Category Archives: Wildflowers

"Cumulo-cirrus", Altocumulus clouds, California, Catalina climate data, Cirrus clouds, Cumulus clouds, Definitions, El Nino-La Nina, Quasi-biennial Oscillation, Stratocumulus clouds, Sunrise, Sunsets, Virga, Wildflowers

Catalina WY progress report; Cal WY update, too, since I grew up in Cal

March 8, 2017 Art Rangno 2 Comments

I thought you’d like to see this:

As of the end of February 2017. We're pretty average, but it took some "heavy lifting" in December and January to get there. — As of the end of February 2017. You can see were right about at the average for the Water Year,, but it took some “heavy lifting” in December and January to get there.

Doesn’t look promising for much rain here in Catalina in March, however. No rain in sight through the next 10 days at least.

Let’s check our 7 inches with what’s happening upwind, say, in CALIFORNIA, and see if there’s been any drought relief there, through February, via the CNRFC:

California water year totals through the end of February 2017. Note one station in the central Califorina coastal range is already over 100 inches! There are 20 stations already over 100 inches as can be seen from the table at right. March looks to have substantial rains north of SFO, which will add appreciably to those highest totals. Amazing! You can go to the CNRFC and expand these interactive maps, btw.

As you are likely to know from many media stories last year, Cal was in a drought siege of five straight years, with but got a little relief last year in the northern part thanks to help from the giant Niño, one of the strongest ever.

Alas, it was one that failed to deliver as the big rain producer for the south half of Cal and the SW in general as was expected.

In case you’ve forgotten how bad things were in Cal, let us look back at what was being said, those horrific appearing drought maps, and also how hopeful were were at the time that the Big Niño would take a bit bite out of drought. This is a really good article:

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/how-deep-precipitation-hole-california

Then, when the Big Niño faded away like maple syrup on a stack of buckwheat pancakes last spring and summer, we were surely doomed for more dry years. And, for a time, the dreaded cold tongue of water in the eastern equatorial region, the so-called, La Niña, started to develop, which would be no help at all for a good rain season like a Big Niño is, usually.

The Niña faded away, too, to nothing as the winter went on, so we really didn’t have much going on in the tropical Pacific to help us figure out what kind of winter rainfall regime we were going to have om 2016-17. Not having anything going on meant winter rainfall could go either way, a difficult to figure out situation for season forecasters.

In retrospect it is pretty astounding how big a signal must have been out there SOMEWHERE that this winter was going to be one for the history books on the West Coast in general, and in particular, for Californians. Californians saw their drought chewed up and spit out in a single winter, including snow packs so high the height of some mountain peaks have been revised. (I’m kidding.)

No one saw such an astounding winter coming.

This winter sure makes one think of the QBO (Quasi-biennenial Oscillation, one up there in the Stratosphere where there’s almost no air (haha, well, practically none)… Did the QBO have a role in this astounding winter; was there a delay in the effects of the Big Niño even without a bunch of convection in the eastern Pac tropics? Doesn’t seem that could be right…

But, William “Bill” Lau, U of Maryland scientist, reported some statistical evidence of such a lag way back in ’88 due to a QBO connection of some kind and ENSO, no physical cause could be discerned, however, not yet, anyway. Lau, 1988, is reprised below for readers who want to go deep:

Annual cycle, QBO, SO on global precip J Geophys Res 1988ocr

Sure has looked like the Big Niño WY we expected last year!

Some recent clouds; after all, this is CLOUD maven, not RAIN maven:

I’ve been kind of holding out on you. I dropped my camera and busted it. Its no fun taking pictures when you don’t have a real camera. Still doesn’t work right, but take these anyway:

March 4th, afternoon. Hope you logged this; the rarely seen CIrrus castellanus (almost "congestus" in size) or, informally, "Cumulo-cirrus." — March 4th, afternoon. Hope you logged this; the rarely seen CIrrus castellanus (almost “congestus” in size) or, informally, “Cumulo-cirrus.”

Poppies are out, btw. Nice display on "Poppy Hils" just across and southwest of the Pima County Pistol Club, off Bowman. — Poppies are out, btw, in case you haven’t noticed. Nice display on “Poppy Hils” just across and southwest of the Pima County Pistol Club, off Bowman.

March 4th, late afternoon. Nothing terrifically special in this tangle of Cirrus spissatus (“Cis spis” to cloud folk) but I thought it was just a really nice scene

Moving to the next day, Sunday, that REALLY windy day:

March 5, Sunday morning 6:13 AM. Altocumulus lenticularis alerts cloudwise folk to the possibility of windy conditions although it was already windy.

3:55 PM, March 5th. After a day of solid Altostratus overcast with underlying Cumulus and Stratocumulus, a layer of Altocumulus began to move in to add a little more interest to the sky.

3:57 PM. Looking to the north revealed that some of the lower Cumulus/Stratocumulus complexes reached heights where ice could form. That smooth region on the bottom and right side of the cloud is a fall of ice from this cloud with a RW- (text for "light rainshower") if you like to text stuff) right below that. This is not a lot of ice and so you'd be thinking the cloud barely made that ice-forming temperature. — 3:57 PM. Looking to the north revealed that some of the lower Cumulus/Stratocumulus complexes reached heights where ice could form. That smooth region on the bottom and right side of the cloud is a fall of ice from this cloud with a RW- (text for “light rainshower”) if you like to text stuff) right below that. This is not a lot of ice and so you’d be thinking the cloud barely made that ice-forming temperature. CMP doesn’t think it was caused by an ice fallout from that higher layer, which sometimes can happen. Let’s look at the most timely sounding, just to check. From the real Cowboys at the University of Wyoming, this:

Ann 2017030600.72274.skewt.parc — The TUS sounding which I only now just saw, showing a vast separation between the lower Stratocumulus and the higher layers of Altocumlus and Altostratus on top. Note, too, that over TUS the tops of the lower cloud is not quite at -10°C the temperature we start to look for ice formation in AZ. However, our clouds were NW of that balloon sounding, and it would have been that tiny bit colder, and tops were also lifted some when they passed over the Tortolitas earlier, meaning that the tops of this complex were colder than -10° C (14° F) at some point.

Wow, too much information….after a hiatus in blogging I feel like that Oroville Dam in California, metaphorically overflowing with too much hand-waving information.

6:03 PM, March 5. Its still real windy. Line of virga brought a few drops when it passed overhead at 6:30 PM.

6:04 PM. Nice dramatic shot toward Marana as the backside of the middle cloud layer approached allowing the sun to shine through.

