No rain in sight for Catalinans, to get that over with.
However, if you’re bored and are thinking about a quickie storm chasing vacation with the family, monster storms, likely to produce newspaper headlines will be smashing the Pac NW in the next few days. Expect to read about flooding and hurricane to 100 mph winds on the Washington/Oregon coast sometime. Also, Tofino, British Columbia, along the SW coast of Vancouver Island, would be a great place to head for, watching giant waves crash up against the coast and around that lighthouse they have around there, pounding rains…
The long fetch with these storms in the Pacific guarantees some monster waves.
3:49 AM, 14 Oct: Mark “WeatherPal” Albright informed me that a 94 mph wind was observed last evening (the 13th) near Astoria, OR.
The next low, a “regular low” but one energized by leftover moisture from Typhoon Songda, looks to be even stronger than last night’s low. This one comes in moving really rapidly tomorrow evening while deepening (central pressure is dropping further) as it passes over the Washington coast. Looks like that one will be a “blow-down” storm; good-bye timber.
The synoptic pattern (placement of jet streams and lows) is “Freda-esque”, that is, similar to that of October 12, 1962, the infamous Columbus Day storm where a remnant of Typhoon Freda zipped in as a regular low that deepened explosively as it raced up the Pacific NW coast bringing winds of 100-200 mph and blowing down BILLIONS of board feet of timber as well as weather pal, Mark Albright, mentioned above, when he was a kid1.
Well, we sure hope its not THAT similar!
Yesterday’s Clouds
Lots of interesting patterns and complexities in yesterday’s skies. If you didn’t see them, here they are, though its kind of a much ado about nothing, really:
1:23 PM. Icy Cirrocumulus. As a solid band of high and middle clouds approached, the first things we saw as the moisture began to increase aloft were some spectacular patterns in isolated high clouds as the solid band approached. Probably most of the Cirrocumulus we see is composed of droplets, and never glaciates, but here, it appears to be composed of ice, though likely started as droplets at the upwind edge (middle of photo). At the top of the photo, the tiny “granulets” are fibrous, clearly ice, and strands of ice crystals are starting to make their way down.1:23 PM. Got excited and thought you might like a zoomed view of this patch in case you didn’t get one.1:30 PM. I thought this was kind of a strange and fun pattern for you. Look how the youngest cloud elements are over there beyond the Catalinas and the oldest ones with strands of ice crystals falling out are overhead. Besides perspective giving you a sense of radiating lines, one would normally guess that the wind way up there (about 30 kft above the ground) is heading toward you, newest cloud (Cirrocumulus, maybe lenticularis) back there, oldest ones arriving overhead, which would be from the south in this shot. But the wind was from the west-southwest at this level, perpendicular to this scene. Can’t say either of us has seen this before; quite the “Tom Foolery” in a cloud scene, a real knee-slapper. Clouds do that a lot where we think we know what is going on, but, as they say, “upon further review”…..1:32 PM. Confusion? Strands of ice and waves in this cloud that produced lines seem to run in various directions. Some lines are perpendicular to the wind, blowing from the lower right to the upper left side, representing little bumps in the air, ones resembling sea swell rolling in to the shore,1:40 PM. Pretty much unfathomable, too complex to even begin describing in less than a page, which makes it worth photographing. We can make out what CMP deems as some icy Cirrocumulus though, here and there, with that lenticular-looking backside beyond the mountains, though perspective may be bunching it up to look that way. I’ve already taken too many photos in just eight minutes!2:10 PM. Breathing easier now, here, “simple” Cirrus fibratus, lined Cirrus clouds with mostly non-curving fibers,Also 2:10 PM. The scene upwind of that “liney” Cirrus. Also “fibratus” except overhead there looks to be “uncinus” as evidenced by those thick regions (upper right hand corner) likely trailing ice strands back toward the viewer.2:18 PM. Pretty soon the heavier masses of CIrrus (Spissatus) with some gray shading began to appear, with lower, but still very cold and at least momentarily, Altocumulus droplet clouds (above bush on the right) began to appear just below the Cirrus. Clouds almost always lower in time, even when they don’t lead to a storm.2:18 PM. More patterns. Here we have a mush of Altocumulus, very fine granulation of Cirrocumulus (top) and CIrrus clouds passing overhead. You can tell if clouds are at different levels by looking to see if they are moving all at the same rate. Here, if you looked really carefully, the little white tufts of Altocumulus clouds were moving in a slightly different direction than the Cirrus clouds were. How important is this. Not too much.4:18 PM. Skipping ahead, the full boatload of this band, consisting of a thick Altostratus, was passed over at this time. The clearing on the right told you there was going to be a nice sunset in a couple of hours. This was the lowest level the moisture got to. somewhere in the 22-25 kft above the ground, according the the TUS sounding though the darkness of it may make it look lower.6:01 PM. Almost could have been a painting. VIncent Van Gogh himself could not do this scene justice. If you’ve seen his work, like “Starry Night“, you’ll know how bad he was at capturing the sky. But for him to try to capture this scene, it would be beyond “bad”, but rather a total and complete travesty,. The gradual ascent that produced the heavy line of Altostratus is now being broken up by patches of downward moving air, leaving holes and streakiness in the former solid cloud shield. But who cares when you can just sit and take scenes like this in!6:06 PM. The moon amid CIrrus spissatus and other varieties of Cirrus. Notice that the disk of the moon is just a bit blurry, out of focus. That blurring is due to ice crystals in those Cirrus clouds. If it was a thin droplet cloud, the disk would appear crisp and very sharp..
