpopulated, and  even when there are people, not everyone reports rain, so we have to rely on radar-derived rainfall amounts to “fill in the blanks”  Are you a “blank”?  Think about it.  Now looking back at this past 7-days, ending yesterday, and using radar for any sense of what happened all over the State here’s what we get, from WSI Intellicast.  We had an amazing 7 days of rainfall, rains that did so much to dent the NW AZ drought with many inches of rain.  Need more, of course, but here it is:

Radar-derived rainfall for the week ending August 27th, 2013.
Radar-derived rainfall for the week ending August 27th, 2013.  Look at those 4-8 inch totals W of Prescott!  And indications of over 8 inches a tad west of Needles!

The weather ahead

U of WA mod, and his one,  crunching last afternoon’s global data, have the size of clouds picking up today and over the next couple of days.  Yay.  Need more rain.

The End.

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1Furthermore, it was supposed to be a horror movie, and instead it had SINGING! Unbelievable. No wonder people were upset when they saw it!