Not much else to talk about, no rain of course; what is that?
But with so many colorful scenes yesterday, we can be partially sated by the lives we lead here sans rain here. October ended with a puny 0.01 inches in Sutherland Heights.
Now, because I grew up in California and remain a little Cal-centric, this brief diversion from AZ:
But droughty Cal got nailed though, from about San Luis Obispo, so we can be happy about that I guess. One station, Gasquet RS, near the Duck border, got just under 28 inches in October; stations in the Santa Cruz Mountains, way down by Monterrey, got between 14-17 inches! From the California-Nevada River Forecast Center, this nice map of October rainfall anomalies in that domain. Red is real dry, and that’s the color we would be in if it was the California-Nevada-Arizona River Forecast Center:
Many departures are far over the map color-coding limit of 350%, but are over 1000% of average! Note red below normal swath. This tells you that the mean area of low pressure at the surface and aloft was just off the West Coast. Pac NW set maximum October rainfall records, too.
But let us not dwell any more of generous rains that others got, but celebrate the color and clouds of Arizona. Here are yesterday’s glorious scenes, beginning with a spectacular Altocumulus lenticularis under some Cirrus at dawn:
6:37 AM.6:47 AM. Ac len stack.10:51 AM. Tiny patch of Cirrocumulus tried to hide in front of some Cirrus. Hope you weren’t fooled and logged this sighting in your cloud diary. Cloud maven person almost missed it himself.12:50 PM. There were lenticulars aplenty yesterday. Here’s another one in a location a little different from normal, beyond the Catalinas. Upwind edge is the smoothest one at right. No ice streamers coming out the downwind end, so must have been pretty “warm”. Lenticulars, due to their tiny droplets and those droplets having short life times, have been known to resist ice formation to temperatures well below -30°C -22° F). Pretty amazing.2:42 PM. Kind of clouded up in the afternoon, and with breezes, made it seem like something was up. It was, but far to the NW of us. We have been under a streamer of high to middle clouds originating deep in the Tropics for a couple of days. Here some lower level moisture has crept in on cat’s feet, to be poetic for a second, and has resulted in small Cumulus and Stratocumulus clouds underneath the Cirrus and lenticulars standing around. All in all, though the temperature here reached 87° F, a very pleasant day.
Now, just some nice lighting and color:
5:32 PM. The almost flourescent plant in the foreground is what is known as a “cholla.” The end elements fall off quite easily and attach to things like your pant leg if you brush by them on a horse, or if back into them while walking and correcting your horse for something when he’s acting a little “wild.” I can report that when seven or eight of them are stuck to the back of your shirt, its really hard to get that shirt off. In fact, it just about won’t come off without a major scream.5:35 PM. The higher Cirrus are shaded by clouds to the west, but the lower remnants of Stratocumulus/Cumulus and a few Altocumulus are highlighted as though they were meant to be for this photo. So pretty. Notice, too, how there seems to be more than one layer of Cirrus.5:44 PM. Cirrus and Altocumulus, the latter with some turreting making those the species, “castellanus”, if you care.5:47 PM. A nice flame-out of Cirrus occurred as those pesky clouds blocking the fading sunlight from striking them opened up below the horizon. A few Altocumulus castellanus can be seen, too, but relegated to shadow status.
In a further celebration of dryness here, let us examine the rainfall cumulative rainfall predictions calculated by the University of Arizona’s Dept Hydro and Atmos Sci computer the period ending at Midnight on November 5th. Says the coming rain in the State misses us here in SE AZ while falling just about everywhere else, of course. Dang. Let’s hope it one of the worst model predictions ever!
This really poor forecast is based on the global data from last evening at 5 PM AST.
Sure, there’s a bit cooler weather heading our way in the next few days, but “May” will reappear after that, and people will be complaining again that they evacuated their domiciles in northern climes or high altitude sites too early when they returned to their winter homes in Arizona. I am hearing a lot of that kind of complaint.
Heat, devoid of thunderstorms, is truly tough to take here in AZ.
Unfortunately the little troughs so well predicted to occur in NOAA spaghetti plots at the end of October did not bring any rain, and this next one, which slipped from late October into the first of November, looks like its going to be dry, too.
Damnug.
October will end with but 0.01 inches of rain here in The Heights. Our average is 1.13 inches (1977-2015). Last year we had over two inches in October AND November, setting the stage for a good spring wildflower display! Below, a reminder:
The light bars are the averages; red bars the observed.