6:09 PM. Virga getting closer. May have to park car outside to make sure I don't miss any drops! — 6:09 PM. Virga getting closer. May have to park car outside to make sure I don’t miss any drops!

6:22 PM. SW-NE oriented virga strip about to pass overhead. Drops fell between 6:30 and 6:40 PM, but you had to be outside to notice, which you would have been as a proper CMJ eccentric. You would have WANTED that trace of rain report, maybe slackers would not have observed.

6:30 PM. Climax; the great sunset allowed by that backside clearing.

The End, at last!

Spaghetti plots, The weather WAY ahead (10 days or more), Wildflowers

Last coupla days of March 2016 to feature strong rain threat in Catalina!

March 16, 2016 Art Rangno 8 Comments

Imagine, rain! Yep, that’s right. You heard it first here, right or wrong, as we like to say, over and over again because we can’t think of anything else.

After a couple of minutes of intense scrutiny, cloud maven person has decided to wake up and go blogulent that the computer prog showing a huge upper trough over the SW in 13-15 days, March 29-32nd is accurate. Will be cold, too. Little crybaby snow birds might be heading back to Wisconsin or Michigan when this cold spell hits. Just kidding, flat landers! (Actually, they’ll be leaving us due to being little crybabies when the temperature hits the 90s-100s every day, temperatures we true Arizonans laugh at.)

Adding to the pile of “credibility” here is that this March came in like a “lamb” I think. Has to go out as a “lion.” Or so the saying goes. Science and folk lore, that’s what you get here.

Here’s the actual computer forecast of the trough from last evening’s global data as rendered by IPS MeteoStar:

Valid at 5 PM AST, March 29th. Potent trough takes over the whole of the western US. Note the critical wind jet at this height (500 millibars) is over and south of Tucson, a nearly mandatory requirement for cool season rain here. (Unpublished study, Rangno, 1974; covered the whole US, that study, too.

Pretty exciting isn’t it, jet stream way to the south like that?

And this after our too-long-dry-spell pretty much since the first week in January, the dry spell associated with the strong “El-None-yo”, to be sarcastic after ALL the high expectations for copious rains, the incredible wildflower bloom that would be our pleasure to experience this spring following the pounding rains due to the Big Niño meteorologists and media got so excited about.

Poppy hills, down Bowman Road here in Catalina. Yes, we have some poppies, but they’re stunted looking, as are the other wildflowers around, struggling to survive in all the dry air since the fall and early winter rains.

But, no. Moving ahead after draining some emotion…. Thanks for listening.

So’s why CMP going out of what seems to be a long, thin limb here, that other forecasters are afraid of doing, that is forecasting with confidence something so far in advance?

Well, of course its because we got us a pretty darn strong signal again in the NOAA “Lorenz” or spaghetti or “ensemble” plots, where errors¹ are deliberately put in the data to see how wildly the outcomes vary. If the outputs don’t vary a lot, then confidence can be high about a forecast. “Varying” is seen in how wildly the lines (contours) on these plots are. Below, an example where there’s not a lot of confidence….

Valid 5 PM, Saturday, March 26th. Really can't have too much confidence here. Arizona is in there somewhere. This came out a few days ago. — Valid 5 PM, Saturday, March 26th. Really can’t have too much confidence here. Arizona is in there somewhere. This came out a few days ago. Quite a knee-slapper.

(Below we discuss, in contrast, the one from last evening and how we used one of these crazy plots before):

Rememeber, first, how to spell “remember”, and then that’s how we knew for sure a big trough would be over us even 10-two weeks ahead back whenever it was when we got a little rain and it was damn cold for a few days this March.

Valid at 5 PM AST March 29th. Relative bunching of red contours of the 500 millibar height contours indicates forecast confidence can be high for a trough in Arizona and the West in the last couple of days of March. So, I'm going for it. — Valid at 5 PM AST March 29th. Relative bunching of red contours of the 500 millibar height contours indicates forecast confidence can be high for a trough in Arizona and the West in the last couple of days of March. So, I’m going for it.

Since this forecast of a good chance of rain late in the month is likely to be quite accurate, there’ll be no need to update you after today.

The MAIN thing to remember, in a teaching moment, is to not be afraid when a model run comes out with something vastly different than what I just wrote about 5 minutes after I posted this, to wit, this VASTLY different model output based on data just 6 h after the model outputs above. I laughed at it, since spaghetti rules, not a single model output. That’s the teachable moment, I think.

Valid at 11 PM AST March 29th, almost the same time as the model output showing the giant trough in the West. Not here though. From a spaghetti frame of mind, a real laugher, this one. (I think.) — Valid at 11 PM AST March 29th, almost the same time as the model output showing the giant trough in the West. Not here though.
From a spaghetti frame of mind, a real laugher, this one. (I think.)

The End
———————————

¹ Hahah, as though we don’t make enough of them when we vote and stuff; remember that saying about why there’s an eraser on the top of a pencil? Very profound. And, “hey” look at the state of this planet? We need an awfully big “eraser” these days.

Cumulus clouds, Definitions, Doggie picture, Mt. Sara Lemmon, Stratocumulus clouds, The weather ahead, The weather WAY ahead (10 days or more), Wildflowers

A nice white Lemmon

April 27, 2015 Art Rangno

Been dreaming about a white Lemmon for quite awhile, ever since the New Year’s Eve snowstorm here. Finally got one yesterday, as we saw. Here are a few extra Lemmons for you:

Finsihing off here with an orange Lemmon, if that's possible, at 6:50 PM. — Finsihing off here with an orange Lemmon, if that’s possible, at 6:50 PM.

Yesterday’s clouds

(includes photo of a small, cute dog)

7:58 AM. Two layers of Stratocumulus. — 7:58 AM. Not one, but two layers of Stratocumulus.

7:59 AM. Interesting how the scattering of diffuse light through the clouds lights up our cherished cholla cacti.

8:57 AM. Paper flowers still going.... They're not used for making paper, btw. — 8:57 AM. Paper flowers still going…. They’re not used for making paper, btw.

9:30 AM. Occasional sprinkles fell from these clouds. Might have been due to ice, but texture also suggests drizzle formation (or warm rain processes, wherein larger cloud droplets collide to form drops big enough to fall out.) I hope your cloud diary also reflected this ambiguity. — 9:30 AM. Occasional sprinkles fell from these clouds. Likely was due to ice, but texture if the precip also suggests drizzle formation (or warm rain processes, wherein larger cloud droplets collide to form drops big enough to fall out.) I hope your cloud diary also reflected this ambiguity.

