Curtains

7:35 PM.  Curtains of ice droop down from heavy patches of Cirrus spissatus (or you could call this Altostratus, too)
7:35 PM. Curtains of ice droop down from heavy patches of Cirrus spissatus producing an outstanding sunset last evening.  Hope you saw it.  What kind of ice?  Likely “bullet rosette” ice crystals are the ones falling out.
Bullet rosette as maged at 120 mph by an instrument on the University of Washington's research aircraft high over Barrow, AK, toward the bottom of Altostratus clouds around 23, 000 feet above sea level.
The complex ice crystal called a “bullet rosette” for some reason as imaged at 130 mph by an instrument (Cloud Particle Imager) on the University of Washington’s research aircraft high over Barrow, AK.  These were at the bottom of Altostratus (thick ice)  clouds around 23, 000 feet above sea level.  Tops were about 32,000 feet, and was thick enough to produce a gray overcast.  The CPI was designed and built by Paul Lawson, a friend who was a starting defensive back on the Michigan State Spartan’s National Champion fubbal team of 1966 or 1967.  He formed,  and is still the CEO,  of Stratton Park Engineering Company, one that makes a lot of high end instrumentation for imaging cloud particles.  Likes to meditate, too;  just kind of sits there for hours on end like a piece of pottery.  I don’t get it.  Maybe its related to concussions he might have gotten.

 

Action shot of the University of Washington Convair-580 research aircraft, in case you wanted to see that.
Action shot of the University of Washington Convair-580 research aircraft in flight, in case you wanted to see that.  My job was to stand on a little stool (hmmmm, that doesn’t sound right) so my head would be high enough and fit in that little dome and say things about clouds, which as here, was usually too much.  Pretty cool, eh?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wasting time here, filling in with filler material1 since there’s no real chance of rain, though, as usual, pretty clouds and maybe some real nice sunrises llike this morning’s and sunsets.  That’s OK.  We’ll get by until the Big Boys arrive, those Cumulonimbus clouds of summer, with all their splendor and drama.  As reported in the media, a better than average rain season is being foretold by the Climate Prediction Center.  How nice is that?

Small Cu today, maybe a CB top way off toward the S or SE….  Have some nice Altocu now, splattered around. No rain in WRF-GFS hereabouts for two weeks, but, as we know over and over again, they can be VERY wrong in that longer view!

The End.

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1Remember when newspapers had “fillers”, interesting little facts punctuating the pages where the columns and such left little spaces after being laid out? They had some fascinating material in them, such as that a certain spider’s web strand, if the diameter of a garden hose, could support TWO 747 jets!  (True!)

By Art Rangno

Retiree from a group specializing in airborne measurements of clouds and aerosols at the University of Washington (Cloud and Aerosol Research Group). The projects in which I participated were in many countries; from the Arctic to Brazil, from the Marshall Islands to South Africa.