Litterfolk continue to prefer Bud Light cans and bottles over craft beers. While its interesting to make these surveys, CMP reminds readers, “Litter responsibly; in a receptacle.”
The trash you see here was collected during a single trip to the Sutherland Wash and back.
The Sutherland Wash Flow Report
A little water has resumed flowing in the Sutherland Wash hereabouts due to our recent rain:
The Sutherland Wash yesterday near the Baby Jesus Trail Head. Dog head also included.
The Cottonwoods Blowdown Report
The wind damage below was confined to an area only about 100 yards wide, and at the bottom of a small canyon leading down from Samaniego Ridge. Once suspects that a narrow microburst, some supergust, hit just in here as a rivulet of air collapsed down from the east-northeast after having gone over the mountains. It was likely further funneled by that little canyon and blasted these poor trees.
Note shoe size in lower left of photo.
Yesterday’s clouds report
Cumulus got off to an early start, a line of Cumulonimbus to the north providing a hint of what was to come when the sun came out.
7:06 AM. Cumulonimbus line the northern horizon.7:07 AM. An interesting set of very narrow shadows appeared briefly. The darker one might have been due to a young contrail. They seem too narrow to have been caused by cloud turrets.10:34 AM. Cumulus congestus clouds arose early and often on the Catalinas, becoming Cumulonimbus clouds later in the afternoon.12:07 PM. Some Cumulus congestus clouds sported the rarely seen “pileus” cap, suggesting stronger than usual updrafts pushing moist air above the top upward slightly, just enough to form a sliver of cloud.12:07 PM.12:54 PM. Before long, 47 minutes actually, big complexes of Cumulonimbus capillatus had formed to the north, and distant SW of Catalina.1:47 PM. While pretty, but this expansive Cumulonimbus capillatus incus (has an anvil), pointed to a potential rain-inhibiting problem: perhaps the exuberant convection would lead to an over-anvilated sky? Yes, it became a concern, I’m sure to all of us. Cumulus cloud killing anvilation.3:54 PM. While lightning forked in distant rainshafts, over-anvilation pretty much terminated any chance of rain in Catalina due to Cumulus buildups. The anvil debris clouds are termed, “Altostratus opacus cumulonimbogenitus.” Only clashing winds due to outflows from showers could possibly force rain now.4:43 PM. Clashing shower winds (SW in Catalina, NE towards Oracle) did produce a large final shower in the area. That lower cloud on the left side marks the area above and a little behind outflowing NE winds. Sadly, that wind push from the NE, one that could have launched a big shower here, fizzled out.
The weather ahead and WAY ahead report
More pretty Cumulus clouds today, likely some will reach Cumulonimbus stage (develop ice) and shower here and there. Flow will be off the Cat Mountains and so we here in Catalinaland are a little more elgible for a shower building on those mountains and drifting this way.
WAY ahead?
The models continue to occasionally produce a very heavy rainstorm in southern AZ on or about April Fool’s Day, once again appearing yesterday on the 18 Z (11 AM AST) run. See below, a really pretty astounding prediction again. This system comes from deep in the Tropics, so deep you wonder if it might have some hair from a giant Galapagos tortoise with it. It comes and goes in the models, but there is continuing modest support for a low latitude trough to affect Arizona in the “ensemble” outputs, or “spaghetti” plots.
The End
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1“The Cottonwoods” is a local name given to a portion of the Sutherland Wash next to the Baby Jesus Trail Head. It appears on most trail maps, and is a popular spot for underage drinking parties on weekends.
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.
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1Hahah-these are just a couple of the grammatical gaffes I actually know I’ve done!
The sky was packed with tropical Cumulus congestus and a few Cumulonimbus clouds in the distance at dawn yesterday, an unusual sight for Catlanders. A few of those Cu around the Catalina/Saddlebrooke/Oro Valley area grew overhead into “soft-serve” Cumulonimbus clouds with heavy, tropical-feeling showers you could hike in with great comfort; no lightning/thunder observed.
