Surfaris. Except it wasn’t funny. This song begins with a mocking laugh. Well, maybe “mocking” is correct.
Used 90 min of video on an “incoming” yesterday, thinking we’d get shafted pretty good as a thin line of heavy Cumulus congestus transitioning to Cumulonimbus passed over, maybe a quarter or more of an inch from both warm rain and ice processes1 in a line of clouds produced by the winds resulting from a strong fall of rain from a cell just north of Biosphere2. I am sure you were thinking the same thing and are profoundly disappointed today, not only by that one, but also by that Big Bopper that formed in the late afternoon around the same spot to the north-northeast of us.
10:33 AM. Icy topped cell has unloaded N of the Biosphere2 and a line of heavy Cumulus have formed above the outflowing wind boundary, creating a line of rain headed this way!10:49 AM. Outflow winds pushing nice, fat Cu up, and its getting closer raising hopes.11:16 AM. Good rain shafting moves into Saddlebrooke. I can feel the huge drops! MIght even be an all warm rain process shower, too, Wind shift almost here, though it is taking its time, I begin to think.11?39 AM. Shaft thinning by the second! Dammitall. Wind shift, rain drops still not here! This is now looking horrible. Cloud base above wind shift narrowing, falling apart, too. This could be the worst day of my life.11:58 AM. Rain, wind and wind have quit. Shaft is transparent, Code 1 maybe, easily seen through. 0.04 inches registered by Davis Vantage Pro Mark IV super-duper personal weather station.
Wished I’d copied that Wundermap of precip amounts at personal weather stations, but here they are, to reinforce the concept of a “wipeout“:
Wind blast here out of this event? Oh, maybe 12 mph.
What started out as a happy day turned sad in a hurry.
And this wasn’t the only “wipeout“! A worse one happened in the late afternoon that was far more excruciating; pain unbearable. A real explosion into gigantic Cumulonimbus occurred in a broken line, again in the area north of Saddlebrooke. It appeared one had produced a huge outflow for a time–probably was up toward the Biosphere2.
Some background. Here’s how it all started with a gargantuan line of Cumulonimbus and Cumulus congestus clouds in familiar broken line from just north of the Tortolitas to our northwest to north of Oracle to the northeast shown in the photos below, all taken at 3:43 PM. CMP wasn’t looking when this eruption of activity suddenly occurred, and seemed to happen elsewhere as well. May have been that afternoon temperatures just reached that higher point to send these big boys up there.
3:47 PM. Looking toward Tucson as this embarrassing formation arose, Cumulonimbus calvus erectus. This tall, slender cloud was incredible because it showed how great the instability was on this day. Fat clouds we know can rise up to become huge purveyors of rain, but narrow ones like this need a lot instability, lots of humidity around the growing turret so that it doesn’t evaporate, and a good updraft so that it doesn’t take to long to reach 30-35 kft level, as estimated here. So, it was real demonstration of the type of air mass we had this day.3:55 PM. Crushing rains are now dropping out of those behemoths to the N-NE. Surely a blast of wind will come shooting south toward us!
After feeding a horse on another property, I am racing back home to experience “The Blast”, and the rain in its full glory. I stopped to grab this photo, heart pounding.
4:12 PM. “Holy Criminy!” Look at this thing, and I can just now begin to see the arcus cloud forming (just to left of where dirt road disappears) on the nose of the winds coming at us! This will be incredible!4:24 PM. There she is! Arcus rolls toward Catalina pumping clouds up above it, though, you know, those clouds above the arcus don’t look as big as maybe they should. Some doubt begins to creep in.
The arcus cloud and the once proud Cumulonimbus cloud and its incredible rain shaft wiped out, the bottom of it vaporized if that’s possible by rainout, the wind push out of it unable to reach Catalina, in spite of an auspicious start. I now insert a picture of a horse, Zeus, to keep your interest up, maybe raise your spirits after such a debilitating cloud stories as are found here today. Animals, such as dogs, miniature horses and donkeys, are often used in psycho rehab units, especially for depressed persons, such as you are right now after reading this. So, I am really doing this horse insertion for my reader, whom I have depressed royally today:
Zeus, a Paint breed horse, 16.2 hands tall, eating. Has a pleasant disposition overall.6:09 PM. Some people no doubt had two or more inches fall on them from those storms north of us, and the day ended cool, humid and overcast due to multiple layers of clouds from Cu, Ac, and As from anvils, with isolated showers as shown here toward the SSW toward Tucson. It was nice to be outside, swatting gnats and such a minor nuisance.