—————————- 1Mark. like most kids who are blown over in a windstorm, wanted to be a meteorologist right after that. Its pretty traumatic and life changing when you’re blown over by wind. CMP’s life was traumatized and changed forever when it snowed a few inches in the San Fernando Valley of southern California when he was six year’s old. Not sure you’ll find this information in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders #5, however, but its a well-known phenomenon in the weather subculture.
“Too many pictures, for one site…”, a continuing theme here1, to paraphrase “? and the Mysterians1“.
Two stations near Picture Rocks reported 1.25 and 1.35 inches, respectively, so some major rain fell fairly close to us. You can see the amount arounds around the State or here at the Banner U of AZ rainlog,org site.
Below your October 8th, 2016 cloud day, a Saturday in which the author’s former company fubball team, the Washington Huskies, spanked the Nike University of Oregon Duck, 70-21, ending years of futility against the billionaire’s sports teams. Too bad Washington multi-billionaire Gates is more interested in saving the world instead of helping the Huskies get better in sports like Phil Knight does with The Duck there in Duckville, OR….
Oh, well, off task there for a minute. I’m back now!
7:06 AM. Pretty Cirrus uncinus (tufted ice clouds with the larger ice crystals falling out where the wind is not as strong as where the head is) with a few Altocumulus over on the left.8:43 AM. The really sharp-eyed cloud maven junior person would have noticed these little icy trails in a sliver of Altocumulus or Cirrocumulus. These supercooled clouds were converted to ice along the path of the aircraft. The brighter one is the most recent one and is so white due to the extremely high concentrations of tiny (order of 10s of microns) germ-like ice crystals. Concentrations would be something like 10s of thousand per liter. Once formed, they compete for the available moisture, some evaporating, some able to grow larger and fall out just as ice crystals do in Cirrus clouds. The less white trail is older and is one where the crystals are spreading out and also evaporating so the concentrations are much less. Presently it is believe that the air going over the wing of a jet drops the temperature to below -39° C where crystals form spontaneously and can survive and grow within a supercooled water cloud egad this is getting to be a long caption.
Now, here where the excitement begins. Recall Mike L. and Bobby Maddox, both super experts concerning convection, called for severe storms and large hail today due to what the models were showing in the vertical wind profile and the amount of moisture available. Below, we start yesterday chapter of convection, and see where it leads.
3:47 PM. Beginning to think Mike L and Bobby M are going to be wrong. Cumulus in the heat of the day have only reached moderate, “congestus” sizes around here, though Cumulonimbus cloud tops can be seen off in the distance.2:50 PM. Another pretty sky scene with an ineffectual Cumulus congestus there north of Saddlebrooke. Looks like is has a little ice ejecta on the far right, middle. But see how any rain would fall out not within the main cloud body but out the side away from the base. More evaporating of any drops would occur. This is happening due to the moderate southwesterly winds higher up, with slower winds from the south below. Thinking about taking a nap….2:51 PM. On second thought, maybe I should see how the septic repair is going…. Looks OK. Wonder how many thousands it will be?2:58 PM. Even though it looks like Mike and Bob are still going to be wrong, at least someone’s getting some good TSTMS (weather text for “thunderstorms” in case you do that, but don’t do it whilst you’re driving, a public message from your CMP. Some cloud science: On the right is a turret that’s climbed up beyond the level of “glaciation” but still contains tons of water. Center left, is a complex of turrets a little behind that one that are taller, and in those tops you woud find little or no water, just ice crystals. Can you see the difference in texture between the rising turret full of water (though graupel, hail, and small ice crystals are likely inside it)3:58 PM. Septic crew was asking, “where’s the hail you said would happen today?” I corrected them by saying that Mike and Bobby told me that, I didn’t personally make that forecast. I told them, hang on, things are starting to happen. And, about this time, the NWS started to issue severe TSTM alerts for Cochise County due HAIL and high winds! Still, it didn’t yet look that great for us here in Catalina, Oro Valley area. The Cbs shown here are that “tough.”4:27 PM. Still kind of bored, think I’ll take picture of an interesting shadow pattern.4:34 PM. Gads, looks awful out there. Only the anvil is left of a former thunderstorm toward Twin Peaks as the wind shear aloft rips from it from its root base. Not too bad there on the left, though. Still