Dusty cool snap at hand

In MINUTES, the temperature will head downward as our long foretold (remember the spaghetti plots?) , “dusty cool snap” finally arrives.  This time, from Intellicast,  you can see below the blob coming, that blob of much lower temperatures with an epicenter at Las Vegas. Unfortunately, there are few clouds with this system, oh, maybe enough for a scruff over the Catalina’s a little later this morning and in the afternoon, Cumulis humilis, that sort of thing,  and THEN we’ll get some nice cloud shadows on the mountains for awhile.

If you have a barometer, though, you will get to enjoy the “pressure check”, that sudden, sharp rise in pressure as the air over the barometer gets cooler and denser, mashes down on it more as the cold front goes by!  You could be informing your neighbors about it.  (Actually, “on further review”, with the temperature in descent now (5:18 AM), and barometer on the rise,  I think the cold front has gone by already. )

BTW, while its windy here in Catalina right now, down in Tucson, they’re only reporting 7 knots, no gusts.  This is kind of usual for this situation for us to get the brunt of the winds funneling up the Oro Valley while TUS is protected for the time being.

Still enough wind/pressure gradients around for dust today, but those gusty winds should really be gone by tonight and tomorrow in Catalina as that deep low, still in the Great Basin fades.  See below for a neat looking weather map from where else, the University of Washington.  In case you want to see more maps, go here.

Feels great to be in the circulation of a big low, that one centered in Utah right now (5 AM AST.  People all around the country are probably talking about us and all the weather we’re having hereabouts, at least the ones watching The Weather Channel.

Not much ahead to talk about, just a few very pleasant clear days and rising temperatures.

HOWEVER, updating here at 6:11 AM, and having just checked the NOAA spaghetti factory, it does appear, but with moderate confidence, that another dusty cool snap is ahead for 11-12 days from now in a pattern remarkably like the current one with a “Big Trough” along the West Coast again.  That event would center around June 7th plus or minus a day or so.  It will be fun to keep an eye on this every coupla days.

The End.

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.