The End (for August 3rd–falling behind more and more!)
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1As a cloud maven junior person, of course, you know what I am talkin’ about when I mention “warm rain” and “ice processes.”
Some apocalyptic cloud scenes can be Cumulus that explode suddenly into Cumulonimbus, and Cumulonimbus clouds with their foreboding (unless you live in a desert) rain shafts, and their predecessor shelf clouds like “swirly dark Stratocumulus”, and arcus clouds, the latter, a lower line of clouds just above and a little behind the wind shift at the ground, usually just ahead of the main rain shaft. While we didn’t get to see an arcus cloud yesterday, we had some dramatic swlrly dark Stratocumulus clouds to scare us. I say “swirly” because if you looked up yesterday evening as they passed over, you would have seen rotation in them.
These can combine, as they did yesterday, to make you think someone might drop out of the clouds and fix the world1. See those scary photos below, way below as it turns out.
This monster collection of Cumulonimbus clouds (“mesoscale convective system” or MCS in weather lingo) with swirly shelf clouds preceding it barged over Catalina later yesterday afternoon after it appeared that not much was going to happen all day. Heck, there wasn’t even a decent Cumulus over the Catalinas until after 2 PM!
The result of this system slamming Catalina was the usual strong preceding winds roaring down from Charouleau Gap way and points north or northeast. The winds were not as damaging as three days earlier.
Then the rain! So nice! Got 0.55 inches of rain here in Sutherland Heights, an inch and half on Samaniego Ridge, and 1.65 inches on Ms. Lemmon.
Worth watching is the U of AZ weather departments time lapse video, especially beginning at 2 min 50 s into it. That’s when the big group of Cbs begins to make its presence known from the east. What is interesting, and what I have not seen before, is that you will see the tops of a thunderhead farther west, that icy part up around 30,000 to 40,000 feet, shoved backwards (back toward the west) by outflow at the tops of the huge incoming system. Very dramatic.
Yesterday’s clouds
1:30 PM. Yawn. Its 103 F, dewpoint 60 F. Baby Cu begin dotting the Catalina Mountains.2:14 PM. Cumulus congestus finally arises within the local cloudscape. Looks like the top is high enough to convert to ice.
Detour: detecting ice in clouds….some practice shots
As the burgeoning cloud maven junior person you, of course, know how important the appearance of ice in our clouds is. You got ice; you got precipitation, which is snow up there, soft hail, hail, frozen drops.
2:19 PM. The declining right side of this cloud has ice in it, but its hard to detect for most observers. Only the BEST of the cloud-mavens could scream out, “there it is!”, before its more obvious to the less gifted CMJPs.2:22 PM. Well, too easy now to see that there’s ice in those little fingers extruding out from the body of the cloud; evaporation of the cloud drops has left the slower evaporating ice “naked” so-to-speak. It also in the higher turret, and would be termed a “calvus” topped Cu, properly, Cumulonimbus calvus, though not much fell out of this one, close to Saddlebrooke.3:31 PM. In the meantime while I wasn’t looking, Mt. Lemmon erupted sending a plume of cloud droplets, higher up, ice, skyward to at least 35,000 feet ASL. Indicated a phenomenal amount of instability afternoon, instability that was about to be realized in a line of mammoth Cumulonimbi.3:49 PM. “Eruption” just about over. Notice how skinny the root is now, AND that the top of the stem of convection is now only about half as high as in the first shot. Like a wild fire plume that has cooled off, the plume height goes down. Still formed ice on the right side, as you SHOULD be able to see. You should also be guessing that those were likely warmer habit crystals, like needles and sheaths. I did, if that’s any help.4:38 PM. Another cloud jack (Cumulonimbus eruption indicating a whole lotta instability), tops probably far above 40,000 feet. A lower portin of the anvil drifts southward toward Catalina. This one was dumping somewhere near the Biosphere 2 landmark. Note that anvil, lower right. That was our incoming major complex of Cum5:17 PM. WOW! This was magnificent, and just one of the many large Cumulonimbus clouds racing toward the Catalina Mountains. This