looks like a dud day for us in Catalina anyway at this moment.4:55 PM. Modest Cumulonimbus forms in the lee of the Charouleaiu Gap. Notice here that looking to the NE you can only see the rising turret part of this Cumulonimbus. The anvil is trailing downwind away from you, some of that anvil can be seen at the far right,just above the ridge. But you can clearly see some precip is falling out of this, Code 1 (transparent shaft) likely because as we saw earlier, the precip is not falling through the whole depth of the cloud but is falling from a higher portion of the cloud that has been blown off toward the NE before the precip got going in it.5:01 PM. Yikes, when did this happen? Must have been between commercials during football viewing. You can only go outsie during commercials so you miss some things. Bobby and Mike are going to be correct for our own backyard! Hope we get something, and it appears to be upwind of Catalina!5:06 PM. Just because it was pretty. Cumulus congestus tops, brilliantly white (that higher one in the back).5:31 PM. More commercials allow a quick trip down the road to get this. Of concern, the shafting is shifting rightward and away from us. What’s upwind is now the Code 1 transparent rain. BUT, the base in the middle of the photo, and close by, looks great! Perhaps some stupefying dump will emerge from that and grow more good base material exactly upwind of us!5:58 PM. Another discouraging day of promise gone unfulfilled here in Catalina/Sutherland Heights. Feelling sad, though I would take a funny picture of my shadow whilst walking the dogs at half time, makes me look bigger than I really am. made me smile amid the dismal sprinkle that started to fall, giving us yet another “trace” of rain day.6:06 PM. There goes our complex of rain, thunder and lightning off into the distance. Still, the scene was great.6:08 PM. Day ended with some dramatic, colorful scenes, something said here alot, but true.
The End.
1If you don’t believe ? said something like that, go here
Kind of an abnormal, pithy, succinct blog today. Average WY precip in Catalina, which I meant to add to this chart, is 16.69 inches, so this past WY was a tad above normal.
Let’s face it, for most of the people living in Arizona, their best years are in the rear view mirror, as are mine which were probably about 50 years ago… Following that thought, let us not look ahead to further declines, but rather look back at the last water year for Catalina, ending this past September 30th, and see what it says, if anything, about the changing global climate we hear so much about:
Your Catalina water year history, compiled through 2008 by the folks at Our Garden there on N. Stallion Rs. off of Columbus Blvd. where you can find fresh organic vegetables every Wednesday and Saturday morning. Tell them Art sent you! Haha.
Can’t say I see too much going on here in Catalina so far; things seem pretty stable in the precipitation arena for the full water year’s rainfall.
I point out again, with great redundancy since I have pointed this out before, that the Our Garden climate record started just as a monumental change in circulation patterns occurred. Most climate scientists would attribute that to a shift as due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, discovered by important scientists I know well, like Mike Wallace1, of the University of Washington Huskies Atmospheric Sciences Department where I worked for about 30 years, but in airborne studies of clouds.
The PDO shift, if that’s what done it, was a circulation pattern change that brought astoundingly wet conditions to Catalina and the whole Southwest US, wet conditions unlikely to be seen in our remaining lifetimes, which aren’t that much longer anyway.
You may remember that bristle cone pine tree rings in California, analyzed by Haston and Michaelson in 1994, found only one period in the last 600 years (!) that was as wet as the late 1970s into the 1980s there (certainly spilling into AZ).
Remember how the Great Salt Lake was filling up to record levels back in the 1980s?
And any long term resident here, like the ones that I have spoken to, will tell you about the days of yore when the washes around here were running all year.
Well, that wasn’t the norm. sadly. They were just so lucky to have seen that era.
In weather, what goes around, comes around. Count on it happening again at some point in the future IMO. (Some climate changers might disagree with this assertion.)
How about our summer rainfall, June through September. Well, here’s that graph, updated through this past summer! Hope you like it:
Not much going on here, either.
Yesterday’s clouds–another day, another rainbow, of course.
Sprinkles of rain occurred off and on all day yesterday, but couldn’t muster even one hundredth of an inch of rain! With a few exceptions, the clouds producing the rain weren’t too deep, though still icy ones, and pretty high off the ground, mostly above 8,000 to 9.000 feet above us, which doesn’t help.