Up to an inch likely fell out of the core of the largest ones yesterday morning, but only .09 inches was recorded here in the Sutherland Heights. The Golder Ranch Drive bridge at Lago del Oro got 0.28 inches, Horseshoe Bend in Saddlebrooke near one core got 0.71 inches, Oracle, a half inch. Due to the exceptionally warm cloud bases, about 60 F again, warm-rain processes were certainly involved with those showers, though glaciated tops were usually seen, too. In warm base situations, they can act together.
Now here’s something interesting of me to pass along to you, something you might want to pass along to your friends when the opportunity arises: ice doesn’t seem to make much difference in the rainfall rates of true tropical clouds in pristine areas, only a little “juicier” than the ones that we had yesterday. Early radar studies in the 1960s1 indicated that the rainrates of tropical clouds peak out BEFORE the cloud tops reached much below freezing, a finding that has been confirmed in some aircraft studies of rainrates in tropical clouds2. Icy tops going to 30 thousand or more really didn’t do much but add fluff. All that really heavy rain that developed before the cloud tops reached the freezing level was just due to collisions with coalescence (AKA here, but nowhere else because its too silly, as “coalision.”) So, “coalision” can be an extremely powerful and efficient way to get the water out of clouds and onto the ground!
Scattered storms beautified the sky the whole day in the area. More are expected today, as you likely know. Have camera ready! Hope you get shafted!
Cool snap, maybe with rain, virtually guaranteed now for about the 26th-27th. Should make a good dent in the fly season, if you got horses and have been battling them all summer you’ll really welcome this.
Your Cloud Diary for September 19, 2014.
We start with an early morning vignette, down there somewhere:
6:32 AM. Overcast Stratocumulus (likely with bulging tops) and the distant top of a Cumulonimbus, that bright sliver, lower right. 6:33 AM. Cumulonimbus top NW of Catalina, an usual sight since it had arisen from such low based clouds in the “boundary layer”. Usually this only happens due to heating by the sun later in the morning or in the afternoon, of course.
Vignette: When this cloud bank above Sutherland Heights (shown above) darkened up, looked more organized, and with Cumulonimbus tops visible and showers already nearby, I made the not-so-surprising comment to two hikers about to leave on their hike hour long hike, “Watch out for these clouds overhead!”
They got shafted, see photo below; came back soaked, their dogs, too.
But, I had done my best. True, it was early morning, and after all, those hikers were likely thinking, “it doesn’t rain much here in Catalina in the early morning” (unless its FOUR inches like two weeks ago).
7:30 AM. Heavy rain falls S of Sutherland Heights, on hikers who had been warned about a dump; produced a warm feeling.
8:14 AM. Those showers moved off into the Catalina Mountains and the early morning sun provided a spectacular scene. (From the “Not-Taken While-Driving” Collection, though certain attributes here suggest that someone just pointed a camera in any old way and got this shot. Pretty clever to make it look that way, kind of adds an “action: attribute to the shot.
Cloud of the Day:
1:47 PM. I meet a friend, southbound, on Equestrian Trail. I advise her that if she drives under this cloud, she will get dumped on. She continues on. There is no outward sign of ice, and no shaft, however.
1:49 PM. Thunder begins to grumble repeatedly from this cloud only two minutes later! The conversion from a droplet top to an ice (glaciated) one is clearly in progress. My friend has disappeared over the horizon, which isn’t that far in only two minutes.
1:58 PM. Kaboom! I was actually a little late getting the fallout to the ground. Will have to look at the video to see the shaft plummet down. Produced a nice little haboobula, too, on the left side, where the shaft is densest. I wondered if my friend had gotten “shafted”, as we say here when folks are under the rain shaft.
