1While several inches of model2 rain has occurred in Catalina and in the nearby mountains this month, most of which cloud-maven person has festooned his blog with model panels of, there really hasn’t been any ACTUAL rain.
But having said that, there is even MORE model rain ahead, some beginning tomorrow in these parts. Tomorrow’s rain comes from a sub-tropical minor wave ejecting from the sub-tropics. You know, as a CMJ, a wave from that zone means a ton of high and middle clouds, i.e., likely DENSE Altostratus with virga, something that was seen yesterday off to the SW of us. This time, though, some rain should fall from these thick clouds, though almost certainly will be in the trace to a tenth of an inch range between tomorrow and Monday morning.
Model rain from 11 PM AST global data then falls in Catalina on:
February 24th
March 1st
March 7-9th
with the model total rain in these periods likely surpassing an inch or more! What a model rain winter season this has been! Astounding. The model washes have been running full since late December, too!
BTW, that last model rain period is really a great one, a major rain for ALL of Arizona!
Some recent clouds I have known and a couple of wildflowers
7:36 AM, Thursday, Feb 19: Iridescence in Cirrocumulus.7:52 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Iridescence in Cirrocumulus with a tad of Kelvin-Helholtz waves (center, right), ones that look like breaking ocean waves. Kind of cool looking.9:29 AM, Thursday, Feb. 19: Altocumulus perlucidus exhibiting crossing patterns, rows perpendicular to each other. Makes you think about football and people running out for passes.9:42 AM, Thursday Feb 19: An extremely delicate crossing pattern in Cirrocumulus, center. You’ll have to drill in good to see it, but its worth it.10:39 AM, Thrusday, Feb 19: Pretty (mostly) Cirrus spissatus, a thick version in which shading can be observed.6:13 PM, Thursday, Feb 19: No idea what that stick contrail is. Looks like a flight pattern to induce weightlessness. Climb rapidly, round off the top, and then go down. You can be weightless for maybe 10-30 seconds. Been there, done that in a C-130 Hercules, last FACE flight of 1973, Bill Woodley lead cloud seeding scientist. But, you pay a price, get smashed on the floor as the aircraft comes out of the dive. You cannot get up!Let’s zoom in and see if we can learn more about what happened here. I think a jet pilot was having fun. Nope.6:54 AM, yesterday. Altostratus virga provides a spectacular, if brief sunrise over the Catalinas.6:15 PM last evening.From a dog walk this VERY morning, a desert primrose.And a desert onion bloom.
The End. Hope you enjoy the copious model rains ahead!
Its been this way for quite a while, actually since the big rains of late January, but I only found out about it yesterday: “Thousands Gather Under Cloudy Skies for Beach Fun at Catalina State River and Beach Park !” (if one were writing a newspaper headline). See below.
2:40 PM. Here, dozens of kiddies are seen frolicking in the water of the Sutherland River at Catalina State Park.2:44 PM. Soft Cumulonimbus capillatus and calvus turrets line the distant SW horizon while hundreds frolic in sand and water at Cat State Park.2:46 PM. “Ricky” (real name, “Parikit”), who also happened to work in the SAME lab office as the writer for a few years, prepares his daughter for the popular beach activity of sand castle construction.
Before reaching the beach at the State Park, saw some luxuriant spring undergrowth among the trees, and a nice Cumulus turret, one that went on to grow up and be a weak Cumulonimbus:
1:51 PM. Typical of the lush grasses along the Birding Trail at Cat State Park, also due to the generous January rains.2:21 PM. Nice. Altocumulus clouds (upper left) lurk around a Cumulus congestus turret over the Catalinas.3:36 PM. A remarkably summer-like sky, Cumulus congestus in the foreground, Cumulonimbus capillatus cloud lining the SW horizon. Temperature, 70 F.
The weather ahead, as you and I both hope it will be
Been a lot of phony storms in the 10-15 day range indicated by the WRF-GOOFUS model, ones presented here with regularity, then ended up jilting us. So, today when the Canadian model came up with an appreciable rain pattern for AZ in only SIX days, Feb. 21, it was time to exult, switch models, and climb back up on the blog saddle:
Valid at 5 PM AST, Saturday, February 21st. Based on the global observations taken at 5 PM last evening. AZ covered in rain!
What’s even better in this map is that the rain has only begun on the 21st. As you can see, the bunching of the contours off the Cal and Oregon coasts and west of the center of the low, upper left panel, tells you immediately that more rain would be ahead for us if this configuration is correct. That’s because the low will propagate southward, and closer to us, not move off in some untoward direction with a stronger wind field on the back side than on the front (east) side. Also, in a pattern resembling the Greek letter, “Omega1“ as we have in the eastern Pacific and West, lows like to nest in the SE corner of the “Omega”, getting cutoff, stagnant, out of the main jet stream flow, all of which prolongs bad weather in that sector of an “Omega” (here in the SW US). So, lots to be optimistic about today. Strong support in spaghetti for this Omega pattern, too.
Now I haven’t looked at the US WRF-GFS model based on the same obs because it might have something different, a storm that’s not as good as the Canadian one, and I don’t want to know about it. Still feel pretty hurt by the big storm presentations for AZ that weren’t very sincere in that model. And, as we know, sincerity is mandatory in a relationship, even one with weather maps.