First, a rainbow shot:
4:20 PM. Looking north toward the Charouleau Gap (on the right). We have so many rainbows in Arizona, maybe, following the example of the University of Hawaii (Rainbow Wahini), the Banner University of Arizona sports teams should call themselves the “Rainbow Wildcats”…4:42 PM. Here’s a problem for a great shaft of rain, sloping tops of Cumulonimbus clouds. Don’t see any shaft here, just rain. When tops slope like this, it indicates the updraft isn’t very strong and the ice in the cloud is going to collect very little in the way of “supercooled” cloud droplets because the ice that forms is ejecting downstream from where the greatest growth would occur due to collecting cloud droplets, ones that would stick to the ice crystal, eventually making it a graupel or soft hail particle, the kind of thing that our vertical shafts are largely comprised of aloft. Slopey tops mean not a lot of growth of the precip, more “stratiform” like rain with fewer is any pulses of big drops.5:31 PM. Of course, still another rainbow. Notice how the colors are not as vibrant as some rainbows. This would indicate the concentrations of drops are less, and smaller than in the bright ones. So, not a lotta rain falling over there.3:50 PM. Now here’s a shaft with a real top, a pretty vertical one above it. There were a couple of these. Once again the spaces between the shafts lined up to pass over Catalina, rather than the shafts. The Tortolita Mountains got most of this one. I love these scenes, the backlighting, though, so many times they have resulted in disappointments.4:01 PM. The “Torts” cleaning up with a decent rain as that complex passed over them.5:19 PM. But even with a rain disappointment, we get to see these scenes here in The Heights over and over, again and again, to add to redundancy, We are so lucky! The cloud line above the mountains would be Stratocumulus.5:21 PM. Here crepuscular rays of sunlight produced by falling light rain diverge from the sun’s position. Light from an “infinite” source is supposed to be parallel at great distances. This seems to prove that our reality, as is sometimes suggested by philosophers, is not what we perceive with our tiny human brains. These diverging rays demonstrate that the sun is much closer to the earth and much smaller than generally believed by astronomers… The true reality of life and the universe are sometimes right in front of us.5:37 PM. By this time, the crepuscular rays and the existential questions they raised were gone and our perceived reality back to normal. Here a pretty good Cumulonimbus with a pretty vertical top and big shaft heads in the general direction of Catalina, once again raising hopes for measurable rain. Instead, it faded to sprinkles and our total rain from them was only a trace.
The End
—————–
1Well, actually we said “hi” in the halls once in awhile, I gave a talk in his class once, and, along with a bunch of Atmos Sci faculty, got to watch the 1992 New Year’s Day Rose Bowl mash down of Michigan for the Washington’s 1991 NCAA Division I fubball championship at his house. He also mediated an authorship kerfluffle between Peter Hobbs and me.
Kind of getting tired of gorgeous rainbows every day, ones without a lot of rain here in The Heights. But, here they are again:
5:44 PM5:54 PM.
Upwind Cumulonimbus clouds faded as the trudged toward Catalinaland yesterday, bottoms evaporating, raining out, leaving only a big patch Altostratus cumulonimbogenitus way up (at least ten kft above the ground) there with rain drops just big enough to survive evaporation and reach the ground just before 3 PM.
2:18 PM. Heading for Catalina, right side will maintain–note nice flat base, left side of heaviest shaft is a gonner. So, hope is on the right (not a political statement, but rather referring to the part of the cloud you want to be heading for you, which is not the shaft itself due to the short lifetime of shafts, but the new parts where new shafts will emanate. No renewing base/updraft over there on the left. You hope that segment isn’t exactly heading for you. We shall see in just a few minutes of yesterday time.2:24 PM. OK, we’re done as far as rain goes in Catalina from this. The updraft and solid base are propagating to the right, meaning that nice appearing rainshaft will be what targetis us. But the lives of shafts are so short without renewal, and that renewal is going to slip to the west of us. Notice how in six minutes the shaft on the left is almost completely gone.2:48 PM. Hard to believe that this is all that’s left of that pleasant Cumulonimbus cloud, an Altostratus translucidus cumulonimbogenitus , maybe with praecipitatio as well with it since you can see a veil of preicpitation is reaching the ground. Note the sun is shining through larger ice particles like snowflakes, its disk cannot be made out, though its position can. If this cloud was a thin droplet cloud, the sun’s disk could be seen as a sharply outlined disk.
In the meantime, all the excitement, possibly spurred by the gusty outflow winds that accompanied the above seen, was happening almost overhead to the NW-NE, as a great line of Cumulus bases blackened. They were already passed us, but if they unloaded and sent a pulse of wind out and toward us, then we might end up in a wind clash zone, with huge clouds forming overhead. OK, was dreaming again, but here’s what was going on, which ultimately led to another major dump on the CDO watershed.
2:20 PM. Dark Cumulus bases mass over Saddlebrooke and north. No precip trails yet, but they were virtually assured. Started videoing this scene about now.2:28 PM. In just eight minutes this has become really menacing, possibly a major dump on Saddlebrooke with more golf balls flooding down into the CDO wash as happened the previous day. Now looking for the first strands of the largest hydrometeors (likely hail or graupel) to drop through the updraft, which is looking very substantial at this time due to that well-formed base.2:30 PM. Here’s a close up of that base over Saddlebrooke, now placed in the “Cloud Base Collection” series that we offer to readers from time to time. We’re hoping ot get into a gallery soon.2:37 PM. “Thar she goes!” This is really hard to see, but at top center the rain/hail/whatever is just starting to show out the bottom. Some of these, likely gigantic drops, are already reaching the ground. Notice the slight dimming of the Cumulus clouds in the background. That would be the developing rainshaft is going to be.2:39 PM. Now even little teeny babies can see the shaft dropping out.2:42 PM. For all to see now….just three minutes later.2:44 PM. Just another two minutes later. Its pretty remarkable how fast these things collapse. The whitish strands are likely hail/graupel shafts, often located on the upshear/upwind side of thunderstorms.2:49 PM. Soon the plop of all that rain push enough air out of the way that the shaft extruded outward toward the west. Note that rain would be falling on people from a raining cloud some mile or three away. The heaviest rain seen in the ALERT gauges from this event was only 0.79 inches at Pig Spring, near the Charouleau Gap. The peak rain was probably in the 1-2 inch range.