2:57 PM. An isolated Cu congestus thrusts three turrets out. Who will it turn out to be?2:53 PM. Stable layer halts growth of the two outer turrets and they begin to flatten, but caulifower top in the middle shows that further growth will occur. Will those wings develop ice? Beginning to look like a rocking horse, I see…Look! Its Snoopy with wings! (Ice seen on the right, also on the left, but less obvious).4:31 PM. Pile of Cumulus congestus clouds weighs down the Catalina Mountains again as they did the previous evening. Had to pull off the road this time, jump out car to get this grand scene, well, to me anyway. Hungry passengers a little annoyed at the pre-dinner delay. You know, had to complain a little.6:18 PM. Another sunset reason why we live here and love it so much.6:20 PM. Late storms continue on The Rim, toward Globe
The End, enjoy our last couple days, it would seem, of our summer thunderstorm season. Oh, me.
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1Saunders, R. M., 1965; J. Atmos. Sci.
2Cloud Maven Person with Hobbs, 2005, Quart; J. Roy. Met, Soc.
Against the deepening blue skies over us as the sun continues its descent to overhead of the Equator, coming right up (September 22nd, AZ time), our late summer Cumulus and thunderheads become even more spectacular. You can see the whole cloud day here, courtesy of the University of Arizona, if you would like to avoid the tedium of examining photos and captions by yours truly.
I got very excited about a small thunderstorm that took shape almost overhead of Sutherland Heights, and you know what that means. Yes, too many photos of almost the same thing! See below. Captured it, too, BEFORE it even started to rain, or even thought about it. Produced a large number of cloud-to-ground strikes in the vicinity, too, more that you would expect from such a small storm. Also, if you could see them, you saw repeated split strikes, ones in the core of the rain, and at the same time a branch in clear air to the north, a mile or two quite a ways from the rain shaft. I had not seen that before happen over and over again. Samaniego Peak reported the only rain, 0.28 inches, in the ALERT Catalina Mountain gauges, like twice that in the core of the shaft.
Then, of course, we had a lot of LTG in the early evening and nighttime hours to the NE-S-SW as storms marched across Tucson, Marana and Oro Valley. Missed us, though. A place in Avra Valley got an inch.
That’s pretty much it for your cloud and weather day yesterday. Farther below, the details….
Mods see nothing for a couple of days, until Monday, when the moisture from now Hurricane Odile begins to work its way into AZ.
Yesterday’s clouds
10:30 AM. After a completely clear morning, Cu began to pop up around 9:30 AM. This size by 10:30 AM gave hope that the day would have full Cumulonimbus clouds later on.
3:26 PM. Just a pretty scene. Note the contrast between the blue sky and the white glaciated top of this Cumulonimbus calvus. Note too, that there is only a faint rain shaft underneath (behind ridge top, that smoother area).
3:48 PM. Here’s where you and me saw a lot of rain promise in this developing cloud base on our nearby mountains. Almost every cloud that had this much base or a bit more, eventually rained. Maybe it would explode into something really big with powerful winds! Well, “really big” didn’t happen, but it did do its job with nice, but small rain shaft a little later.
4:01 PM. Excitement builds as base grows a little wider; rain excitement is now guaranteed. I can only imagine what you were thinking when you saw this, and how happy you were since it could lead to a nice rain on you. LTG and wind, just ahead.
4:05 PM. Bottom beginning to drop out now!
4:06 PM. Graupel and/or large drop strand (center) just began to appear (look hard). This was taken just after the first cloud-to-ground strike near Samaniego Peak (center).
4:11 PM. The gush reaches the ground amid frequent split cloud-to-ground LTG strikes, ones near or in the core, and repeated strikes a mile or two to the right in clear air.
4:17 PM. Our little rain shaft offered up a lot of wind, probably in the neighborhood of 50 mph, judging by the spread of the rain “plume” on the ground to the right. Some drops and gusty winds of 20-30 mph reached Sutherland Heights soon after this, making for an especially pleasant evening outside.
5:42 PM. An isolated thunderstorm, rumbling to the west of the Tortolitas yesterday evening , offered up this dramatic shadow scene.Its remnant providing a sunset highlight.
5:48 PM. Trying its best to rain.
6:37 PM. The remains of the thunderstorm shown in the photo above provided a nice sunset highlight as they so often do.