But, “hey”, looks like southern New Mexicans will get a lot of rain, so let us be happy for them this coming week, and not sad for ourselves when we read about all the rain THEY are getting so close to us. Its only right.
But here’s the killer plot, just out from the NOAA spaghetti factory. I couldn’t believe how bad it was for us. You, too, I am sure will be frustrated and mad when you see it:
Valid at 5 PM AST November 12, 2016 for about 18, 000 feet above us. Notice how the blueish lines pretty much the heart of the jet stream) are way up there in Canada, and our area is devoid of lines (see yellow line and south of there). This strongly suggests an upper level, warm high center or at least a bulge of high pressure aloft will sit on top of us and the adjacent states, maybe some jet flow way down around Mexico way. This may be one of the worst forecast maps for AZ of all time, considering the time of year. Warmth, with desiccated air, dead ahead right into mid-November after our little, brief cool down this coming week. Note, too, the indications (blue lines) that a big trough will populate the East, bringing cold conditions there.
In the meantime , we can rejoice at the bountiful October rains they are having in California. Some records will fall. Some stations in the extreme north will approach 30 inches for the month of October by the time the month ends, and many stations south of those, including ones in the Sierra Nevadas will log 10-20 inches for the month.
Outstanding. But, it needs to continue, not dry up….to take a real bite out of drought.
7:25 AM arrives as usual. Seeming radiating bands of Altostratus stream toward Catalina (little too thick and gray to be “Cirrus”). They also appeared so smooth as to resemble lenticular clouds.1:14 PM. Since its summer again in Arizona in late October, not surprising to see afternoon Cumulus clouds originating in air from the Tropics clustering over our mountains again.1:38 PM. The curved brightening at the bottom of this otherwise normal halo is likely a “lower tangent arc.”1:40 PM. Zooming in with excitement here. Is it really a lower tangent arc? Not positive, but will go with that description anyway.2:59 PM. That Cirrostratus thickened into Altostratus (usually, btw, due to the bottom of the cloud lowering) and at the same time the lower moisture, evidenced by these Cumulus and Stratocumulus clouds, also increased. However, none of these lower clouds got cold enough to produce ice, so likely tops were warmer than -10°C (14°F).
4:32 PM. Mix of Altostratus and Altocumulus clouds, with just remnants of the lower Cu. Here it appears that a liquid layer of Altocumulus now resides at the bottom of the Altostratus, or may be embedded in it. The globular masses in the middle of this photo represent droplet clouds that appear to have merged into a plate. In the distance, the telltale sign of lowering tops: only droplet clouds, with a occasional splash of virga can be seen.
5:23 PM. Just a little before a great sunset, which I missed due to a social engagement, the shallow Altocumulus droplet clouds are plainly evident around the sun’s position. Above to center, the backside of the deeper Altostratus clouds with much higher tops, is about to pass over us. Here you can see, how much lower the Altocumulus cloud fragments are than the Altostratus layer as they are illuminated by the sun (upper center highlighted clouds).
All in all, a pretty pleasant day with interesting clouds passing by, though ultimately disappointing since at one time, this was to be a day with showers here. Oh, well, that’s weather forecasting for you.
Another minimal chance for showers comes up in the middle of next week…
Not as good as a rain day with lightning, but yesterday did have its moments in the sky, enough to make the astrologers on Mt. Lemmon jealous with displays of parhelia (“sun dogs”, or “mock suns”), faint haloes, a rare parhelic circle, something you don’t see but once every year or two, and fallstreifen (fall streaks) from Cirrus uncinus clouds going in almost opposite directions, an extremely rare sight.
The rare “parhelic circle” is a local brightening often extending out from a parhelia (sun dog) at a sharp angle, which I just learned about here1. Usually you don’t see a whole circle, just part of one.
These optic displays are caused by ice crystals, of course, ones not too complex, but rather simple ones like prisms, short solid columns, bullets, and hexagonal plates. Some examples of these can be seen here.
The bottom of yesterday’s moist layer was just above 30,000 feet at a temperature of -35° C and extended all the way up to about 40,000 feet above sea level where the temperature were around -65° C.
The balloon sounding launched around 3:30 PM AST yesterday from the Banner University of Arizona.
