First, let’s look in on the NWS, Tucson, and see how excited they are. Wow, they just don’t get more excited than this! I am so happy for them. Happy for me and you, too, as we are about to experience a “storm.” ‘Bout time we had some weather to experience, though it will mostly consist of “lithometeors”, dust and grit.
Its been awful dull for awhile here, and, with the weather not doing much, our thoughts now days tend toward those of sequestration. Maybe weatherfolk shouldn’t be paid when the weather is just kind of dull and lifeless, with only a few CIrrus clouds to brighten (or dull, as the case may be) our lives. Just give them the day off, fight off some debt. Let the computers talk to us about the weather, using a Stephen Hawking voice computer-generated voice, or one like the one at Basha’s, or other major supermarket auto checkout stations, ones that tell you in that nice female voice, “Thank you for shopping at Basha’s! Now get the Hell out.” Well, maybe a “move along now” would be in a more western motif.
Heck, in LA, weather forecasters could be “sequestered” for six months and no one would notice! (Actually, sometimes there are important surf reports from time to time in southern California.) ((Just kidding, guys…hahahahaha, sort of)). (BTW, C-M practiced “self-sequestration” in Seattle during his forecast days there.)1
I think the NWS is actually heading in that direction, BTW. Kinda sad really.
Let’s look at the wind here in Catalina at 4:25 AM on a day with all kinds of wind warnings:
driveway weather station says average wind speed ZERO, from 233 degrees (from the southwest, if there can be a “from” when its calm. Shouldn’t it be “from” all directions?)
This is great, because “calm” will be a long forgotten memory with all the blowing and dusting ahead before “Joe Cold Front” barges in at (let’s see what the superlocal U of AZ mod sez: 7-9 PM local; be ready. Also, this prediction from the Beowulf Cluster at the U of AZ Weather Department2 likely to be just an hour or two fast, so plug that in, too. It seems to be a model thing.) Certainly by midnight, you’ll know “Joe” is here, and the wind will be calming down as it switches to the northwest for awhile. Also, the barometer will be “pumping mercury”, pushing it upward so-to-speak, as that colder, denser air piles on top of us. Hope you can get up in the morning.
5:13 AM update: average wind speed still zero…. but from 244 degrees now.
Clouds?
Well, we should have some Cumulus and Stratocumulus off to the northwest to northeast during the day, then they push into our area over night behind “Joe.” Definitely those clouds will be around tomorrow morning, probably with some virga, it will be that cold aloft and getting colder up there during the day.
Some patches of Cirrus likely during the day today, too, along with an occasional patch of Altocumulus. And with horrific winds aloft today, some lenticulars are likely to be visible to the north as well, and maybe also downwind of the Catalinas in the afternoon.
Sometimes on days like this with marginal moisture aloft and extreme winds, you get fantastically fine granulations/ patterns in briefly forming patches of Cirrocumulus lenticulars as well. Will have camera ready. Now these possibilites are what are exciting me today.
The End. Enjoy the wind and dust. Hope all the shingles are still on your roof tomorrow. Hmmph, now that I read this line, it could be saying in a Hallmark card about aging, about brains and hair. (Probably is already out there, I suppose.)
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1A long aside… Some of you who lived in Seattle during the late 1980s and early 1990s may remember that C-M was a volunteer early morning weather forecaster on weekends for a number of years on KUOW-FM in Seattle, an NPR affiliate. But guess what? C-M didn’t come in to do his clock time forecasts for the day if the weather was nice. Rather (not Dan Rather), C-M only came in on weekends when it was cloudy and threatening, rain on the way, etc., which is most weekends in Seattle (hahahaha, just kidding). In summer I was gone quite a bit; “self-sequestered.” It was great being off on a sunny day!)
With this MO in mind, when it was announced on KUOW that C-M was coming on in a few minutes with a forecast, you could imagine the collective groan of the KUOW audience; something bad was probably going to happen in the weather that day. I was never replaced, that is, another volunteer guy or gal that would come in on his/her weekend early in the morning to detail the expected events of those precious weekend days in Seattle. Feeling sad again.
2It would be nice if you sent them a few $$$ someday. I just did, as I do also for my Washington Huskies Weather Department, and even Colo State U.! (And the latter wanted to sue me once! True–a story for another day; the entire edifice of CSU pitted against our own itty-bitty Catalina C-M.