Today will be a special one in the desert. Cumulus bases are going to be really LOW for summer, maybe only 3-4 kft above the ground, and likely warmer than 15 C (50 F). Maybe 50 F doesn’t sound special, but it is. A base temperature of summer clouds that warm is rarely observed here. And with that, and all the posts here about the temperatures that ice forms (around -10 C, 14 F) are out the window. Ice will form at much higher temperatures than usual.
This is because on a day when the Cumulus bases are that warm, rain forms by collisions between droplets before clouds even reach the -5 C (23 F) level, the highest temperature at which Ma Nature can produce ice. Rain mgiht even form in our clouds today even before the freezing level itself!
This is so exciting for an Arizonan who has studied ice-in-clouds development over the years because today ice will form in clouds around the -5 to -10 C level, and the mechanism of Mssrs Hallett and Mossop will be heavily involved as well as other lesser understood mechanisms to form ice in clouds today. And, along with that high ice-forming temperature will be categories of ice crystals that are rarely seen here, needles and hollow sheaths, ones that form at temperatures in clouds warmer than -10 C! You can see how excited Mr. Cloud Maven Person is. For comparison, it would be like a bird watcher seeing a _________, something pretty rare go by.
Dewpoint temperatures are running in the upper 60s and was 70 F (!) at TUS earlier this morning! Indicative of a really, really moist day from a cloud standpoint even now is that line of Stratus fractus cloud halfway down on Samaniego (Sam) Ridge. And this is BEFORE rain has fallen. Not too unusual to see something like that AFTER a good rain, but before, its pretty rare.
All in all, a very tropical day ahead, very “Floridian” I would call it, and that means more water in the clouds above us ready to fall out, and more “fuel” to send those warm plumes of Cumulus turrets spaceward. That’s because heat is released to the air around cloud droplets as then form, and the more “condensate” the more heat. The warmer the cloud bases, the more condensate that occurs. Its quite a feedback loop.
The last time we had bases this warm and low, some “lucky” areas got “Floridian” dumps of rain, that is, 3 inches in an hour. (Three inches in an hour is pretty common in Florida in the summer.)
However, need some heating and/or a good symoptic situation to gather up the clouds today if we are to get more than just high humidity from Norbert’s remains. Last night’s model run from the U of AZ was not real supportive of a great day because while the humidity is here, and upper level situation is going in the wrong direction, is not going to help much. A lot of what we needed was expended over night in huge storms that are raking central and northern AZ now, with some sites in PHX reporting up to 2 inches since midnight! And as that upper air configuration responsible for their great rains moves away, what’s right behind it up there, will try to squash clouds.
So, while we have the ingredients down low for an exceptional rain day, its not in the bag. What’s worse is that drier air is now foretold to roll in from the west by tomorrow, further diminishing (not eliminating, though) the chances for a decent rain here in Catalina. “Egad”, considering all the promise that “Norbert” once held for us!
So, in sum, a bit clueless here as to what exactly kind of day we’re going to have. “Truth-in-packaging” portion of blog. I see rain has formed just now (6:41 AM) on Samaniego Ridge, AND to the S-SW, very good sign!
—a note on air quality—as inferred from visibility in a humid situation——–
Another thing you will notice is how clean the air is. We have tremendous humidity, and unlike smog-filled air back east, the sky will be blue, and the visibility good. If you’ve ever been back East, you’ll know that in most areas the sky between the clouds on humid days is pretty white, and horizontal visibility is reduced in the moist air, say ahead of a cold-cool front in summer. This is due to large haze particles that have become droplets before water saturation has been reached, a phenomenon called deliquescence. Its horrible. Really ruins the sky back there on humid days.
Enough semi-technical blather. We’re mostly about pretty cloud pictures here.
Yesterday’s clouds
There were some spectacular scenes yesterday, even though it was disappointing as a rain day, only a late afternoon trace here in Sutherland Heights. Here are some of the best.