3:42 PM. Small Cumulus provide the light and shadow show on the Catalinas, one of the best things about living here. — 3:42 PM. Later in the afternoon, small Cumulus provide the light and shadow show on the Catalinas, one of the best things about living here. No ice evident.

Looking closer, I hope you recorded the slight fall streaks (fallstreifen, ger.) in the scene above. It would have been quite an important observation for you to have acquired since these small clouds had not shown ice prior to this time. See below for the VERY delicate trails emanating from this Cumulus mediocris cloud; look between and above the orangish rock faces on the top of Sam Peak and a bit to the left:

6:48 PM. Fine snow trails fall between and above the two orange colored rock faces on the left side.

The baloooooon sounding launched from the U of AZ at 3:30 PM yesterday. Where the lines pinch together was likely around cloud top, or about -10 C, close to the natural ice forming temperature we usually see here in AZ. More ice fell from layer clouds to the north at sunset, that were colder still.

The weather ahead, way out there

Next rain chance in about a week. Looks like May will start out hot, but “too hot not to cool down”, to quote Louis Prima and Keely Smith doing the Porter songbook, and pretty much that cool down before the month is hardly underway. I am sure lingering snowbirds, not wanting to have their feathers singed, will be glad to receive this news.

How can we say that with any acuity?

Check the spaghetti! Looky below at how troughy the flow is by about the 8th of May (red lines dipping toward the Equator along the West Coast). No extreme heat then, just normal warmth or below average “warmth.” This is a circulation pattern that persists, too. And with “troughy”, there’s always the chance of a rogue rain.

Valid on May 8th, 5 PM AST. No heat here. Some snowbirds have clearly left too early IMO.

The End.

Cirrocumulus clouds, Cumulus clouds, Definitions, Ice crystals, Iridescence, On the cosmos, Parhelia (sun dogs), Wildflowers

Cirrus enigma; medium-sized Cumulus clouds snow away

March 8, 2015 Art Rangno

First, you should always begin your day, not with the breakfast of champions, but by reviewing the prior day’s clouds in the University of Arizona time lapse movie. Here’s what you will see:

Lots of Cirrus, varies species, Altocumulus, Cirrocumulus, a high temperature contrail go through some Cirrocumulus just after 4 PM, and flocks of medium-sized Cumulus clouds emitting ice.

First, one interesting, but inexplicable Cirrus scene. I know you were likely going to ask Mr. Cloud Maven Person, “Hey, what gives here?” I get a lot of calls like that¹.

1:15 PM. That tuft of Cirrus on the right seems to have trails of ice falling out then coming together. There is no explanation for this since the wind has to blowing 1) from the same direction at the head, and then changing direction/speed ("shear") at the same rate underneath the cloud. — 1:15 PM. That tuft of Cirrus on the right seems to have trails of ice falling out then coming together, almost like they missed each other and want to be together as snow trails until evaporating away. There is no explanation for this² so I will next post a distraction. (Remember, when you can’t explain something, and this is a life hint, you can either talk around the question without answering it, beginning with, “I’m glad you asked me that question…..” when you’re lying and really NOT glad, or launch a distraction. Here, we launch a distraction.

“I don’t know how that happened; let look at a flower instead”:

Seen yesterday morning on a dog walk. — Seen yesterday morning on a dog walk, evening primrose. Pretty restful image; problems gone…

In the meantime, after being flustered over a cloud in the early afternoon, those Cumulus clouds aroiund, only two or three thousand feet thick were beginning to snow away, first way off to the south of us, then downstream of the Cat² Mountains.

Here is the rest of your interesting and learningful cloud day yesterday:

7:17 AM. Riff of Altocumulus castellanus/floccus to the north. Remember in Cloud Maven's Person's poster-sized cloud chart it says when you see this cloud it could rain in 6 to 196 hours, as it does for all the clouds in it. — 7:17 AM. Riff of Altocumulus castellanus/floccus to the north. Remember in Cloud Maven’s Person’s poster-sized cloud chart it says when you see this cloud it could rain in 6 to 196 hours, as it does for all the cloud formations in it.

7:18 AM. Iridescence in a patch of Cirrocumulus, indicating that the droplets comprising it were very tiny, less than 10 or so microns in diameter (one tenth the diameter of a human hair). It could rain in 6 to 196 hours when you see this cloud….

9:43 AM. Cirrus, various species, overspread the sky. Blockage of some Cirrus by a bird of some kind, lower center. — 9:43 AM. Cirrus, various species/varieties overspread the sky. Blockage of some Cirrus here by a bird of some kind, lower center.

Moving ahead…..

1:14 PM. The cloud-maven cloud indicator blimp was positioned to draw your attention to some building Cumulus clouds southwest of us. No ice evident. — 1:14 PM. The cloud-maven cloud indicator blimp was positioned to draw your attention to some building Cumulus clouds southwest of us. No ice evident, but was soon after this shot.

2:47 PM. Cumulus complex shows no ice, but its up there inside, as you would have known from looking at other similar-sized clouds.

3:02 PM. Droop der it is! Virga, there it is, downwind end of cloud stream. — 3:02 PM. “Droop, there it is!” Virga, there it is, drooping out just below the farthest cloud bottom downwind end of this cloud stream.

3:17 PM. Virga's pretty obvious now. — 3:17 PM. Virga’s pretty obvious now (above that protruding tree in the distance. Cloud that produced this virga likely no thicker than the white backed one at the start of the cloud stream, etimated depth, 2000-3000 feet. Bases, however, were about -8 to -10 C (18-14 F)! Tops, of clouds even that shallow, were really COLD, maybe to -15 to -20 C (down to 4 F)! But you would have guessed this anyway based on the amount of ice coming out of such shallow clouds. Sorry to insult your Cloud Maven Junior intelligence..

3:23 PM. Getting excited here so zoomed in for you. A sprinkle of rain was likely reaching the ground. Here you can see how cold the cloud bases were since that whiteness in the shaft is snow. Where it has completely melted into rain drops is where the bottom of that whiteness ends, The freezing level is typically about a thousand feet higher than where than whiteness ends below cloud base in steady, not too heavy precip, which is what we have here. Small clouds can’t precip too much. That snow is hanging down about 3,000 feet.

4:34 PM. A streamer of shallow clouds forming ice heads out from the south toward Oro Valley from Tucson. Estimated depth, 2000-3000 feet is all.

4:34 PM. Zoomed view of some of the ice in this cloud with an education module inserted into the photo, wrecking it some. Concentrations here likely around 1 per liter of ice crystals. If depth correct, the crystal habit will be stellars (“Christmas card” crystals) and dendrites, ones that form between -13 C and -18 C.