is the one that in the video, the crown of it can be seen forcing the air over us in the opposite direction. Still, it was not certain at this time these storms would make it here. And, this is looking ESE, while the storm movement was from the ENE.5:25 PM. The “Menace of Charouleau Gap”. Many of our worst storms roll in from the ENE, toward Charouleau Gap, and many who have lived here will tell you and this is the archetypical seen for those storms. A sudden blackening of the sky beyond Charouleau Gap. These darker clouds are rarely the ons producing the storms, but are riding a strong NE wind surging toward Catalina, about to produce some mayhem. The winds always arrive before the rain. And, as a few days ago, there are times when ONLY the wind arrives, there is not enough instability aloft to allow the storms to drift past higher terrain without falling apart. On this day, they will make it.5:48 PM. I am going to work this scene over because it is associated with one of the more spectacular storm sequences here in Catalina, one that comes up usually a few times every summer. The anvil outflow aloft is thickening and lowering, and the outrider shallow Stratocumulus are racing out and along the Catalina Mountains. Things are changing incredibly fast and the NE wind is about to hit.6:05 PM. Walking the dogs to beat the rain, The NE wind has hit, the power line wires are howling. The sky continues to darken and look ominous, but….no rain shafts have come over the mountains, a cause for concern.6:21 PM. The shallow clouds ahead of the rain area continue to spread down and out from the Catalinas. A small opening in the clouds allows this dramatic highlight. I like highlights.6:22 PM. Let’s look a little closer at this spectacular highlight. Wow! This is just as good as a bolt of lightning.6:33 PM. Maybe time to get the Good Book out, cram for the finals…. This was really quite the sight, considering it had been so sunny just a couple of hours before. Again, these are fairly shallow clouds riding the outflow winds, now gusting 35-45 mph in Sutherland Heights. The mottled bases here indicate that there is no organized wide updraft to launch them into deep Cumulonimbus clouds at this moment, anyway.6:34 PM. Finally, a major new rain shaft emerges over Samaniego Ridge, upstream of Catalina!6:35 PM. Looks like more and more people are dropping off Word Press as these files are going in pretty easy now.Here, the apocalyptic cloud formation rolls down and out across Oro Valley, with heavy rain just to the left.6:43 PM. A rare sight, wind driven rain streaming off the tops of the foothills of the Catalinas. The winds were likely hurricane force (>64 knots, 74 mph) to do this. Samaniego Peak received 1.50 inches during this storm.7:21 PM. Sunset in Catalina, July 29th. The sun does not have a sharp disk, is rather blurry, because the light from the sun is being scattered by large particles like rain drops which bend the light so that we can’t see the disk’s outline. When its smog, the particles are of the order of micrometers and a sharp disk will be seen because the sunlight is not bent around large particles. I think Einstein said that…7:21 PM. Orange and rainy as sunset procedes as usual.
Only the largest hailstones up there can make it to the ground as such here in Arizona due to our high summertime freezing levels. The rest melt into raindrops, some of which are large enough to reach the ground. Those downpours that suddenly emit from cloud bases were always hail or graupel (soft hail) aloft.
Sometimes in deep stratiform clouds attached to clusters of Cumulonimbus clouds, and with especially moist air from the base of the stratiform layer to the ground, clusters of ice crystals we call snowflakes make it to the ground without evaporating as steady light or very light rain.
Last night as our storm was coming to an end, it is likely that THOSE drops were once snowflakes rather than soft hail or graupel.
The End (finally)
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1Huh. Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I am very concerned about microplastics (particles 5 millimeters and smaller) in our oceans, resulting from the breakup of larger plastic items we’ve been throwing in the oceans for decades. Seems those tiny particles are getting into everything, including the fish out there! It would be great if someone could get rid of them.
