Morning rain

The first of a couple of patches of rain over the next 36 h are passing through now,  R at this second, 4:40:32 AM, and 0.09 inches of rain so far.  Nice.

U of AZ Wildcat mod run at 11 PM AST last night has intermittent light rain most of the day here now.  What a great model run!

And with the last troughy coming across tomorrow during the day, with another chance of light rain then, too.  Looks like we’ll easily go over 2 inches for the month of December (1.94 inches now), the first above normal in rainfall winter month since November a year ago.

 Yesterday’s clouds and flowers

Not as widespread or dense as expected in the afternoon, but prettier, which helps counteract error.  Let us begin our review of clouds with some paper flowers; there are still some blooms out there!  Amazing.

8:25 AM. Seen on a dog walk under overcast Altostratus.
8:25 AM. Seen on a dog walk under overcast Altostratus.  Desert marigolds still going strong.
8:38 AM. Classic Altostratus, some virga apparent below thickest part
8:38 AM. Classic Altostratus, some virga apparent below darkest part.  Saguaro cactus is extruding slowly from the ground on the right.  Need time lapse to really see it do anything.
11:17 AM. Deeper clouds have moved away and now comes lower, shallow Altocumulus clouds some spewing virga.
11:17 AM. Deeper clouds have moved away and now comes lower, shallow Altocumulus clouds some spewing virga.  Photo annotated for Mark Albright, University of Washington research meteorologist who lives in Continental Ranch, and thus in the Tucson morning smog tide.

 

3:27 PM. One of the prettiest scenes of the afternoon, this array of Altocumulus.
3:27 PM. One of the prettiest scenes of the afternoon, this array of Altocumulus.

 

3:27 PM also. Only the extra special Mark IV cloud maven personage would have caught this aircraft ice trail, originally within those lower Altocumulus clouds, much too warm for normal contrails.
3:27 PM also. Only the extra special Mark IV cloud maven personage would have caught this aircraft ice trail, originally within those lower Altocumulus clouds, much too warm for normal contrails.  This is probably around 30 min old.

 

5:12 PM. Sunset in leading bank of clouds that led to the light rain this morning.
5:12 PM. Sunset in leading bank of clouds that led to the light rain this morning.

 

The weather way ahead

Threat of a larvae killing cold wave later this month fading; looks like that cold air will end up in the eastern US now, and no further precip after the series this week.  Darn.

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.