Some photos documenting the excitement of yesterday
5:30 PM. Cirrus uncinus crystals heading in two very different directions. Wow. Notice the fibers from the contrail that are starting to fall out are going in the “correct” direction, back toward that west or southwest.3:04 PM. Parhelic circle erupts in mostly Cirrus uncinus clouds.3:06 PM. The astounding sight continues, but fades away just after this.3:33 PM. Local brightening at the position of a sun dog suggests these are tiny ice crystals or possibly even droplets that have just formed, the sizes too small to allow refraction into color normally seen in sun dogs.3:32 PM. A zoomed view of that little bright spot. Sure looks like it may have been droplets. Droplet clouds have been reliably reported to temperatures as low as -44° C. Of course, wouldn’t stay liquid long! I thought this was a pretty exciting shot! Hope you got it, too.
3:42 PM. Amid all the optical excitement was this ghost-like halo. Can you make out the faint circle around the sun? In ascents through thick ice clouds having complicated ice crystals like bullet rosettes down below the tops, as you climb to the top of such clouds, amazing haloes can be seen where the crystals are newly formed and quite simple in structure, allowing the refraction required for a halo. So, this halo was likely at the top of these thicker Cirrus and Altostratus (dense portions) clouds, though no one would penalize you if you just said they were all Cirrus clouds.
3:59 PM. Another spectacular bright spot at the sun dog location (which is also at the 22° halo location, faintly evident here).3:59 PM. Zoomed view of this sun dog/parhelia. Lots of fine structure evident, which is not usually the case with parhelia.4:25 PM. Another finely structured parhelia/sun dog suggesting the ice crystals were newly formed. Fine structure like this can’t last long with the usual turbulence, and so that’s a sure sign this feature has just formed. I don’t recall seeing so many atypical sun dogs in one day!5:09 PM. The normal, amorphous sun dog. No really fine detail can be seen here.
Below, examples of cold Cirrocumulus, ones that quickly transition to Cirrus clouds.
5:19 PM. This group of CIrrocumulus clouds appeared very quickly almost overhead. The tiniest elements are those that have just formed. These are composed of ice crystals in extremely high concentrations, perhaps 10,000 per lilter. Once that ice has formed, its gradually spreads out, much like a puff of smoke would, thinning, some crystals growing large enough to start fall steaks.5:19 PM. Some elements are still forming, but the spreading of the older ones is well underway, producing a “blurred” look as the elements merge and thin out.5:28 PM. Off to the southwest of Catalina, a promising intrusion of lower moisture indicated by these approaching Altocumulus clouds. Will there be enough today for a sprinkle somewhere? Not looking so good now, clouds did not lower much overnight. Well, maybe if it doesn’t sprinkle, maybe we’ll get to see some nice virga and dream about rain…
A horse photo will always enhance a blog about clouds. Expecting a little uptick in readership due to this ploy, maybe will break out of the single digit column.
Not much happened early on, a thin film of Cirrostratus covered much of the sky, delaying the expected development of convection, as would be evidenced by the formation of Cumulus clouds, until mid-afternoon.
But they did form, mostly to the S through W of Catalinaland, upwind of us, and eventually rumbled in on their last legs as weak thunderstorms with gushes of sprinkles and gusty breezes, maybe ones over 15 mph!
Over there in Marana and Avra Valley, those places upstream of us, some spots got more than half an inch. But, i it seems this year that storms die when they move toward Catalina, and especially, toward MY house and its many raingauges (3).
Still, it was nice to feel cool breezes, air chilled by falling rain, even if elsewhere.