Hiked over to see if the Sutherland Wash, east of the similarly named housing development, Sutherland Heights, had a good flow from our “Mighty Kong” of prior day. It had:
3:45 PM. The Sutherland Wash scene showing that it flowed bank-to-bank as did the CDO here in Catalina.
The weather ahead
Seems Remnant Roslyn will spit out another snippet of moisture ahead of our fall-like cold front passage late Sunday or early Monday bringing clouds, and with clouds, a slight chance of measurable rain. Don’t hold your breath for measurable rain IMO. Hope I’m as wrong as the prediction I made to a friend that the Stanford Cardinal would trounce the wildly overrated Washington Huskies fubball team last night.
Just back from a horsey ride with Zeus the horse. Rode into the CDO to see the surprising view that it had run bank-to-bank last night after that mighty cell passed by along the foothills. In the wash, were golf ball-sized golf balls scattered throughout the wash, indicating that it hit the planned community of Saddlebrooke with it many golf courses very hard. No golfers were found.
The Pima County ALERT gauges really did not call out that such a flow would occur from precip data around here, the greatest amount being barely over an inch, and its likely that such a flow in the CDO, bank to bank would need 2-3 inch dump in its watershed.
This morning around 10 AM in the CDO south of the E Golder Ranch Drive bridge,
———-end of updated material unless I get more updated——
After an afternoon of “steady-state” Cumulus congestus and small Cumulonimbus clouds trailed northward from the Catalina Mountains, the “Mighty Kong” erupted about 5 PM providing one of the most intimidating, yet majestic and beautiful scenes of the summer rain season; this or any.
Cloud Maven Person was indoors drowning his sorrows concerning what appeared to be a a grotesquely failed forecast of a good rain day (“about half an inch”) here in Catalina in flavorful Indian cuisine when the unexpected began to take place outside. So, the photo record is incomplete for this event. “CMP” had given up on the day.
Just measured in NWS-Style 8-inch gauge and CoCoRahs gauge:
0.12 inches was our total here in the Heights.
And, the photos aren’t quite as good as they should be, slightly out of focus since CMP didn’t adjust his camera for the dark scenes his was seeing. Oh, me. Missed the great sunrise, too, due to not having memory stick in the camera! Oh, me.
6:48 AM. The day started propitiously enough with a ton of clouds, and a line of weak Cumulonimbus heading for us from the SW -W. horizon. A small Cb ahead of this line can be seen on the left.7:14 AM. Looking at this scene, and pondering a day and evening of these, “CMP” is wondering just how many inches of rain we might have,
However this line faded, bringing only sprinkles, a trace of rain to Catalina, and was followed by a huge clearing and sunny skies, thought to be a good thing at the time. Soon, gigantic Cumulonimbus clouds would erupt to over the mountains all quadrants… Nope. By mid-afternoon, only Cumulus congestus had formed with an occasional bit of ice and rain visible, all to the north.
2:08 PM. Cumulus congestus repeatedly formed in the lee of the Catalinas. Occasionally one produced a shower. The clouds are moving from right to left in southerly flow, probably pinching together in the lee of the Catalina Mountain “sky island” as happens in the lee of real islands.4:21 PM. Another nice Cumulus congestus, but where’s are the Cumulonimbus clouds, that big line of them coming in from the S and SW? Pretty much threw in the towel, gave up except to document for purposes of training a little conversion from water to ice visual lesson in one of these turrets that climbed just high enough to convert.4:25 PM. Thus in a series is just 5 min long. Shows how fast the liquid looking cloud can convert to one that is all ice and droplets evaporate due to incursions of dry air, and their molecules race over to that ice crystal next to them. When water and ice are together, its supersaturated with respect to ice, and water molecules head toward any ice around, accumulating as a solid on the ice (a process called deposition), racing over there as a vapor.4:27 PM. A very slight change has taken place. The tight cauliflower look due to liquid water “cells” (such as those on the left side where a new turret is rising up) are disappearing, Its not very obvious at all, but you should be thinking even with this little bit of change, “There she goes! It made it to the “glaciation level” today.”
4:28 PM. Underneath this converting turret are ice particles that are just starting to fall out. Can you see the little fibers of ice? Since they don’t have a long water path to fall through, these would be pretty pristine ice, maybe only lightly “rimed” covered in frozen cloud droplets. Notice to here and in the next shot, that they are sloping a bit, indicating they’re not heavy ice particles at all. If you’re really good, you can see that the whole turret has changed, no longer looks “watery”; that tight, hard, cauliflower look has “mellowed”, the crenelations have mostly disappeared. What is a “crenelation” anyway? Better look it up….4:30 PM. Its a gonner here, no liquid water is left in that turret. The question we still struggle with is how this conversion happens so fast?
