In case you missed it, the thin layers of Altocumulus clouds provided a bit of a sunset “bloom” around 6:30 PM AST yesterday. Here’s what yesterday looked like, and I am doing this because I have a strong feeling some of you like to live in the past, like I do when I think about my best sports days in high school and JC R’s bat, and maybe a coupla others after that, so that’s why I am reprising yesterday below):
Here’s what we are looking at, in order of their appearance: 1) encroaching Cirrus (its not a cloud name, its what it was doing), 2) later, the Cirrus thickening (usually downward) into a nice example of Altostratus, a cloud normally composed of only ice crystals and snowflakcs, 3) Altocumulus perlucidus translucidus (honey-comb pattern, quite thin), with traces of ice falling out if you look VERY carefully, and 4) and 5), the Altocumulus as it was briefly (you only had a few minutes) underlit by the distant setting sun (its 93, 000, 000 miles away).
Moving on to the future, such as the rest of today
Its great, weather people can really do that, look to the future and say things that will actually happen with a great degree of confidence, like for the rest of today. (HELL, an economist can’t even predict what will happen in the next few hours!)
What will happen in the hours ahead? Cirrus clouds, patchy ones here and there, and a good chance of some Altocumulus or Cirrocumulus lenticular clouds as the jet stream powers its way down here, shooting from the southwest over us by late in the day. Sometimes, and I have predicted this before without a lot of success, you get these tremendously fine grained clouds (Cirrocumulus) that suddenly pop out of the blue overhead. There’s an awfully good chance of seeing those today, too, with the strengthening winds aloft. Of course, I’ll be watching for you if you miss them, and will replay anything “exciting” tomorrow.
Also, as the low in southern Nevada strengthens tremendously during the day, the winds will pick up as you all likely know by now, and the blue sky will start to wash out in a brownish dust haze. Twin Peaks may not be visible from Catalina late in the afternoon due to dust. You can track the development of that low here, from the University of Washington. Right this moment, 5:50 AM, there is not much there, so a lot of the development excitement in southern Nevada is ahead. The NWS, Tucson is quite excited about all the things that might happen, as you will see here!
Enjoy and interesting day!
The End