The models are FINALLY suggesting a return to our expected July weather by the very end of the month and a normal-looking August one, at least at start of the month. Daily thunderstorms rumbling around on the Catalinas, some drifting off the mountains, drenching us here The Heights.
Will make our July average rainfall in the Sutherland Heights?
Our average is 2.70 inches and presently we’ve recorded just 1.16 inches with only five days to go. But, before I make a guess, let me check the latest radar imagery here at 8L17 PM…. OK, got a little rain headed this way.. Excellent.
But, no I think we’ll be close to average, that we’ll go over 2 inches here. The steering aloft is weak, but will be from a good directions, from the E to NE, over the next few days and that should allow, as today, cause showers to drift off the higher terrain to us. Being closer to the mountains we might get more even if those showers peter out farther to the west.
It will be fun seeing what happens, and how close we come to our 2.70 inches average between now and July 31.
1“Junly”: (Joon-lie”) Meteorologically, a month in July in Arizona that is more like June; has very hot days, way above normal temperatures for July, and little rain, except that all of the above occurs with more humidity.
Again, a cheap appeal to gain readers, this time to UFO folks that might drop by this site to investigate a possible sighting, raising number of visits to above 2 per day….
The CoCoRahs gauge had 1.00 inches, the NWS gauge, 0.97 inches, but the online Davis tipping bucket gauge had a serious undercatch due to wind and high rain rate, reporting only 0.80 inches.
If you live in this area, you were treated to quite a nice spectacle, one that happens only a few times a summer here. A non-precipitating cloud lingers and grows almost directly overhead, at first not looking like much, but broadens and darkens, and then the hole opens up to empty all the water up there. If you saw this spectacle, and you saw the first signs of the plug being removed, the appearance of the long, dark column (compare to “The Thin Blue Line”). Having anticipated this very event by standing around doing nothing for awhile, the correct thing to emote as a cloud-maven junior, is, “Oh yeah, baby! Come and get me!” I could feel the joy out there as this was happening!
At this point you have about 1 minute to tell your neighbors they are going to get smashed. There was some thunder up there before the plug came open, telling you how deep the cloud was above the base; it wasn’t faking as can happen. Of course, at this point, if you had radar, you would have seen an echo up there before the opening occurring, but that would be cheating.
I think our big black cloud that cried (compare to the little white cloud that cried song) was the result of wind from storms southwest of us colliding with a light NW wind right here. And with little strength in the guiding winds aloft, it sat over us for a longer time than usual.
Got some nice wind out of it, too, as the rain shaft, aided by evaporation, slammed down on Catalina/Sutherland Heights, pushing hot air out of the way, scattering chairs and cushions all over, kind of a mess really, but it was worth it.
But before I continue with this interesting and dramatic story of our storm, I wish to report that I was distracted by what initially appeared to be floating “trash” just before the storm, tumbling around up there at least a few hundred feet off the ground, and south bound, performing maneuvers that perhaps were not human. It went near the ground and then back up again, did some crazy things1.
I did not see evidence of other trash or a whirlwind or “dustnado” adding to the mystery. First, I think we can rule out the most obvious explanation, that it was a party balloon with just enough helium in it to stay afloat, just drifting along in the wind and revealing all the turbulent eddies one might find on a day with Cumulus clouds…. That’s, of course, is what they would want us to think….
2:07 PM. A piece of trash is seen racing toward the ground, but then goes back up!2:08 PM. The “trash” has ascended a couple hundred feet.2:08 PM. After losing sight of the “trash” it reappears underneath this cloud base. Later, the cloud rain a little. It began to look more like an asteroid here, something from outer space.2:11 PM. The mysterious object continued on its trajectory toward the south possibly Mexico with whatever cargo it might have contained.
Now, continuing on to our storm story….
