Likable model runs continue; one of the best overnight!

Tired of being dry?  Tired of having dry washes?  Tired of seeing dust raised on your gravel road?  Maybe too much dust on your late model car?  Maybe you’ve been thinking about wanting some more humidity and cloud cover with RAIN to make to make you lose that feeling of fatigue and boredom?  Well, then this model run’s  for you!

Yes, that’s right, Hilary will cure your blues and blue skies!   Yes, that’s right no more fatigue, lack of interest in life, and overall dullness due to too much sun and blue sky with last night’s model run!   See below, from IPS Meteostar:

Only 108 h (morning of October 1st),  top panel.  Hilary (small purple blob and low pressure) is cruising into central Baja, and some rain has already spread into AZ.

Second panel, valid in 144 h, valid for Sunday afternoon, October 2nd, a tiny purple blob can be seen over my house here in Catalina, SE Arizona. How great is this?  Lets hope nothing changes in these model runs for the next 144 hours!  (Technical Note:  that’s not possible, but to HELL with that anyway! )   This model output looks great now, and it’s what I want to believe will happen.  Maybe I just won’t look at the later model runs; HELL they go back and forth anyway on Hilary and where she will go.)

Lastly, there are some cloud shots below with a bit of science, mostly from yesterday.

Now even yesterday, some rain “appetizers” were around by evening.  I am sure you noticed.  Now its gonna take a coupla days for this to “develop” and this wetting will be due to the remains of Hurricane to tropical storm, Hilary, there down Mexico way right now.  According to the word on the model street, Hilary crashed across mid-Baja while turning toward the northeast and then goes over my house as a rain blob in 144 h 12 minutes (hahah), or in normal speak about six days from now (see below).  Still dicey that far out, but its what to believe in.

In the meantime, some of yesterday’s surprisingly (to me, anyway) active Cumulus clouds, beginning with a baby cloud over Charoleau Gap, NE of Catalina.  Since it was before 11 AM, this was a sign in the sky that we were going to have an active day of Cumulus clouds, ending with a nice sunset with a mixture of Stratocumulus, Cumulus, and shallow Cumulonimbus clouds, the latter responsible for the light rain off to the south and west of Catalina shown in the second two photos.

Technical information:   The first cloud photo was taken on Sunday, not yesterday, Monday as it is written above, but there COULD HAVE BEEN a cloud like that yesterday and so I used it anyway (haha, sort of).

Second with areas of rain dropping out of these higher based clouds (14,000 feet or so above sea level, 10-11 Kft above ground level) and with base temperatures of about -5 C (23 F), it was actually SNOW falling out of these clouds right at base, melting into rain below that.

Quiz:  How cold were cloud tops to produce virga/snow/rain this thick as you see in the second two photos?  Probably lower than -20 C (-4 F).  At say, -15 C (5 F) there almost certainly would not have been this much “stuff” coming out.  This assertion from your writer and self-proclaimd “expert” in ice formation in Cumulus clouds (“hey”, I got journal pubs!)

Its back! After going away on the model runs for a couple of days and I didn’t want to tell you about it thinking it could come back because the models can be kind of dicey on these things and it did


That vexious tropical storm is once again shown to move northward into Baja Cal and then its remnants move into the SW, combine with a winter-like upper air trough, and together produce some good AZ rains.  After a period of depression about this tropical depression going to the west and dying instead of into AZ as I had mentioned in two earlier “statements” here, I can be happy again.

Here are a couple of examples from last night’s NCEP model runs from IPS Meteor Star:  The areas of color are areas of rain.  It takes a couple of more days (last panel) for that tropical air to be bound up and wrung out by that winter-like cool trough (last panel).

In the meantime, we can be thrilled, I tell you, with interesting Altocumulus castellanus and floccus with virga here and there today and maybe tomorrow, too.  Those clouds make for great sunrise and sunset color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Good” model runs continue, ones that bring substantial rain to AZ

I thought sure that late September-early October tropical storm entry into AZ and Catalina land would disappear; too good to be true.   But today,  after several more model runs, there it is, the remnant practically over where we live the afternoon of October 1st (2nd panel)!  (These are National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) model runs repackaged by IPS Meteostar.