The TUS balloon sounding (AKA, rawinsonde for technophiles) launched around 3:30 PM AST yesterday afternoon (from IPS MeteoStar). Sounding calculates a cloud base of about -9 C, at about 10,000 feet above the ground (over Catalina). That is cold! Cloud base is just about where the two lines come together at the bottom.

5:46 PM. Mock sun or parhelia; couldn't tell if is was due to the lower ice cloud, or a Cirrus way above. Caused by hexagonal (six-sided) plate-like crystals falling face down. — 5:46 PM. Mock sun or parhelia; couldn’t tell if is was due to the lower ice cloud, or a Cirrus way above. Caused by hexagonal (six-sided) plate-like crystals falling face down. What a great optical phenomena day it was for you, starting out with a nice iridescence!

6:25 PM. Sunset photos continue to get later and later. These shallow clouds continued to produce virga into the evening hours.

There’s still water in the Sutherland Wash. Its been running now since the end of January! Amazing.

The End

—————————

¹FYI, this is a lie.

²I suppose someone could posit that “Dark Magic”, oops, “Dark Energy” may have caused those trails to “come together over me” , by Lennon and McCartney. “Dark Magic”, OOPs. “Dark Energy”, dammitall, is invoked to explain a lot of impossible things, like how the Universe blew up from something smaller than the head of a pin (!) and was 200 million light YEARS across in the tiniest fraction of a ONE second. Clearly impossible without magic, oops, Dark Energy. This impossibility was deduced on cosmic microwave radiation measurements at the farthest edges of the Universe as we know it.

However, instead of checking their measurements, cosmos (not Cosmos Topper of early movie fame with Carey Grant, but cosmos scientists that study the cosmos invented Dark Magic, oops, Dark Energy, dammitall again, to explain how something that’s impossible happened.

Recently, cosmos scientists retracted that finding and said their measurements in retrospect were likely compromised by cosmos dust. How funny izzat? Sure, I am a weather man and make a LOT of errors myself, but that cosmos one is pretty big.

Just kidding, cosmos guys, the cosmos is tough. Science mag reported that only 4 % of the visible Univserse is made up of known stuff, 96% (gasp) is made up of Dark Matter (23%), and 73%, of “Dark Magic”, oops again, “Dark Energy”, that stuff that is still thought to be behind the increasingly rapid expansion of the Universe³. That is, 96% of the Universe is composed of stuff we’re clueless about.

³It was originally posited that the expansion of the Universe should be slowing down until around the 1990s, when measurements indicated it was speeding up. Hmmmmm. Will there be a retraction of that claim, too, in our future? Stand by for more measurements. Just kidding, cosmos guys. Try being a weatherman….

Aerosols, Altocumulus clouds, Cumulonimbus clouds, Cumulus clouds, Definitions, Nora Bowers, Wildflowers

Light shower with graupel falls on Catalina Mountains!

March 5, 2015 Art Rangno

Happened around noon yesterday. I could see it from here that the shaft consisted of graupel mixed with some rain. Nice video of this exceptionalism-of-the-day event here from the U of AZ.

Its interesting to me, and to you, too, most likely, was that yesterday it was asserted here that there would be no ice in the “small” Cumulus clouds that were expected to form during the day. And yet we had a momentary Cumulonimbus cloud with a ton of ice and a graupel/rain/snow shaft! Huh.

In related¹ distractive headlines:

Fields of gold erupt in Catalina!

Hours: 10 AM to 3 PM, M-S, otherwise closed. Why do they do that? You won’t find the answer here, so move along now…

4:00 PM yesterday, on hills west of Spirit Dog Ranch. Numerous poppy flourishes in this area. On horseback ahead, Nora Bowers, co-author of the popular guide, WIldflowers of Arizona. — 4:00 PM yesterday, on hills west of Spirit Dog Ranch. Numerous poppy flourishes in this area. On horseback,, Nora Bowers, co-author of the popular guide, *Wildflowers of Arizona*. Those poppy blossoms were pretty much closed here. You really should get out and see them if you can. Well, worth it.

Rasslin’ Dogs!

"Emma" border collie, bottom, "Banjo", border terrier mix of some kind, top. 2-day old distractive photo. — “Emma” border collie, bottom, “Banjo”, border terrier mix of some kind, top. 2-day old distractive photo. More distraction. Few readers will likely go farther than this….

Yesterday’s clouds and explanations

8:22 AM. Elevated Stratocumulus, bases about 14, 000 feet above sea level, or about 11,000 feet above the ground here in Catalina. — 8:22 AM. Altocumulus, bases about 14, 000 feet above sea level, or about 11,000 feet above the ground here in Catalina. The temperature at cloud top, via the TUS balloon sounding, was about -15 C (5 F), pretty cold for not having some virga or ice showing. It happens. There could be several reasons: Lack of ice nuclei in that layer? Tiny droplets, ones that resist freezing more than larger cloud drops? Lack of mixing with very dry air above cloud top (it was moist all the way up to Cirrus levels))? Mixing in very dry air at cloud top can lower the temperature of a drop a few degrees before it disappears completely, thus increasing the chance that it will freeze. That last effect is mostly operating in Cumulus clouds whose tops can penetrate relatively far into very dry layers. So, once again, we have no real answers, or maybe, all of them. It is worth noting that going to -15 C here and no ice in a Cumulus cloud is a virtually unknown occurrence, one that speaks to ice nuclei, those specks of mineral dirt that are known to cause ice to form in clouds, like kaolinite, etc. originating in the boundary layer/dirt interface being a primary culprit.

10:49 AM. In fact (!), "small" Cumulus clouds DID form yesterday, hold the ice. — 10:49 AM. In fact (!), “small” Cumulus clouds DID form yesterday, hold the ice. Quite a forecasting triumph.

10:51 AM. While small Cumulus clouds pervaded the sky, there was an exception; the usual cloud street that forms off the Tortolita Mountains was trailing over Catalina and those clouds were at least of mediocris size, and due to the low freezing level yesterday, getting close to the ice-forming level for Cumulus clouds here of around -10 C (14 F). Was actually outside while it passed over, shifting to the south, as you probably were, hoping for a drop so's I could report a trace of rain today. — 10:51 AM. While small Cumulus clouds pervaded the sky, there was an exception; the usual cloud street that forms off the Tortolita Mountains was trailing over Catalina and those clouds in it were at least of mediocris size (likely a km deep or so), and due to the low freezing level yesterday, getting close to the ice-forming level for Cumulus clouds here of around -10 C (14 F). Was actually outside, as you probably were, too, as it passed over, shifting gradually to the south, hoping for a drop so’s I could report a trace of rain today. “Great weather folk don’t miss traces!” (Dry-fit tee shirt in preparation….)