3:43 PM. A larger cloud base begins taking shape over and NW of the Cat Mountains. Here’s where you should have begun paying close attention. No rumbles at this point. Note how offensive overland wiring is. This is a blight I thought I should show you.3:50 PM. Now this is getting real exciting! Look at the size of that base! While there have been a few duds of this size, this is really looking good. What happens in a “dud”? Instead of having a nice solid dark base, light and dark spots start to appear, and you want to cry. Didn’t happen yesterday.3:51 PM. Focusing in on darkness and solidified base, indicating a nice solid updraft is feeding the cloud above here. The appearance of light and dark mottling would have indicated that the updraft is weakening, breaking up. (From the cloud base collection: yours for $800 today only.)3:57 PM. I am beside myself, snapping photos left and right, out of control, hard drive will surely overflow. But just look at how portentious it looks now. Now you’re looking for the opening, the drain, the spigot, the water fall, and be amazed at how much water can drain from a cloud in a short time.4:01 PM. Thar she blows! One of the great moments in weather is be under the shaft emergence. And there it is at last!4:01 Zoomed to hole in sky; fallout in progress. 30 s later than prior photo. You just cannot imagine how exciting this is, with lightning forking around, too.4:08 PM. I’m in the house now, note reflection. Lightning too close and vicious. Didn’t take long to close down after “the hole” did it? The big Sutherland Heights burst hit starting now.
Some damage shots after the wind and gush of rain:
Example of flooding (in a swale for that). Sometimes toads appear.Example of damage due to wind. I had to move the chair back onto the porch, wash sand off.
Then there was a lot of lightning toward Romero Canyon, a cloud to ground strike every few seconds. Really was quite amazing:
Some rainfall reports for the Catalina area on the morning of the 19th:
Precipitation Report for the following time periods ending at: 03:04:00 07/19/16 Gauge 15 1 3 6 24 Name Location ID# minutes hour hours hours hours —- —- —- —- —- —- —————– ——————— Catalina Area 1010 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Oracle RS 0.5 mi SW of Oracle 1040 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.47 Dodge Tank Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago DO Parkway 1050 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 Cherry Spring about 1.5 mi W of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 Pig Spring about 1.1 mi NE of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.34 Cargodera Canyon NE corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 CDO @ Rancho Solano CDO Wash NE of S-brooke 1100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.67 CDO @ Golder Rd CDO Wash at Golder Ranch Rd Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.24 Oracle Ridge about 1.5 mi N of Rice Peak 1090 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.02 Mt. Sara Lemmon 1110 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.16 CDO @ Coronado Camp 0.3 mi S of Coronado Camp 1130 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.35 Samaniego Peak 1140 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.55 Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.59 White Tail Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade RS 2280 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Green Mountain 2290 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.54 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Marshall Gulch
The End
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1Remember when you were a kid and when you saw trash up high, you knew there was a whirlwind around and you looked for it so you could jump in it? Those were the days, weren’t they?
Yes, that’s right. The “meteorological June”, characterized by westerly flow aloft, desiccated air from the surface to 150,000 feet and maximum temperatures between 100 and 200 °F, has extruded itself into July this year in Arizona. There is no difference to speak of between what we are seeing now at the ground and aloft and what happens in June, a month when we’d like to be anywhere but here! Even Florida!
Remember, June is mostly cloudless here in Arizona, too. Well, that’s what we had yesterday in the middle of July. It was a tough day for a cloud-maven. It was also hard to imagine being in Arizona Phoenix and driving ALL THE WAY to Tucson on a hot afternoon (111 °F in parts of Mesa!) and NOT see a single Cumulus cloud! It just doesn’t happen. Nothing over the Mogollon Rim; nothin’ nowhere. I got pretty excited about nothing, and I am trying to relay that excitement to my readers, if any.
July is expected to begin late on the 18th or 19th. For more on July, and great forecasting, see Bob and Mike.
Oh, the weather station here in The Heights is working again. Pretty boring stuff these days, though.
NWS-style 8-incher gauge here in Sutherland Heights collected no less than 2.04 inches! All of this fell after about 11:30 PM last night. Good grief.
Flying ants are out in big columnar swarms, btw, confirmation of a major rain event here in the Sonoran Desert.
CDO wash had a major run, but was dry at Golder Ranch Dr. and Lago del Oro Parkway at 6 AM. The Sutherland Wash also had a major run, but is down to a relative trickle now. Am thinking flow in these washes in June must be extremely unusual, if not “historic.”
