In case you were wondering where those high clouds came from…

From down there, as seen here.

More of those high clouds, and we hope with some Altocumulus, will be dropping by from the deep tropics over the next week or so.

Camera alert: Sunsets and sunrises will be spectacular at times over this period and with more than one layer, there is more than one dominant color.

The saddest headline ever read re the coming winter?  From the Climate Prediction Center here:

“El Nino watch discontinued”

They’d been talkin’ up an El Nino this winter and spring for months!  And, as you know, El Nino occurrences tend to cause wetter winters here.  Doesn’t mean we still can’t have some good storms, but the odds are lower.

Yesterday’s clouds

3:38 PM: Pretty Cirrus/Cirrostratus from near the Equator.
4:37 PM. Cirrostratus thickening toward the horizon more than due to perspective. Where the shading begins, it is too thick be Cirrostratus (Cs), and is then classified as Altostratus (As) even though both are ice clouds. Typically As, from ground radar measurements, is more than 2 km (6,600 feet) thick. When flying up through As, the upper portion is exactly like thin CIrrostratus and haloes usually occur before exiting the top. Been there.  The bottom ice crystals?  Bullet rosettes.  Top, little itty bitty prisms, plates and stubby solid columns.

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.