This was the last photo I took until walking out of a local Indian restaurant and exclaiming, “What? When did this happen?” It was so clear to the S-W with the exception of a single dissipating Cb that it didn’t even seem worth a photo.
6:04 PM. Hope for that great, meaningful rain in Catalina, though I am in Rancho Vistoso when shooting this.6:04 PM. Looking over the Catalina Mountains as much as I could. Look at that nice, solid base!6:08 PM. Luxurious shafts of rain begin to pour out of solid cloud bases. And look at the one protruding outward toward Rancho V. THis is looking incredible for something humongous to happen. Not sure why this happened? Was there a trigger aloft that was going over this late in the day?6:11 PM. Now, a rainbow to boot! This shot from Honeybee Canyon Park.6:13 PM. This is becoming something memorable. Losing control, photos every minute or so, but ISO level too low!6:14 PM. In the meantime a shelf of clouds, Stratocumulus I’d say, spreads westward from the storm. Would they, could they erupt, too? No, as it turned out.6:16 PM. As darkness fell at Honeybee, and the rainbow faded, it was now becoming evident that this odd late eruption was becoming something special. The rest of the time was spent racing home to be there when it hit Catalina/Sutherland Heights.6:26 PM. Got this kind of crummy shot waiting at the light at Rancho Vistoso Blvd and Oracle Rd. By this shot, I am thinking, unbelievable what has happened! This has become the “Mighty Kong” of summer storms, and its spreading away from the mountains toward Sutherland Heights!6:33 PM. Car was blasted going down Golder Ranch Drive by not blowing dust but blowing gravel as outflow winds slammed down Golder Ranch Drive. Estimated gusts 60 mph. Afraid to look at front of car this morning. Also look at how firm, solid that leading base is, telling you that there is a strong updraft feeding into it. More cells will develop downwind. That’s Jenny and Matt’s house shining in the sun on the hillside.6:33 PM. Looking from Golder Ranch Drive toward Samaniego Ridge, obscured in rain.
Well, as it turned out it was a near hit, only 0.06 inches fell in a violent few minutes of huge drops at my place in Sutherland Heights. From what I saw going by, and needing 0.44 inches on yesterday morning’s forecast of 0.50 inches in Sutherland Heights. about 500 yards farther west for this remarkable, dramatic storm would have given us that amount easily. 1.06 inches was recorded at Cargodera Canyon, NE corner of Cat State Park, and several sites in the foot hills of Catalina toward the mountains area had more than half an inch.
A quickie take on a U of AZ model run from last evening’s global data, has Cumulonimbus clouds developing to our southwest and rolling across Catalina in the afternoon. This would be, appropriately, considering the definition of the end of our summer rain season as September 30th, very appropriate.
Should be some good rain today in Catalina, FINALLY! Thinking maybe half an inch or so over the next 24 h, something decent, as tropical air drains o northward and over us out of tropical storm remnant, Roslyn (“Rozzi”).
Clouds and weather interruption:
Due to the name of our weather-affecting tropical storm, Roslyn, I am now reminded of a profound, life-altering “Hallmarky” chapter of life when I was in HS, involving another Roslyn (aka, “Rozzi”). In an another attempt to increase blog readers, those really not interested in clouds and weather anyway, I have inserted this story about a 15-year old, shy boy and his incapacitating crush on a Rozzi R as a junior in HS I suspect it is a fairly common one in some ways, although this one leads to the formation of other people with a different classmate. The Story of Rozzi R
This story was passed to Rozzi, who had no idea who I was, only in 2009, btw. She seemed to like it, and told me about her life, family and three kids. I think its OK to share it.
——————————
Back to weather, at 7:11 AM, one pulse of rain is within a half an hour or so. (Later, we only got sprinkles out of that first pulse).
Yesterday’s clouds
Nice rainbow last evening; nice sunset, too:
6:26 PM. Altocumulus and patches of a higher mostly ice cloud (Cirrus spissatus or Alstratus?) provided quite a nice sunset yesterday evening. Back the other way, were rainbows galore.6:11 PM. Rainbow under a more or less stratiform remnant of a Cumulonimbus cloud.6:17 PM.
The Prodigal Storm yesterday afternoon
Yesterday afternoon had quite the dump and something of a little ‘boob from the outflow winds, so much rain came down initially around Oro Valley/Marana, west Tucson, south of Pusch Ridge. Was heading this way, too, with nice big, black, solid-looking base. Started a video of it, thinking about the gush was to strike Sutherland Heights/Catalina.