The well-exposed rain gauge. Note how prickly pear cacti come up to about where the top of the gauge is. Great for keeping the wind losses down when its raining, a problem with rain gauges.
About 6:30 AM this morning. The Sutherland Wash at the Cottonwoods and also, start of the Baby Jesus Trail.The CDO Wash at East Wilds Road, about 6:15 AM this morning showing evidence of a major run last night.
These some totals from around here and in the Catalin Mountains ending at 4 AM AST today from the Pima County ALERT system gauges. Note 6 h totals, next to last column on the right: Gauge 15 1 3 6 24 Name Location ID# minutes hour hours hours hours —- —- —- —- —- —- —————– ——————— Catalina Area 1010 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.94 0.94 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.00 0.08 0.16 0.51 0.51 Oracle RS 0.5 mi SW of Oracle 1040 0.04 0.04 0.20 2.01 2.01 Dodge Tank Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago Del Oro 1050 0.04 0.12 0.35 2.05 2.05 Cherry Spring About 1.5 mi W of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.04 0.20 0.31 2.09 2.09 Pig Spring 1.1 mi NE of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.00 0.08 0.24 0.75 0.75 Cargodera Canyon NE corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.08 0.08 0.28 0.71 0.71 CDO @ Rancho Solano CDO Wash NE of S-brooke 1100 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.87 0.87 CDO @ Golder Rd CDO Wash at Golder Ranch Rd
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.04 0.16 0.24 1.46 1.46 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, about 1.5 mi N of Rice Pk 1090 0.04 0.20 0.51 1.02 1.02 Mt. Lemmon Ms. Mount Lemmon 1110 0.04 0.16 0.31 2.44 2.44 CDO @ Coronado Camp CDO Wash 0.3 mi S of Coronado Camp 1130 0.00 0.04 0.12 1.57 2.17 Samaniego Peak Sam Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.00 0.24 0.47 2.13 2.13 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.04 0.12 0.31 0.35 0.35 White Tail Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade RS 2280 0.00 0.12 0.35 0.39 0.39 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.04 0.20 0.31 0.35 0.35 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Marshall Gulch
The above is from a rolling archive, so without a lot of trouble, you won’t be able to see them later on.
The End for now. Water and spiders in garage requiring immediate cleanup due to R++ last night; 1.00 inches in about 20 min! Is this June, or WHAT? Seems like the climate has gone beserk. Has anyone considered this?
Its not a McDonald’s product, but rather a reference to yesterday’s rain total here in the Sutherland Heights, but maybe there will be some extra blog “drive bys” of people looking to order a small meal…
Yesterday’s 0.26 inches was only the second day in 39 years that measurable rain has fallen on June 10th (normally reported the following day, today, at 7 AM 1 novella-sized ). Rain mainly fell in Sutherland Heights and to the north in this first episode, and later to the southwest through west of us as a big cell came in after 4 PM from the south sporting a huge anvil.
Measurable rain of at least a mm (0.04 inches), enough to trip the ALERT gauge bucket, did not even fall on the CDO Bridge at Lago, while 1.02 inches fell 1.5 mi west of Charouleau Gap (Cherry Spring ALERT gauge) yesterday. Nice.
Continuing with interesting information….
The day of this blog was Saturday, June 11th.
In the past 39 Junes, it has not rained in Catalina on this day. Check it out with this updated rain occurrences chart with generalities on it, ones that don’t always apply:
The Banner University of Arizona’s Weather Department computer model foretells rain in Catalina beginning just after noon today. If that happens, and I think it will, we will all experience a very rare event! I am really happy for you!