6:34 AM. Altocumulus lenticularis hovers over and a little downwind of the Catalinas.10:03 AM. First Cumulus begin to form on the Catalinas, later than expected. I will using the words, “expected” and “unexpected” a lot today.1:21 PM. First ice seen, lower left top of blue sky and cloud border. Can you see it?1:24 PM. Soon after the first ice is seen, out pops the rain, that very faint haze in the center of the photo.2:12 PM. Mt Lemmon receiving 0.79 inches of rain in about an hour from this little guy. Note that the peak is TOTALLY obscured by this rain shaft.12:24 PM. Cumulus clouds kind of muddled around up there when yours truly was expecting a sudden eruption at any time. Really did not happen yesterday.12:26 PM. Mostly just a pretty scene, the blue sky, the Altocumulus perlucidus, and the Cumulus congestus erectus.4:17 PM. It was especially gratifying, after kind of a non event day, to have this unexpected late eruption of a Cumulonimbus NW of Catalina. Meant chances weren’t quite over for nearby developments.5:03 PM. Cumulus cloud street trails off the Catalinas. Will it do anything?5:21 PM. The ragged edge of the higher layer leads to a series of crepescular rays in the falling rain, while the Cu congestus turret sends a long shadow Catalinaward, A gap in the clouds allows the sun to shine on the rain falling in Oro Valley then. Can you imagine how great the rainbow was on the other side, say from the Tortolita Mountains? The rainbow isn’t seen in the forward scattering direction because its due to reflected light back toward the sun from within the raindrops.5:22 PM. Nice lighting on Samaniego Ridge, rainbow imminent,5:24 PM. Magnificent, the lighting, the rainbow. How lucky we are to be here!6:56 PM. Just when you thought the day was finished, this surprise. Well, it was to me, that’s for sure!
6:58 PM. Ghostly-like late blooming Cumulonimbus calvus and Cumulus congestus clouds rise up against the falling temperatures. Pretty neat sight.[/caption]
6:58 PM. More unexpected strong developments to the west after sunset.
The End!
Heck, if I worked on this much longer, the answer to what’s going to happen today would be in!
Thank you, second burst of rain after about 8:15 PM. And what a great total on The Lemmon! Fantastic, unless some roads were washed out. 1.93 inches fell in only an hour up there. 1.85 inches fell in an hour at White Tail over there by the highway.
Catalina Area 1010 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.28 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.28 Oracle Ranger Stati approximately 0.5 mi SW of Oracle 1040 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.43 Dodge Tank Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.43 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 mi W of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.55 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 mi NE of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.87 Cargodera Canyon NE corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.24 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash NE of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.51 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Rd
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.75 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 mi N of Rice Peak 1090 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 3.07 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.63 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 mi S of Coronado Camp 1130 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.69 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.94 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 2.72 White Tail Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.59 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.18 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Marshall Gulch
Looks like scattered showers today; a typical sequence after something major happens, like last night, is for the atmosphere to compensate with some drier air. So, today should be GORGEOUS in Cumulus clouds that pile up here and there on the mountains, but don’t expect to get shafted unless you’re real lucky. Wider spread rains expected tomorrow….
Yesterday’s clouds, if you care
Of course, you can the whole day in a hurry here, courtesy of the U of Arizona Wildcats Weather Department, in case you’d like to avoid all the cloud blather below….