Here are a few dull and disappointing cloud shots from yesterday, including one with a horse:
10:56 AM. Horse looks ahead, examining the vellum of Cirrostratus cloud overhead, wondering if it means anything. If this was Seattle, such a layer would thicken and lower into a steady rain within hours 70% of the time. Pretty true for most higher latitude locations in the cooler time of the year. (This was horsey’s first true trail ride, going up and down rocky gullies with loose rocks along side the Sutherland Wash. Previously this horse had spent most of its 14 years in a small corral so this was all pretty new to him; rider tension high.)2:49 PM. A soothing gray of Altocumulus undercut the layer of Cirrostratus. Building Cumulus clouds can be seen toward the Mexican border on the horizon. Pusch Ridge is in the foreground. As you can see, no virga is falling from those Altocumulus clouds, so they must be pretty “warm”, warmer than about -10° to -15° C at cloud top.3:38 PM. Looking suggestive of rain here in Catalina. However, these storms were in the late, dissipating stage. Note too how the anvils have merged with the Cirrostratus layer and lean far out from the storms toward us, helping to cool the ground, ruin the chances of new Cumulus buildups ahead of them.4:19 PM. Not much going on over the Catalinas. Notice how broken up into light and dark patches these otherwise dark looking lower clouds are. Shows there’s no hope for any buildup out of them, though, lower clouds like these under precipitating Altostratus cumulonimbogenitus (that higher cloud here which is really the result of anvils) can help sprinkles get to the ground. That’s because drops or snowflakes falling out of the higher cloud, won’t evaporate while falling though these clouds (representing saturated air with respect to water).4:33 PM. Nice shaft, some cloud-to-ground lightning strokes toward south Tucson, but who cares? Wasn’t moving this way, and would be mostly dissipated by the time it got here anyway.4:57 PM. Some rain with an occasional lightning outrage did reach the southern parts of the Catalinas, eventually making it all the way to Ms. Mt. Sara Lemmon where 0.24 inches was recorded. SPKLS fell in Catalina.5:42 PM. Last gasp, last chance for rain here, dying shower with some new bases to the right, offer another slight hope that the new stuff will develop into showers like this one. It didn’t.
Still have rain chances last few days of Oct into early Nov.
Well, I think so, anyway, and those rain chances seem to carry right into the first week of November. I think you can see that in these graphics from NOAA based on last night’s global data. As in “Where’s Waldo”, can you find the State of Arizona? The US?
Since my risky forecast, and going beyond professional standards of some days ago seems to be working out, I thought I would update you on it. Of course, if it was not working out, you would hear nothing more about it. Below, for October 29th, as rendered by IPS MeteoStar. We seem to be in a bull’s eye for rain amounts. Wouldn’t that be great!?
But, as you know, gotta get through a heat spell first…
Valid at 11 AM AST October 29th. This was the wettest model output I could find, and, it just came in from the 11 PM AST global data ingest! Wow. I’m kind of screaming in that annotation.
Valid at 5 PM AST October 28th. 2016 based on global data from 5 PM AST last evening.
You got yer ridgy flow on the top (“top” meaning, “Canada”, around where that yellow line humps toward the north) and yer broadly cyclonic flow on the bottom (“bottom” meaning, “Baja Cal and Mexico”) that is, across the whole western part of North America. This indicates that we will have a configuration that suggests a “split flow” where part of the jet stream and a trough is forced into the Southwest. Models are showing a big trough and cutoff that brings substantial rains to Arizona!
Of course, model forecasts are pretty dicey at this range, more than 10 days, and so that’s why I am reporting it fully here with great excitement! That’s what we do here, go over the edge, not just up to it.
And, for that slight amount of additional credibility, the “WRF-GFS” has been spitting out big storms for Arizona over the past several runs during this late October period. See Arizona rain below from this rendering from IPS MeteoStar:
Valid at 5 PM October 27th, 2016. The colored regions denote where the model thinks in has rain in the prior 12 h. The rains are foretold to just be arriving at this time, and continue for a couple of days. Nice!
Since I ran out of anything more to say, I will post a second version of this same map as a public service for international readers who are clueless about states in the USA:
Same as above, but for international readers of this blog, and others who may be geographically challenged.
Below, the upper level configuration that goes with the pattern above:
Also valid at 5 PM AST October 27th, 2016. Notice how a lot of the flow comes down this way after extruding into Canada, but some continues on across Canada. Disclosure note: this configuration has more amplitude (and thus a bigger chance for rain in southern Arizona, than was seen in the plot from the NOAA spaghetti factory. Few readers may get this far, so that’s why I am placing some element of doubt here. A announcement that rain might fall in southern Arizona makes people happy, and that’s why I will show those models that predict the most rain here, not ones that skimp on a future rain. Doubt about a future rain disappoints, makes people sad. Oh, yeah, and the latest WRF-GOOFUS model run, that from the 11 PM AST global data, had none of this. What a poop that run was! Does that later run affect the thought of rain late in the month? Nope.
So, there are some questions about the magnitude of this event, will it be a spring wildflower energizer with a major rain, or a just a breezy spell with a dry cold front going by? I’m on the side that a good soaking rain will fall sometime in those last few days of October.
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.