Yesterday’s clouds (which is now a few days ago, June 10th actually)
12:00 PM. This was an exciting shot for us since it shows that the mid-and upper portions of the Cumulonimbus clouds that are going to form over the Catalinas a bit later, are going to eject out rapidly toward Catalina. Some good rains here can happen in this situation, though not the heaviest ones since those have to fall through the whole body of the cloud rather than from well above the base since evaporation will take a toll on those falling drops once outside the cloud.12:24 PM. Another cloud builds explosively upward from Mt. Lemmon. Will this one rain?12:23 PM. Top of a weak Cumulonimbus passes directly over Sutherland Heights. A light rain shower is falling from the most distant part where ice formed. The ice was forming as the top went over us, and so the precip fell out after it had gone by, pretty unusual. This was partly because this top had not gotten as high as the one forming over us and downstream from Mt. Lemmon as this photo was taken. Sometimes we get pretty good rain in Catalina from clouds whose mid and upper portions eject out over us from Mt. Lemmon.12:24 PM. A glaciated portion of the Cumulonimbus top peaks out. No rain was evident from this cloud on top of Mt. Lemmon and whose top passed right over Sutherland Heights. Can you find it? If not, see zoom of this view next.12:24 PM. An clearly glaciated portion of the top of the Cumulonimbus cloud sitting on Ms. Mt. Sara Lemmon. Pretty exciting to see for us since no shaft was visible at this time, and only the tiniest radar echo was present since the radar was in between sweeps of our area.1:05 PM. Rain spreads downwind from Samaniego Ridge and is now falling in Sutherland Heights.12:34 PM. Shaft emerges from Cumulonimbus base onto Samaniego Ridge. Ice aloft was seen before this happened.7:28 PM. Sun elongates toward the horizon as it sets.7:50 PM. Looked promising as this TSTM moved toward Catalinaland but faded before it got here.
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1Mr. Cloud Maven Person was so excited he forgot that the rain that fell on June 10th will be reported on June 11th. By convention, the 0.26 inches which fell on the 10th, will be reported as though it had fallen on the 11th. That’s because it will be the 24 h total ENDING at 7 AM local standard time, the time when most obs are recorded these days.
“These days”?
Yep. It used to be the most stations, except those having recording gauges as here, as here, which can partition the rain by the exact 24 h it fell in, reported their precip in the late afternoon, 4-6 PM local standard time. The shift requested shift for cooperative observers like me occurred in I don’t when, maybe 20 years ago.
This shift had an important impact on climate since reading your thermometer, say, at 5 PM in a heat wave, might mean the highest temperature for the following 24 h was almost the same temperature as you had on your prior observational day even if a cold front came through a few hours later on that day and the high temperature on the following day was cold as heck, the high temperature actually 30 degrees lower. But the thermometer you reset at 5 PM the prior day will be immersed in those higher temperatures right after you made that ob. So, when a crazy thing could happen. The actual high temperature the following day could be 52 F, but the reset thermometer might have 81 F as the high for the whole 24 h following the official ob time. Got it? It is confusing, and something that causes headaches in climate studies.
Now, it is thought that the shift to 7 AM obs could lead to a slight amount of cooling since that same effect could happen during a cold spell. The low temperature of a cold, cold morning might carry over as the coldest temperature for the next 24 h day even if that next day was far warmer. Glad I’m not too interested in temperature, but rather clouds! Temperature is too hard, as Homer Simpson might say.
As you can deduce or not, the problem is that cooperative observers only read their instruments once a day as a rule, and the high and low temperatures for a day are averaged to get the average temperature for the whole day. Its the best we can do since cooperative observers for the National Weather Service are unpaid volunteers, which is redundant.
However, the cooperative observer network for climate data in the US is in collapse these days; not enough money to keep it up and so if you were to check the government publication, “Climatological Data”, mostly comprised of cooperative observations with a sprinkling of official National Weather Service ones, you would find lots and lots of missing reports. No one seems to care a lot about climate obs these days, though there is a mighty interest in climate models!
Well, we’ve gotten off into quite an informative harangue here…..
7:13 PM, June 3rd. Yikes.7:14 PM June 3rd.7:14 PM June 3rd. Finch stares at strange sunset. Smoke in the background dribbles down from Gila County fire.4:53 PM, June 3rd. Large rodent distraction. I thought they were nocturnal…..2:25 PM. Gila smoke layer dims sun slightly, but not much effect on temperature; was 107°-108° F about this time.7:15 PM yesterday. Same smoke band from up around Gila County, same sun.7:17 PM yesterday. Overview of smoke band.