6:20 AM. I/m calling this Altocumulus. Don’t see any ice falling out here, but some did off to the SW. Being an all water droplet cloud, I hope you were telling anyone that you were with, that, “Hell, this layer will burn off fast” since you know that water droplet clouds are more vulnerable to evaporating in sunlight than ice clouds like Altostratus, or Cirrus. And when this layer burns off fast, the Cumulus will arise in a hurry. Its great that you might have said that.9:13 AM. That layer is mostly gone, and there come the Cu!1:03 PM. The inevitable Cumulonimbus capillatus incus has arisen over there by Kitt Peak. But this photo is special for you because if you look closely, as I know you will, there is also a big dust devil near the Tucson Mountains (center of photo). I’ve noticed a LOT of dust devils form in nearly that same spot where this one is. Must be exciting to live down there!1:30 PM. Another daily benchmark, “First Ice” on the Catalinas. The ragged turret remains on the left have some ice underneath them if you look closely again, as I know you probably will. If you had an aircraft with cloud physics instrumentation and you were looking for the amount ice that formed in those ragged turrets, ones that once looked like the one in the center, nice and puffy, you would best fly toward the bottom of the rags, not at the top since as the droplets in the cloud shrink due to evaporation, the ice-forming stops. Thus sometimes the coldest part of the cloud in those rags has the fewest ice crystals, and more are found lower down, ones that formed by the freezing of those once larger drops, as would be starting to take place in the puffy parts.3:56 PM. The rarely seen pileus cap which I seem to photograph everyday on a Catalina mountain Cumulus congestus cloud top. Very pretty, and SO DELICATE! Things had kind of stagnated as far as Cumulus development went at this point over the Catalinas. Lots of small Cbs, but nothing really shot up, as it was beginning to do to the southwest and west.4:15 PM. Another rarely seen pileus top on a Cumulus congestus converting into a Cumulonimbus calvus; ice in a fading, glaciated turret is visible on the left (that smooth portion). Still, these tops ain’t much in height.5:57 PM. Now the big boys to the SW are approaching with huge “plumes” of Altostratus cumulonimbogenitus–you knew that, though in fading versions it appeared. Note dust plume on the right obscuring part of the Tortolita Mountains. And with their approach, and with the dust plume over there, you could easily figure that the wind was gonna blow pretty hard.6:00 PM. Only four minutes later, the dust was moving in and the wind was blowing from the SW at 25 to 35 mph. When the wind starts up, look up! That wind will be pushing the air over you up, and often existing darken as their tops rise, or new clouds form. Here, and in the next shot, that SW wind is pushing the air up on the slopes of the Catalina Mountains. Was hoping to see the strands start to fall from these bases near us, maybe feel some “rain plops” as we call them, those giant drops first out the bottom, but that didn’t happen here, but over there on Ms. Lemmon and Samaniego Ridge after that. Oh, well.6:06 PM. Another example of the clouds that piled up on the Catalinas as that SW wind was blowing. Wasn’t long after this that Ms. Lemmon was obscured in rain.
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
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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.
6:22 AM. Ridin’ tall on “Jake” yesterday morning with riding pal, Nora B, on “Dreamer.” It was a pretty dusty ride1 due to all the dust in the air, to be redundant. We set out around dawn. It was a ride amid the sad summer grasses and weeds we now have due to the “furnace” weather of late. Can they come back with a some decent rains? Hope so.
Now for some clouds, ones that spurted up awful fast yesterday. Movie here; still shots chronicling your cloud day below:
8:42 AM. First cloud shred forms over Ms. Mt. Lemmon. This early shred is a good sign for large buildups to develop early in the day.
10:06 AM. The vertical rise of this small cloud is another good sign that the atmosphere is “cocked” so to speak, to produce large storms. Got pretty excited and hopeful seeing this tower shoot up from The Lemmon.
11:04 AM. The top of this Cumulus congestus overhang began to show ice about this time and a few drops fell out here.
11:34 AM. First cloud to ground strike just about the time of this photo and came down from the overhang directly down in the center of the photo to that slanting ridge lline. Now here’s an example where the LTG strike is not where you might think it should be, perhaps closer to the lower cloud base to the right. Sometimes when the tops lean over as much as they did yesterday (see prior photo), it has seemed like you can get some rogue strikes way out away from the rain areas upwind. And so great caution is required when you see our tops streak out away from the main body of the rain and lower cloud; you might think you’re safer than you really are under that non-precipitating overhang.
2:01 PM. Cumulus congestus top with ice top tip just behind it, and an converting-to-ice Cumulonimbus calvus (“bald”) top in the upper center. Can you pick them out? Next photo has writing on it for clarity.2:01 PM. Same photo as above but with writing on it.
3:43 PM. Scene of the day, the “waterfall” near the Charouleau Gap. Lightning was extremely frequent, and thunder continuous.
3:52 PM. A similar dump hit Marana Avra Valley with one gauge reporting 1.97 inches!
Today?