11:00 AM. Continuing prevalence of small, "docile" Cumulus clouds (ignore large dark cloud shadow at left). — 11:00 AM. I want to keep reminding you of the prevalence of small, “docile” Cumulus clouds (ignore large dark cloud shadow at left). Just trying to balance out the cloud day picture the way media balances things out, regardless of whether they are Democrats or Republicans.

11:52 AM. Graupel begins to fall from a Cumulus congestus just beyond Pusch Ridge. It would be hard to describe the magnitude of the embarrassment I began to feel having stated that there would be no ice. I realized I had been careless as a forecaster, not really looked hard enough at the conditions, the lapse rates. It was truly humiliating to see this happen. Oh, in case you can't see anything, the next photo is a blow of this humiliation as it began to take place. — 11:52 AM. Graupel begins to fall from a Cumulus congestus just beyond Pusch Ridge. It would be hard to describe the magnitude of the embarrassment I began to feel having stated that there would be no ice. I realized I had been careless as a forecaster, not really looked hard enough at the conditions, the lapse rates. It was truly humiliating to see this happen. Oh, in case you can’t see anything, the next photo is a blow of this humiliation as it began to take place.

11:58 AM. Picture of graupel particles emitting from a cloud from 10 miles away. Note fine strands, a sure sign of graupel especially on day with a low freezing level and cloud bases at below freezing temperatures. Note too, ice is not visible at cloud top, something that indicated an abundance of droplets over ice crystals in the cloud, the conditions that lead to the rapid formation of graupel (soft hail).

12:10 PM. More humiliation and graupel, a forecasting disaster is in progress for all to see! — 12:10 PM. More humiliation and graupel; a forecasting disaster is in progress for all to see!

12:17 PM. Turret at left side, under fragment, appeared to be softening to the look of an icy composition that all would recognize immediately, but external ice composition not apparent yet. Note the “harder”, more cauliflower look of the turret on the right half of the photo, indicating an all liquid external composition. Graupel was forming inside that right half, though.

12:29 PM. Total icy humiliation. The “cotton candy” transition of the prior turret to “Mr. Frosty” (left of center) was complete for all to see. Looking toward Catalina, I could almost hear the laughter, “Calls himself a ‘cloud-maven’, said there wouldn’t be any ice today, and look at all that ice! What joke!” Now that the turret has become a modest Cumulonimbus, likely completely glaciated, the precipitation falling would be snowflakes (not graupel since the liquid water droplets are gone inside it) melting into rain farther down.

4:21 PM. The clouds returned to their former "small", iceless, sizes for the rest of the day after the humiliating exception — 4:21 PM. The clouds returned to their former “small”, ice-less, sizes for the rest of the day after the humiliating exception.

6:18 PM. Revealed in yesterday's near cloudless sunset, undulations in the ever present high altitude haze layers that circumscribe our planet. Layers like this, that are featureless except for the revealing waves causing the undulations, are extremely old, days, and are often reffered to as long range transport events because they likely traveled thousands of miles before arriving over Arizona. They are likely to be composed of old, old contrail emissions, emissions that have worked their way up in the atmosphere from over heated land surfaces, distant forest fires, and so on. — 6:18 PM. Revealed in yesterday’s near cloudless sunset, undulations in the ever present high altitude haze layers that circumscribe our planet. Layers like this, that are featureless except for the revealing waves causing the undulations, are extremely old, days, and are often reffered to as long range transport events because they likely traveled thousands of miles before arriving over Arizona. They are likely to be composed of old, old contrail emissions, emissions that have worked their way up in the atmosphere from over heated land surfaces, distant forest fires, and so on.

———————————————–

¹Its not really related but sounds like something that should be said.

Aircraft Produced Ice Particles, Altocumulus clouds, Altostratus clouds, Definitions, Doggie picture, Spaghetti plots, Sutherland Wash, The weather ahead, Virga, Wildflowers

The first of many cloud blobs in the days ahead, some rain-filled, passes over during the night

February 23, 2015 Art Rangno

Here it is. You may need an optical enhancement tool to see the radar echo speck nearest Catalina, and its not the one nearest the arrowhead below, but continue in that direction:

Ann 201502230700_SWR2 — Satellite and radar imagery for midnight last night. Notice cloud blob and radar echoes over and near Catalina, Arizona. I really thought there’d be some drops here as this went over!

You can also check on all the rain that fell overnight in the region here, courtesy of Pima County ALERT rain gauges. BTW, they aren’t capable of reporting traces, so if you see bunches of zeroes, it doesn’t mean some drops didn’t fall somewhere in the network.

Non-verification of this rain can also be found via our fine TUS NWS “storm total” view, 10:30 PM to 4:30 AM this morning:

Regional radar-derived storm total from "rainy cloud blob." — Regional radar-derived storm total from “rainy cloud blob.” Arrow almost reaches Catalina; didn’t want to cover up a pixel of rain, if there. THAT radar did not pick up the rain I feel must have fallen, so we have quite a conundrum. If you would like to see for yourself how much rain fell last night, go here. Will be looking for drop images in the dust as soon as it gets light, too!

In the meantime, all those rainy cloud blobs to our NW right now (first image) look like they will be able to just make it to Catalinaland after all.

In our last chapter, it looked like the strong cold front would move through tomorrow as just a dry cold one, but now the chances of having a little rain (a wet cold one) have been zooming up. The models have readjusted their thinking and now that critical ingredient, the core of the jet stream (at 500 mb) passing over us ahead of the trough core itself is being predicted.

And with that configuration as the front goes by Catalina, and believe me you’ll know by the 10-15 degree temperature drop, a tiny amount of rain might fall. Also, look for a pronounced lowering of cloud bases to the W-N of Catalina as it gets close, something in the way of an “arcus cloud”, marking the leading edge of the windshift to the N. Could be nice and dramatic looking tomorrow. Those cloud base lowerings are pretty common with fronts here.

How much rain?

Oh, possibilities range between 0 (a complete bust is still possible) to only about 0.25 inches, tops in the “best” of circumstances. But, this keyboard would like to see ANYTHING measurable; that would bring happiness.

There are some more rain blobs showing up in regular intervals in the days ahead for you to think about, as rendered by IPS MeteoStar. Arrows have been added to show you where you are, if you are in SE Arizona:

Valid tomorrow morning at 11 AM AST. Colored areas denote regions where the model has calculated precipitation during the preceding 6 h.