Here it is, in all of its glory and subsequent dissipation:
3:09 PM. Outflow from TUS storm builds ledge of Cumulus base S-SW of Pusch Ridge.3:20 PM. Only 11 minutes later that new base has unloaded its load on Oro Valley. ).59 inches at the CDO and Ina Road intersection yesterday, but likely an inch fell out of this in the peak rain area. Note how the winds are pushing rain and dust west and northwest.3:25 PM. She’ll be comin’ around the mountain when she comes. This was looking so good for us. Why? Look at that great SOLID base coming at us ahead of the rain! The lower scruffs of cloud are called “pannus” and in this case they are created by the nose of the outlfowing winds from this storm. What you want is for those outlfowing winds to keep generating new, fresh Cumulus bases, ones that explode upward into Cumulonimbus clouds. Without the new, good base and the updraft that goes with it, all of the rain can fallout in less than half an hour from the ones already raining. Its a supply thing, you have to keep it going. What if there were no new people born? Well, after awhile the supply of people would run out.3:31 PM. By this time, you’re getting worried about this incoming system. Look what’s happening to the formerly solid base. Its beginning to get “lumpy” looking with dark and lighter spots telling you the updraft is getting broken up, fallling apart, maybe due to the blockage presented by Pusch Ridge. But there’s still hope, the updraft MIGHT reassemble itself….and there are still a couple of pretty good base “hot spots” where the updraft is still good.3:37 PM. “Its is finished.” What;s heading toward Catalina is that transparent veil of rain on the left of the shaft. We now have no chance for a major dump. Maybe it will measure though, a few hundredths…3:44 PM. Need more be said? Sprinkles occurred here, it did not measure. Warning: A sprinkle isn’t drizzle, a continuing theme here. Look at the “crapulent” bases now! Oh, me. I wanted to go in the house and never come out again, it was SO DEPRESSING to see this happen. Lots of storms make it past Pusch Ridge, too, but not this faker.3:44 PM. As usual, major shafting occurred AROUND Catalina, and not on it, pretty much like this whole summer has been. This is looking north toward Bio25:16 PM. Nice interplay of rain and sun.
Models, with spaghetti support, show a strong, but dry, cold front coming through next week, and fall will be in the air as nighttime lows drop into the 40s in our colder, lower spots, like at the bottom of Catalina State Park, in the CDO wash, etc.
Catalinans were warned from this very blog weeks ago that a hurricane would definitely not pass over Tucson today, though our best model showed that happening.
Let us reprise that computer model prediction of a hurricane over Tucson and how wrong it was:
Valid at 5 PM today! Hurricane center is over Tucson (see arrow if you are unfamiliar with the United States and Arizona.)
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Nice weather we’re having today, overcast Altostratus opacus (for the most part; sun’s exact position not detectable) with embedded lenticular clouds, ones located to the WEST of the Catalinas, an unusual sight. Also, there are sprinkles-its-not-drizzle-dammitall falling from this layer all around us. We are currently in a “rain shadow” because of easterly flow aloft that had brought downslope drying to Catalina.
Those poor drops falling from that middle cloud layer of Altostratus (base estimated at 10,000 feet above the ground here at 9;26 AM AST) have almost no chance of reaching us until the wind weakens up there and/or changes direction, or the precip on the way down gets much heavier.
Here’s an example of our rain shadow as of 0900 AST this morning:
I could post the images of this scene I’ve already taken today. But that would be wrong. This is not a “timely” websight/blog, but rather one that discusses the past.
Yesterday was as rare a day in Catalina, Arizona as seeing the marbled murrelet in Olympia, Washington.1
Why?
Our bit of rain (0.12 inches in Sutherland Heights) was only due to that formed by the collision-coalesence process, some times called the “warm rain” process, or more technically, non-brightband rain2.
No ice needed.
Usually clouds at inland locations like Arizona have so many droplets in them , a few hundred thousand per liter or more, larger drops that can collide and coalesce don’t form because the condensed water is spread over so many of them.
So I could feel the excitement out there as that frontal band got closer. Perhaps you saw the drizzle-mist rainbow on the Tortalitas, looked at cloud tops, and saw no ice. If you said you saw some ice yesterday you were mistaken or lying to impress your friends.