U of AZ mod run from last night, surprisingly, has showers around today, but nothing near Catalina. Hmmmm. Can that be right? Hope not. In fact, I am going to wish that it is totally wrong! Don’t forget to check out what Bob says, too. He’s our resident expert on storms, and a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, a huge honor.
Tomorrow will be better, the model sez.
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1“Dusty Ride”? Hmmmm. Once again, another great name for a western singer–I can’t believe how many I have come up with! “Dusty” this, “Dusty” that! The creativity just goes on and on.
Forgetting about yesterday’s unforecast subdued afternoon convection hereabouts after about 1 PM), lets talk about the misery of others; the little crybabies that leave Arizona in the summertime, decimating its economy, so that they can be cooler and “happy” in northern climes (while dodging hail and tornadoes, we might add).
Well, how about them birdies being really COLD before very long, due to record breaking low July temperatures? Yes, that’s right, what’s left of the “polar vortex” will once again, due to global warming, of course, spin out of control and down into the northern US in just about 5-7 days. And with it, long term July low temperature records will fall in the eastern US. Count on it.
So, once again, as some scientists alleged last winter, global warming will actually cause cooling. (Almost everything that happens is due to GW these days, as we know. (“GW”, BTW, now repackaged in the catch all, temperature-neutral phrase, “Climate Change”, during the past few years because, globally, it stopped getting warmer way back in ’98, and when the years began to pile up without global warming, scientists had to find another phrase to hang their mistaken hats on. (Where was the usual scientific “caution” back then?)
HOWEVER, continuing on with this harangue, and being a “lukewarmer”, we must watch out that the coming big El Nino doesn’t release a spring-loaded, pent up release of global heat. Might well happen, so don’t give up on “GW” quite yet; hold some cards on that question for another few years.
And, of course, if there is a step jump up in global temperatures just ahead, the phrase, “climate change” will be dumped by scientists and media for “global warming” again. Count on it, #2.
But, I digress, mightily, mainly due to yesterday’s cloud disappointments.
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Not in a great mood after yesterday’s bust, as you can tell, except for that strong thunderstorm that pummeled the north side of the Catalinas beginning about 11:30 AM, that was pretty cool; had continuous thunder for about an hour and a half, too. Dan Saddle up on Oracle Ridge got 0.63 inches, but you can bet 1-2 inches fell somewhere up there.
I was so happy then.
I thought the “Great Ones” would arise upwind of us in the direction of Pusch Ridge, but no. Those clouds got SMALLER as the afternoon wore on, it was incredible, and by sunset they were gone with only trashy debris clouds of Altocumulus and Altostratus cumulonimbogenitus from great storms in Mexico drifting over our sky. Even the sunset was disappointing.
Well, that 3:15 am to 3:30 am little shower this morning than dropped 0.15 inches here in the Heights, and 0.24 inches down there at the Bridge by Lago del Oro gave a psych boost1 that got me here on the keyboard.
10:55 AM. Nearly invisible veil of ice crystals begin to fall from an older Cumulus congestus turret. This was about an hour and a half ealier than the prior day, indicating that the Cu tops were reaching that level sooner than the prior day, suggesting bigger things (I thought). When you see this happening this early, you also look for an “explosion” some massive turret to suddenly blast out of these developing clouds, and that did happen within about half an hour after this.
10:55 AM. Close up, in case you don’t believe me.
11:04 AM.
7:33 PM. Your sunset.
Today? Check here. Once again, mod expects early Cumulonimbus on The Lemmon, then groups of thunderstorms move in during the evening (as was more or less predicted yesterday, but didn’t happen.) Will go with mod again, though, because I would like that to happen.
The weather way ahead
We’ve talked about cold air, now to balance things off, how about a discussion of the warm air ahead? Real hot air.
Was blown away by the spaghetti outputs from last night for the period of about two weeks from now. You can see the whole package from the NOAA spaghetti factory here. Below, our weather in 12-15 days, usually beyond confident predictions, but not here:
Valid at 5 PM AST July 22nd. Massive blob of really hot air settles in over the western half of the US. In this map, the most reliable long term predictions are over the western half of the US and over the Saharan Desert (indicated by the lack of lines in those two areas. A lot of lines means the weather pattern is pretty unpredictable.)