In the storm below, which is pretty much going to happen now, the range of amounts as seen from here, at least 0.15 inches, top, 0.50 inches, best guess, therefore, 0.33 inches (from averaging the two.)

Val at 11 PM, March 1st. Colored areas are those in which the model has calculated that precip has fallen during the prior 6 h.

There’s great uncertainly in whether this last storm will actually occur, so range of amounts are zero to 1 inch. :} See reasons for uncertainty below, besides being too far in advance or our models to be reliable anyway.

Ann 2015022300_CON_GFS_SFC_SLP_THK_PRECIP_WINDS_264 — Valid Friday, March 5th, at 5 PM AST. Colored regions NOW denote areas of precipitation that have fallen during the prior TWELVE hours. (Mod resolution degrades after about 192 h, and so a coarser view of precip areas is used.)

While a significant storm on the 1st is virtually assured according to spaghetti, this last major event in the panel above is doubtful. See below, in another lesson on consuming weather spaghetti:

Ensemble spaghetti valid for the same time as the panel above, 5 PM AST Friday, March 5th. Not much support for a storm, low confidence is indicated by the LACK of bunching red and blue lines, unlike those off the East Coast, and over there east of Asia. So, while a great storm is predicted in last evening’s model run, prepare for sadness and disappointment as a hedge.

Yesterday’s fine clouds

7:10 AM. A couple of shafts of big virga. Likely a drop or two reached the ground. Could have been caused by aircraft penetrations, or, taller Altocumulus castellanus-like turrets that reached lower temperatures, produced more ice. They look suspiciously like an aircraft artifact due to their very small size.

7:41 AM. Nice stack of lenticular pancakes in the lee of the Catalinas. You can see some great lenticular occurrences in the U of AZ Time Laps movie for yesterday. There are also a lot other fascinating things that go on in yesterday’s clouds, too.

8:05 AM. Natural virga approaches Catalina. Looked for a drop as it went over, but saw none. — 8:05 AM. Clearly natural virga approaches Catalina. Looked for a drop as it went over, but saw none.

8:22 AM. Pancakes downstream from Ms. Mt. Lemmon.

9:07 AM. Doggies, Emma, and little Banjo, sample and inspect water STILL running in the Sutherland Wash!

1:46 PM. After a brief sunny period, banks of Altocumulus invade the sky.

2:46 PM. Altocumulus opacus clouds continue to fill in, darken.

5:40 PM. Muliple layers of clouds stream ahead of sprinkle producing cloud blob just upwind at this time. — 5:40 PM. Muliple layers of clouds stream ahead of sprinkle-producing cloud blob just upwind at this time. Note how the Altocumulus opacus clouds disappeared, leaving lenticular like formations, with a thin ice cloud (Cirrostratus) above.

The End, though I COULD go on and on and on, and then on some more. Its who I am….

Altocumulus clouds, Altostratus clouds, Cirrocumulus clouds, Definitions, Iridescence, Spinal Tap, the movie, Stories from the field, Sunrise, Sunsets, The weather ahead, The weather WAY ahead (10 days or more), Wildflowers

Not to worry; plenty of model rain still ahead in models

February 21, 2015 Art Rangno

¹While several inches of model² rain has occurred in Catalina and in the nearby mountains this month, most of which cloud-maven person has festooned his blog with model panels of, there really hasn’t been any ACTUAL rain.

But having said that, there is even MORE model rain ahead, some beginning tomorrow in these parts. Tomorrow’s rain comes from a sub-tropical minor wave ejecting from the sub-tropics. You know, as a CMJ, a wave from that zone means a ton of high and middle clouds, i.e., likely DENSE Altostratus with virga, something that was seen yesterday off to the SW of us. This time, though, some rain should fall from these thick clouds, though almost certainly will be in the trace to a tenth of an inch range between tomorrow and Monday morning.

Model rain from 11 PM AST global data then falls in Catalina on:

February 24th

March 1st

March 7-9th

with the model total rain in these periods likely surpassing an inch or more! What a model rain winter season this has been! Astounding. The model washes have been running full since late December, too!

BTW, that last model rain period is really a great one, a major rain for ALL of Arizona!

Some recent clouds I have known and a couple of wildflowers

7:36 AM, Thursday, Feb 19: Iridescence in Cirrocumulus.

7:52 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Iridescence in Cirrocumulus with a tad of Kelvin-Helholtz waves (center, right), ones that look like breaking ocean waves. Kind of cool looking.

9:52 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Altocumulus perlucidus exihibing crossing pattern. Makes you think about football. — 9:29 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Altocumulus perlucidus exhibiting crossing patterns, rows perpendicular to each other. Makes you think about football and people running out for passes.

9:42 AM, Thursday Feb 19: An extremely delicate crossing pattern in Cirrocumulus, center. You’ll have to drill in good to see it, but its worth it.

10:39 AM, Thrusday, Feb 19: Pretty (mostly) Cirrus spissatus, a thick version in which shading can be observed.

6:13 PM, Thursday, Feb 19: No idea what that stick contrail is. Looks like a flight pattern to induce weightlessness. Climb rapidly, round off the top, and then go down. You can be weightless for maybe 10-30 seconds. Been there, done that in a C-130 Hercules, last FACE flight of 1973, Bill Woodley lead scientist. — 6:13 PM, Thursday, Feb 19: No idea what that stick contrail is. Looks like a flight pattern to induce weightlessness. Climb rapidly, round off the top, and then go down. You can be weightless for maybe 10-30 seconds. Been there, done that in a C-130 Hercules, last FACE flight of 1973, Bill Woodley lead cloud seeding scientist. But, you pay a price, get smashed on the floor as the aircraft comes out of the dive. You cannot get up!

Let's zoom in and see if we can learn more about this cloud.... Nope. — Let’s zoom in and see if we can learn more about what happened here. I think a jet pilot was having fun.
Nope.

6:54 AM, yesterday. Altostratus virga provides a spectacular, if brief sunrise over the Catalinas.

From a dog walk this VERY morning, a desert primrose.

From this morning's dog walk. — And a desert onion bloom.

The End. Hope you enjoy the copious model rains ahead!

———————

¹Today’s title is cribbed from Spinal Tap song, which is really quite great, “Tonight I’m going to rock you tonight.”

²WRF-GFS and Canadian Enviro Can GEM accumulated bogus outputs.