Let us review yesterday in clouds:
7:36 AM. Looking toward the Tortolitas at the line of Cumulus congestus approaching Catalina. Can you see the little piece of rainbow just below those low,low cloud bases? Go straight above the white dot marker in the road (Oracle). Cloud bases were usually hot yesterday morning, 15-17° C, and, thus. our clouds were loaded with extra water. The warmer the base, the greater the amount of water that condenses above cloud base. That means drops is bigger, and can reach sizes where bumping together leads to sticking, not rebound as is normal. The usual cloud base is around 5-10° C this time of year. Photo, of course, not taken while driving; that would be crazy. Is just “shopped” to look that way to provide an “action” setting.7:40 AM. Such a pretty scene! Can you see the little bit of lower hanging cloud below the line of Cumulus? It looked like our windshift, cold front line might be on the doorstep. Waited until afternoon to get here, though.7:45 AM. Here’s a closer look at those lower windshift indicating clouds to the NW yesterday. Now you KNOW the front and “FROPA” is getting close. Very exciting scene. But would it rain? No ice was visible anywhere around.7:44 AM. In the meantime, Stratocumulus clouds gathered upwind of Catalina with light rain visible just above the horizon SW/ Was looking for an icy top. to extrude above the Stratocu, but didn’t see one. You didn’t either.7:49 AM. In the meantime, not much is going on over the Catalinas. Notice how much shallower the Stratocu are than just over there by the Tortollitas. Really showed that the lifting zone of the front was so close!8:22 AM. Suddenly, it was raining! If you don;t believe me there are drops on the camera lens in this photo. All this misty rain developed while the author, cloud maven person, wasn’t paying attention. Did that Stratocumulus develop rain, or did that bit of rain above the horizon move in? Maybe this can be answered at the next club meeting.8:25 AM. Starting to lose photo control here, as things closed in, prettyness getting enhanced be passing rays of sun on the greenish Catalina Mountains. How can you not record this? Well, maybe you can go ho-hum, but no cloudcentric person could.8:33 AM. By this time it was all over and 0.05 inches had been logged. Here, those raining clouds zip off to Oracle State Park and vicinity over the horizon. Still looking for icy tops, but haven’t seen any, such as in those Cumulus tops, horizon left. Photos now being taken almost every minute, certainly within every five minutes. Wondering if I need a doctor….?8:47 AM. Rain begins to form on Pusch Ridge from low-based Cumulus clouds. The misty look, lack of a shaft, has you thinking “warm rain” all the way, Maybe of Hawaii, too.
Skipping a LOT of pretty scenes now…..
9:47 AM. Think how special you would think you were when this ray of sunlight bathed you for those few seconds, darkness all around.9:48 AM. Pretty much the same scenes as you’ve already seen over and over again, but this one has a bird in it for the sake of variety.10:33 AM. A little break allowed some nice scenes of the Cumulus congestus on the Catalinas. Notice how low the base is. You could have been hiking in congestus bases yesterday! Very few people get to hike in the base of a Cumulus congestus clouds. You still haven’t seen any sign of ice, either.10:44 AM. Something in the way of a shaft out there over Marana/Oro Valley probably made you start to wonder, “maybe there is some ice up there?” It dissipated quickly before it arrived dropping only a few drops. Still has hard as you and I looked, we couldn’t see any as it came and its remains went. U of AZ computer model soundings at this time had the tops way above freezing. In case you don’t believe me again here is a sample:
Valid for 10 AM, yesterday. Output was from the 11 PM AST model run, a diagram with a lot of writing on it.
11:50 AM. Major windshift line and fontral passage (FROPA) now beginning to make progress toward Catalina along with a line of deeper clouds along it. Was thinking ice might be seen somehwere up there at this time, but nope.11:52 AM. When looking for ice, you want to look at what’s ejecting from the tops of the clouds. Here, that little flat cloud above the Cumulus clouds is the “ejecta” from those showers just starting to hit the Tortolita Mountains. As you can see as a cloud maven person, it does not have a fibrous look, nor are there fine strands of ice dropping from it, as would be the case if ice was present. SO it was another piece of circumstantial evidence that ice was not involved in even those dark clouds toward the Tortolitas, ones that would eventually give us our final bit of rain here in Sutherland Heights, Catalian. This kind of cloud has sometimes been called a “water anvil.” This was a really exciting moment, though most folks would find that hard to fathom.12 Noon. A hard shower has popped up over there toward Marana. Now here’s I would have guessed these must be some ice at cloud top from the narrowness of the shaft indicating a higher cloud top than in the other nearby shower-producing clouds. Does anyone out there have an aircraft and can fly IFR? It would be great to be on standby like days like this and go take a look at cloud top heights.12:38 PM. Stratocumulus, in one of its better presentations; lumpy and widespread.
The rest of the day was overcast, cool with a period of light rain around 2 PM, with the temperature dropping to a remarkable 58° F here in Catalina.
The last TUS sounding seemed to confirm this unusual rain day, indicating that the stratiform tops near and over the site were at 0° C.
Here’s pretty much what the balloon went up through: The TUS rawinsonde, launched around 3:30 PM yesterday. Cloud tops would be where the two lines, temperature and dewpoint temperature, separate.4:04 PM. Looking toward Pusch Ridge and Tucson.
Our final rain total in Sutherland Heights was a respectable 0.12 inches from a rarely observed event. 0.47 inches fell on Ms. Lemmon for the highest amount around.
Might add more later, but am quitting now to go “lunge” and ride a horse..
PS: I have added more, re-written some not so great “formulations”…
The End
1If upon reading that sentence you would like bail on reading about clouds and rain here in Arizona and read about that bird, please consult:
2When steady rain is occurring, returns have a bright band, or a augmented return from the layer in the atmosphere where snow is melting into rain. On days like yesterday, throughout the Tropics, along the West Coast, among many places, non-brightband rain is fairly common. Typically it falls from clouds with tops warmer than -5° C. Ice usually onsets at temperatures between -5° and -10° C in such clouds. Hawaii is a good example where “warm rain” produces most of the prodigious rain totals there on the windward slopes, such as that at Mt Waialeale on the Island of Kuwai where the average rainfall is more than 450 inches!