Valid at 5 PM July 25th. Massive upper level blob of really hot air continues to dominate the western half of the US.
&
So
The hot blob of air should lead to record HIGH temperatures all over the place in those days beginning around the 20-25th of July. Rainfall here? Indeterminant. If the high center sits over us, it might just be hot, real hot, but dry.
But, if the configuration aloft is as shown in the second plot, it could be very wet as tropical disturbances shift northwestward from Mexico into Arizona.
Sorry, can’t do much with precip from these, I don’t think.
The End, and covering all the possibilities, CM
==================================== 1Paraphrasing, the song for weathermen, those speaking to clouds; “Rain on me, when I’m downhearted….”
Began at 1:15 PM, ended at 1:40 PM. Then, a second round at 3:58 PM. Nothing more on tap today through June. Thought, too, since there’s been a lot of talk about the Southwest monsoon lately in the media, we’d check on that and see how its doing:
This as of June 15-17th (green lines, red lines are normal position. Things are not so good, seems to be running a week to two weeks behind schedule.
Hmmm. Not so well so far. Is this being impacted by the developing El Nino? Our summer rain season, more often than not, has been disappointing as well in El Nino summers. An El Nino is in formation as you likely know.
Your cloud day yesterday, in thumbnails:
A better way would be to go to our University of Arizona time lapse movie here.
5:55 AM. Now I didn’t mention yesterday because I didn’t want you to feel bad, but these crepuscular (aka, “crepsucular”) rays were due to a lot of smog in those clouds yesterday morning. Got mixed out as the day progressed. Likely, from tropical Mexico based on trajectories at cloud base level.5:55 AM. More smog and clouds, some virga. Ugh.6:18 AM. Could be called, I think, Altocumulus castellanus or Cumulus due to the large size of the elements. However, they are not Cumulus arising from warm air near the ground, but rather from the gentle lifting of the air over the Catalina Mountains.6:20 AM. One of the remarkably small, sprinkling clouds that passed over yesterday. To get rain to the ground from about 11, 000 feet there would have to have been graupel (small, soft hail) forming in those little guys. Single ice crystals, or fluffy flakes would never had made it all that way since they would have dried up. Think of how great it would have been for you to non-chalantly, in your morning walk with neighbors yesterday, to have dropped the bombshell that, “Must be hail, soft hail, up there in those clouds for rain to fall on us from so high up.” You can see your neighbors’ jaws dropping in disbelief at that point! But you would then be some kind cloud hero to them, never to be seen the same way again. You wouldn’t say anything more about it; you’d made your point, succinctly I might add, and they’d likely get bored hearing anymore about it. Its best to let them just think about it the rest of the day.
Afternoon…..
12:53 PM. Promising Cumulus congestus are forming over the Catalinas, some already spewing a little ice. Here, about 2 km thick, or something around 6,000-7,000 feet thick, tops already about -10 to -15 C.1:15 PM. Taken just after first thunder heard from this modest Cumulonimbus. Not much shafting yesterday at all, suggesting weak updrafts and modest condensed water in them. No cloud to ground strikes were observed, and the time between thunder was a few minutes, all adding up to marginal conditions for thunderstorms near us, anyway.1:15 PM. One of the signature shots for this website, added to the “cloud base” collection. Here, graupel strands are just barely dectable as they begin fall out.
1:37 PM. Just before the last thunder, this icy top to a cell approaching Mt. Lemmon. Since the transition to all or mostly ice has occurred, this Cumulonimbus would be termed a “calvus.” The outward transition to all ice happens very rapidly, just in a few minutes, kind of an exciting thing to see!1:37 PM. Here’s what the bottom of that top looked like. No major shaft yet, but there will be but out of view.4:02 PM. Second round of occasional thunder in progress. Nice to see a little rain on the Ridge (Samaniego).7:31 PM. After all the excitement, we were left with little rows of Altocumulus perlucidus to celebrate a great day of cloud scenery.
Yesterday’s clouds report