CDO wash, Definitions, Nimbostratus, Stratus clouds, Stupendous storms, Sutherland Wash, Wildflowers

System vanquishes sun for three days! Produces 2.28 inches in The Heights!

February 1, 2015 Art Rangno

While on the first day, January 29th, the sun was only blocked by mid-level clouds, the rainy ones on January 30th and 31st provided a rain amount to remember here in the Sutherland Heights (and elsewhere–numerous records broken), 2.28 inches recorded over 24 h ending at 7 AM for the past three days, beginning with the 30th:

0.19, 1.56, and 0.53 inches, ending this morning.

Weeds and wildflowers really happy, as will be free range cattle and horses that get out of their pens in the days and weeks ahead.

———-experimental module———————–

We have an interesting experiment in progress, one we didn’t know we were going to have re wildflowers this spring.

A local wildflower expert on a public TEEVEE station here was quoted as saying that NOVEMBER rain was critical to wildflower displays. Hmmm. OK, but we had a RAINLESS NOVEMBER here!

So, no wildflowers? A limited display? Some key ones don’t come up at all because November was rainless, while October, December and now January had generous rains?

I don’t think so. My take is that everything will be hunky dory. HELL, no one will be able to tell that November was rainless in our upcoming wildflower displays.

But the reader must be advised royally in this editorial side bar, that the writer is a cloud-maven, not a flower-maven as was expert quoted on public TEEVEE.

So, let the experiment unfold before our very eyes! A chance for all to learn things! Ans, how fun is that?

———————–end of experimental module——————

Too, I wonder how often three sunless days have occurred in southern Arizona? Was probably a rare event that these past three days mimicked Seattle or other Pac NW sites west of the Cascade Mountains in winter so well.

BTW, in an important climate note concerning the Pacific Northwest, it rains more in Eugene, OR, aka Duckville, more than in Seattle, in case you’re a football player and are deciding between the Washington Huskies and the Oregon Donald Ducks prior to the upcoming LOI Day, the National Holiday celebrating when high school kids sign Letters of Intent about where they are going to play college football.

And, continuing a high school theme, don’t forget to watch football today; the Seattle Seahawks, who live right next door to the University of Washington Huskies, will be playing in a big game, so maybe you could get some valuable autographs while playing for the Huskies…. Just a thought.

Back to yesterday……

I think the most surprising part was how nearly stationary rain echoes kept giving all day yesterday. So often, where clouds are almost stationary, they just rain out and thin. But it just kept coming, at least here in Catalina. And, as the storm came to a close, the expected sight of a frosty Lemmon appeared late in the day due to the gradually lowering snow level as the clouds suddenly lifted when a dry north wind rushed in. Should be more of that dry north wind today.

No rain in sight now…. Corrals can dry out, which would be good.

BTW, by later yesterday the local washes were running reel good. In case you missed the flows, here are some floody scenes:

1:48 PM. Here a Catholic priest in non-traditional garb inspects the CDO wash at East Wilds Road. — 1:48 PM. Here a semi-retired Catholic priest in non-traditional garb inspects the CDO wash at East Wilds Road.

1:49 PM. Looking downstream from the CDO wash and E Wilds intersection.

1:56 PM. Perhaps you're a person that prefers upstream views of flooding situations. Well, here it is, the CDO Wash looking upstream at East Wilds Road in Catalina. Trying to please everybody here. — 1:56 PM. Perhaps you’re a person that has a preference for upstream views of flooding situations. Well, here it is, the CDO Wash looking upstream at East Wilds Road in Catalina. Trying to please everybody here, no matter what your preferences are.

Hiked out to the Sutherland Wash yesterday, arriving about 3 PM to take these docuphotos for you. These were taken near the horse crossing that leads to the “Rusty Gate” and the Coronado National Forest boundary on the east side of the Wash.

Had not seen the Sutherland Wash this big before, in person. Was much higher, though, during the September 8, 2014 event, as deduced from debris piles, when 4-5 inches fell in 3 h.

Yesterday’s cloud

It was pretty much the same one all day I think. We begin our cloud soliloquy with an unusual sighting of pure Stratus, present before the rain moved in again.

7:49 AM. Like a wall painted with Seattle gray paint, available at most fine hardware stores. That is the appearance of true Stratus, and we had that yesterday after dawn. Some fog, too, drifted through. Remember, when its on the ground its called, “fog”, while when its above you the same thing is “Stratus.” Estimated ceiling here, 100 feet.

1:08 PM. In the afternoon the Stratus clouds began to break up at times, providing peek-aboo looks at Samaniego Ridge, which was kind of cool. Remember, that the Stratus clouds were not the ones precipitating, but rather the a layer of “Nimbostratus” above them was. However, as you know, a drop falling into a layer of Stratus clouds does not evaporate while it falls through them, AND, can even get bigger if some floating cloud drop can’t get out of the way (those larger than about 20 microns in diameter). So, to continue an educational stream here, while Stratus clouds, and Stratocumulus clouds may not produce precip beyond drizzle, they CAN help increase rain totals when they are present because raindrops are not evaporating when they fall through them, and raindrops may even get larger and the rainfall amount be more than otherwise due to the collection of some of the cloud droplets!

4:14 PM. Its STILL raining! Unbelievable for someone who thought this Nimbostratus layer would rain out and die in place. The low clouds were completely gone, swept away by a dry north wind. — 4:14 PM. Its STILL raining! Unbelievable for someone who thought this Nimbostratus layer would rain out and die in place. This is a really good shot of that layer that produced the rain that fell into lower Stratus and Stratocumulus clouds for most of the day. Some connections between the two did occur in the heavier rain areas, The low clouds were completely gone by this time, swept away by a dry north wind.

5:15 PM. As the Nimbostratus layer lifted, eventually to Altostratus opacus, if you really want to know, frosty The Lemmon came out showing that the snow level had declined during the day.

You may wish to pleasure yourself with another and very unusual occurrence of fog right now (7:02 AM) coming out of Tucson, heading toward Marana, south Oro Valley. Very pretty scene this miniute. Heading out now to capture on film.

The End

Cumulonimbus clouds, Cumulus clouds, Definitions, Stratocumulus clouds, Stupendous storms, Sunrise, Sunsets, The weather ahead, Wildflowers

On your mark, get set, (pause) RAIN!!!! (screaming here)

January 28, 2015 Art Rangno

a lot….beginning tomorrow afternoon or evening, not today. Today is “pause” day. Also, its trash day today here in Catalina, mentioned here as a public service.