So, something to look forward to along with an occasional Cumulus humilis cloud until then it seems.  I hope you’re happy now.

The End

Good model

I like this model output from “12Z” this morning, and so I thought my other reader besides me would like it, too.

These are the latest gov’t models as repackaged by IPS Meteostar–they do a great job at presenting weather stuff.

These are for the afternoons of September 29th and 30th, respectively.  Note hurricane (low center) passing over Cabo San Lucas on the 29th.  Fantastic.   It is not the same low they had in the Mexican Pacific before of which I spoke.  Its an even better (stronger) one.  Not only that, in the days after I mentioned the possibility of AZ rain from a tropical storm, there were some “bad” model runs which either had no tropical storm, or showed a tropical storm moving off into the Pacific and not moving this way.   That made which those model runs quite bad, and not even worth mentioning.  But now I am happy again.

A note of explanation:  the areas of colors from green to blue to pink are where the model thinks it has rained during the past 12 h.  Blue and pink are where a lot more rain than in green areas is forecast to fall.  Note all the green in droughty AZ and NM!  This could be a really nice rain, one that might keep the remaining green weeds green for a little longer, IF the models verify.

Lastly, a picture of some greenish weeds around the State Trust Lands above Catalina land yesterday FYI.

The End


The Tucson storm passes by Catalina like so many other September storms

With continuous thunder and threatening skies for Catalina, the mammoth Tucson storm that dropped a record 2.83 inches for the wettest day ever in September at the International Airport passed by Catalina early yesterday afternoon.  Here’s what a fraction of it looked like (using a bad ISO setting, darn it).  Also at the TUS AP it has become the wettest September of record halfway through the month with over FIVE and a half inches!

Of course, we here in Catalina land have been missed by most of those heavy September rains and have had only a crummy 1.17 inches.  Still, better than nothin’.   And there have been some fabulous sights during these past days.  Below are a couple of shots from yesterday.  That easily visible roiling motion in that last shot, if you saw that Cumulus congestus-going-to-Cumulonimbus, was a real indicator of how unstable the air was, that is, how easily it could go upward yesterday.  This situation us due to the cooler air aloft we have right now, along with mid-80 temperatures at the ground.   This is the kind of roiling, churning action you see in those big boys in the Plains States, East, and South when severe weather lurks.

Mods think we have a chance for rain today, too.  Maybe it will be our time, we will win the rain lottery today.

Below, thanks to the U of AZ, we have a time lapse movie of part of the storm, anyway, to the right side of the image.

Dreamy weather ahead:

Of particular excitement in the longer range NCEP (“government”) models, although almost certainly wrong as they usually are that far in advance, is that a tropical storm advances toward Arizony in early October.  Mark your calendars.  Might as well.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Another summer thunderstorm day!

We’re on the cusp, of course, for the end of the summer rain season, and so every day like yesterday is a particular treasure.  Take a gander here at the bulging morning Cumulus congestus and Cumulonimbus (albeit, marginal ones) clouds early on over the Cat Mountains.  Note detached top of small Cb to left with virga.   Some science:  note, too, that it appears to be a droplet cloud with snow virga underneath.   The presence of a droplet cloud tells you that the cloud top did not get excessively cold, probably no lower than about -20 C.   Those big boys of the afternoon and their all ice, spreading anvils would have tops colder than at least -30 C.

Did you notice, too, how much lower the cloud bases were yesterday than the prior day?  (Com’on!  You’re supposed to notice things like that as a nascent cloud assessor!)  So, all in all, I was very happy yesterday.  Note in the second photo, this tiny start up Cumulus cloud seems to be making an unseemly gesture to the clear sky above, as though it will alone fill in that overly blue sky.  Well, it was joined by its big brothers later in the day to produce some nice showers, 0nly 0.05 inches here in Catalina “Heights”, but 0.16 inches just a mile N in the Sutherland “Heights” district.  Here’s what it looked like later on yesterday afternoon from Sutherland Heights:

Lastly, another one of our glorious sunsets to top off another exciting weather day.