Slow moving, sub-tropical system to drop several inches of water content in rain/snow in mountains, sez our best model, that run by the U of AZ. Thank you, U of AZ, btw. Below a snapshot of the total precip from that 5 PM AST global data crunch, “nested” for AZ. This plodding gigantostorm should keep the water coming down the washes, luxuriate our sprouting wildflowers, some of which, like desert asters, are beginning to emerge and even bloom¹:

Total precipitation ending just after midnight, Feb 2nd, as seen by the WRF-GFS model run from 5 PM AST last evening. Catalina/Oro Valley appears to be in a bit of a shadow, so while Ms. Lemmon and vicinity are forecast to get several inches of water content in rain and snow, Catalina gets an inch–though hard to see in this graphic. Why? Likely south to southeast flow coming downslope off the Catalinas. But, I think its WRONG!

Lot’s of gray sky photograph opportunities ahead. Get camera ready. Not much in the way of rain seen in mods after this, so enjoy this rain “chapter” of your life as fully as you can.

Yesterday’s clouds

After another light shower boosted our storm total another 0.02 inches, a fabulous, wonderful, almost Hawaiian like day followed with a little humidity in the air, deep blue skies, and white puffy clouds, ones a true cloud maven would call, Cumulus clouds and would be ashamed if he just said they were “puffy clouds.”

7:34 AM. Sun tried to break through some puffy clouds over the Catalinas after our 0.05 inch shower. A few, very small shower cells were around, but didn't look like much at this time. — 7:34 AM. Sun tried to break through some puffy clouds over the Catalinas after our 0.05 inch shower. A few, very small shower cells were around, but didn’t look like much at this time.

7:53 AM. Gee, a strong, though narrow rainshaft developed SSW of Catalina, upwind! Suggests a Cumulonimbus-like protruding, icy-looking top up there on top of the shaft.

8:08 AM. The three amigos rainshafts, headed this way, evnetually dropped another "surprise" 0.02 inches. Earlier model runs had indicated the rain would be over by dawn yesterday. — 8:08 AM. The three amigos rainshafts, headed this way, evnetually dropped another “surprise” 0.02 inches. Earlier model runs had indicated the rain would be over by dawn yesterday.

8:34 AM. One of the "amigos" hit Ms. Lemmon and Sam Ridge nicely. Ms Lemmon racked up 0.59 inches out of the storm overall. Very nice, considering our 0.07 inches total. — 8:34 AM. One of the “amigos” hit Ms. Lemmon and Sam Ridge nicely. Ms Lemmon racked up 0.59 inches out of the storm overall. Very nice, considering our 0.07 inches total.

8:53 AM. As we know so well, sometimes the best, most dramatic shots are those after the rain passes, and the rocky surfaces glisten in a peak of sunlight, here enhanced by crepuscular rays due to the falling rain. A rainbow was also seen, but not by me somehow.

8:54 AM. Closer look at glistening rocks toward the Charouleau Gap.

11:45 AM. The deep blue sky, the puffy clouds topping Sam Ridge, the strong sun, the bit of humidity, the bird flying along on the left, gave the sense of one being in Hawaii I thought.

12:32 PM. Puffy clouds still top Samaniego (Sam) Ridge.

2:28 PM. Small puffy clouds provide a "postcard" view of Catalina, Saddlebrooke and environs. Visibility here well over 100 miles. — 2:28 PM. Small puffy clouds provide a “postcard” view of Catalina, Saddlebrooke and environs. Visibility here well over 100 miles. Never get tired of these views! You got some Cirrocumulus up there, too.

2:51 PM. Another postcard view of our beloved Catalina. Rail-X Ranch and the Tortolitas off in the distance, left. Nice patterned Cirrocumulus up top above the little puffy clouds.

5:58 PM. The day ended with a nice sky-filling sunset as a Cirrus layer was lighted from below by the fading sun. The lines of virga show that while Cirrus clouds don’t have a lot of water vapor to work with up there at -40 C (also -40 F), the crystals that form are still large enough to settle out as precip.

The End

————————-

¹Desert Aster (I think) in bloom seen on the link trail from the Baby Jesus Trail to the Deer Camp Trail.

Seen on big hike, Jan. 22nd. This plant will be so happy by next week!

Definitions, The weather WAY ahead (10 days or more), Weeds, Wildflowers

Computer computations continuing to ____________

November 23, 2014 Art Rangno

I wanted to add some suspense to this blog today, and to enhance readership beyond one, I would do like TEEVEE news and weathercasters do who get people to hang around by saying silly things like:

“Will it rain for the Arizona fubball game tomorrow? We’ll tell you at 11”

when an answer consisting of a single word would do.

These are one of the dumbest, outrageous and annoying lines that weather and newscasters come up with over and over again, and I hope I am NEVER on TEEVEE and have to say something like that unless I am making a LOT of money, and then I might say almost anything! (Haha, just kidding, I think, but not positive.)

Valid for 5 PM AST Thursday, December 4th. The location of Arizona and Catalina on a map of the United States is shown. Areas of rain are generously pointed out by arrows to help the reader comprehend this map.

Well, since the supercomputer calculations, these based on earth data from last night at 5 PM AST (00 Zulu, Greenwich Time, Central Universal Time, etc.) continues to show early December rains in Catalina (see illustrative figure above), we need to have some spaghetti to see if a trough in the middle troposphere has much chance of being here:

Also "valid" for 5 PM AST, Thursday, December 4th. Areas of high confidence and cluelessness are pointed out FYI. — Also “valid” for 5 PM AST, Thursday, December 4th, corresponding to the storm map above from NOAA, and also based on earth data from last evening at 5 PM AST. Areas of high confidence and cluelessness are pointed out, FYI. The yellow lines are what the model actually predicted. (Hint: doesn’t match up that well with itty-bitty error-laden runs, one that try to account for “chaos” in the atmosphere (where itty-bitty things like a single thunderstorm mislocated in the initial run can cause the forecast to go bad; and, of course, real errors in measurements. Sometimes this strange plot, deemed a major advance in weather forecasting, is called by CM, anyway, a Lorenz Plot, after E. N. Lorenz who liked to publish papers on chaos. OK, as you can see, I hope, not a lot of confidence is suggested for a storm on December 4th at this time; mods will continue to see it come and go. Here, you will only see those forecasts that have a storm for Catalina.

Went on a hike yesterday morning, about 4 h worth up the Baby Jesus trail to the Deer Camp trail and back down again. Here are some scenes from later November from a desert having a lot of rain in September and October. Octotilloes are blooming here and there! Amazing! Morning glories hanging on, too. Cement trough, though, was dry. Boohoo. Didn’t expect that.