Scattered rain in AZ forecast next ten days!

Last night’s model runs continue to indicate a showery spell of no less than 10 days duration in the State of AZ.  IPS Meteostar, a private weather provider,  has repackaged the National Center for Environmental Prediction numerical model predictions here.  No one cannot be excited by this prospect in view of our droughty August.  What’s REALLY interesting, though likely in some error, is that a tropical storm moves up the Baja Coast , dies, but its remnant moves into AZ in 10 days (see model forecast below valid for September 14th).   As a forecaster type of person, as well as a cloud-maven kind of person, this would be like Christmas in September to have something like this happen where maybe an inch or two of rain spreads over parts of the State.  This is because we are supposed to be getting drier and drier as the summer rain season withers in September, and so this would be an anomaly.  I’ve always liked weather anomalies, and this might be a real good one.  However, as mentioned in prior writeups, these kinds of things come and go in the models, and so its best to think of it as like in a dream right now, but a pleasant one.

Some cloud shots below from yesterday.  It was SO NICE to see that first little Cumulus cloud pop up over the Catalina Mountains in the early afternoon!  While the depth of the Cumulonimbus clouds locally was limited by dry air and an inversion (temperature reversal aloft) and they could not produce strong rainshafts as a result, still in was nice to see ANYTHING dropping out of those clouds!  Here we were lucky enough to register 0.o2 inches, enough to cut the dust some on our gravelly neighborhood roads.

 

 

Toad’s night out; 0.93 inches

What a superb rain that was here in Cat land!  The early signs, which I pointed out to a friend well before it happened, fully developed, “behemothic” Cumulonimbus capillatus incus clouds before noon.    Take a look at some of the early “warning” developments.  I included a baby Cumulonimbus capillatus cloud just for the heck of it; it was so CUTE!  First, tall thin Cumulus reaching the ice-forming level before noon (fibrous portions technically making them Cbs), the baby Cb, and then a behemoth of a complex to the N of us.  This was SUCH a great opening for the day!   How anyone could not be excited by these sights unless you were indoors all day without windows, I don’t know.  Also, I get quite sad thinking about Catalina-ites that feel they must move to higher ground when the temperature rises in summer here.  Look what they missed!  Of course, they also missed the screeching toads last night, too, not a pleasant sound, but nice to think it was because they, too, were excited about all that rain that fell.   What helped our rain total, and the desert re-greening now in process, was the giant areas of more stratiform rain areas, debris clouds from the original thunderheads that normally here do not produce much or any rain.  In the Midwest, a cold front comes through with leading thunderstorms and a windhift, and then it rains for three hours afterwards from the trailing  “stratiform”, well, really Nimbostratus-like clouds (ones commonly seen in Seattle, for example, when steady rain is falling).  And we had a lot of that late yesterday afternoon that enhanced the rain totals from the downspout portions of the thunderstorms.   That steadier, moderate rain that went on for several hours added about as much here as did the initial dump.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, Mr. Cloud Maven person got quite excited when solid bases began to appear overhead, requiring documentation as in this photo, his signature shot.

What was exceptional was the frequency here of cloud to ground lightning strikes, many close ones,  yesterday afternoon.   I had not seen so many strikes and the time between them could be measured, seconds I think. Even going out to the “trace detector” (an old car parked outside) seemed dangerous though it is only 50 feet away.  Cut down on photo ops, too, dammitall.

Its thought that a higher frequency of strikes might be due to greater updraft speeds than usual in the clouds overhead.  Typically, guessing here, they might be 10-20 kts in our thunderstorms, yesterday may have reached 30-40 kts.  Not much literature re this sort of thing in AZ thunderstorms.   BTW, the greatest measured updraft was about 80 kts, or close to 100 mph!  Yikes!  The plane that measured that, an “armored” T-28, was taken upward 5,000 feet before you could say skiddadle.