The Everly Bros, those two crooners who made such lovely music in the 1950s, come to mind as prior expected rains evaporate in model algorithms, consumed, obliterated by Fortran “End” statements somehow, and but at the same time they produced yet another wet dream (oops, an ambiguous expression that needs to be clarified immediately) , a model rain “dream” of very wet proportions in Arizona, 10 days away. Below, from IPS MeteoStar, whose maps are so good they’ll soon be charging money to see them, this deluge:
A lot of Arizona rain is predicted during the 12 h ending at 5 PM AST, February 22nd. Comes out of the sub-tropical Pacific, as have earlier predicted heavy rains that have disappeared in a succession of later model runs, kind of jilting the writer who developed great emotional attachments to those maps, but, as happens in life, too quickly.
BTW, I am noticing its windy outside now (4 AM).
Stories from the Field
Went to the Pima Air and Space Museum and boneyard yesterday. Saw some nice Altocumulus, some distant ice in clouds on the eastern horizon. The University of Washington bought a lot of planes, well, two, from the boneyard here from PASM, two Convairs over the years, a 240 (non-pressurized), and a 580 (pressurized), which were then subject to having a lot of pylons hung on them and holes drilled in them for instrument purposes.
One pleasant surprise was that they also had a 1939 Douglas B-23 “Dragon”, the aircraft yours truly spent his first nine years in as a “flight meteorologist” with the University of Washington’s Cloud Physics Group (later, “Cloud and Aerosol Research Group”) before it crash landed in Kingman, Arizona, and had to be replaced. No people had to be replaced, which was fortunate.
The B-23 went unmentioned in the PASM tour.
But on field projects here in Arizona and around the world, our B-23 always brought a small crowd of aircraft aficionados who wanted to see something rare, of WWII vintage. Few knew what it was since only about 25 were manufactured. It was a failed project.
Possibly because of not being very fast, could cruise at 65-75 kts, it wasn’t so good as a military aircraft, but that made it great for sampling clouds; you were in them longer, and the instruments worked better at lower true airspeeds. Most aircraft in our era were flying at 100 kts while sampling clouds, and corrections had to be made for measurements that we did not have to make.
Seeing the B-23 was such a treat, bringing back warm memories of vomiting on flights, the cramped crew spaces, lots of G’s in those 90 second returns to the same cloud we had just gone through, wings vertical, blood rushing to the head, then this awful feeling of it going back down out of the turn when leveling off, to get back into a Cumulus turret or back into a power plant plume to see how many noxious chemicals it still had in it.
How did we get so many people (five or so) and so much stuff in there?!
And, of course, with the B-23 being unpressurized meant getting out the oxygen tube, sucking on that, when flying above 10, 000 feet; at times we got well above 20, 000 feet, lips, fingernails turning blue in spite of oxygen anyway.
But it also had a fantastic attribute that made “all the difference” in our scientific work, a viewing dome toward the back of the fuselage, which turned out to be my position as a crew member; sitting in a swivel chair, checking the cloud field for ripe sample candidates.
The dome allowed us to go exactly back to the place we had just come out of a turret, so that how clouds changed as they aged could be measured more accurately than other reseaerchers could do. Here’s a backward view from “the bubble” on the B-23 as it was called, taken by the author.
Looking back at sampled Cumulus cloud tops.
Having such a great look back also caused us to discover that our B-23 was compromising our measurements in second samples of clouds at below freezing temperatures by producing copious amounts of ice in narrow tubes in clouds that could be as warm at -8 C (about 18 F). We dubbed this phenomenon, APIPs, for Aircraft Produced Ice Particles, in later publications (1983).
It was a controversial, even suspect finding at first due to the high temperatures at which we observed it; no other aircraft researchers had reported it while doing cloud sampling over many years, but the phenomenon was verified a few years later in independent studies using other aircraft (1991). That finding still stands out as one of our most important, most cited ones.
But there were hazards associated with the plastic viewing dome on the B-23 in those days. It was not thick enough to stop grapefruit sized chunks of ice from blasting through it, ice that had been collected on the airframe during long periods of flight in icing conditions, that either melted off, or was ejected suddenly by inflating a rubber boot at the leading edge of the wing.
I had just stepped away to sit down on “Final” going into Sacramento’s Executive Aviation AP in January 1977 when such a chunk crashed through the “bubble” within seconds after I strapped in. Below, what the bubble looked like after it got bashed:
One of the “fun” things about having an old aircraft (1939), too, is the need to manually rotate the HUGE props to get it so it would “turn over”:
Circa the late 1970s. Engineer, Jack Russell, and Research Prof Larry Radke, position blades of the University of Washington’s B-23 for engine start. They’re having quite a good time. Cloud instrument pods hang from the wing at left.
The B-23 at the PASM:
A view of the Douglas B-23 at the Pima Air and Space Museum. Seemed forlorn amid the giants there. The one Washington had owned was previously owned by Howard Hughes and used as an executive aircraft. Our B-23 aircraft was featured in Air Classics magazine cover story in 1986, “Dragon’s Last Flight.” It had been repaired to flight ready condition in Kingman, AZ, then eventually restored to its original condition (dome removed), and now resides in the Museum of Flight, Seattle, Washington.
Yesterday’s clouds from the PASM
12:48 PM. An Altocumulus band, pretty much the only sign of the trough that passed over us yesterday afternoon and evening, following by the north winds at the ground.
2:55 PM. Cumulus, containing a little ice, right of center, and icy tops on the eastern horizon, visible from the PASM. Much colder air aloft was east of us yesterday, allowing these clouds, and some ice to form.
The last time we met I had fallen in love with a weather map, one I thought I had waited for all my life. Today, I have to inform you that I have a new love, a map that came out yesterday around mid-day. I love this new map so much!
I know this news is shocking to you, maybe your even disappointed in me since I was so sure before, but let us put this development in the perspective of the legendary fickleness of men, as demonstrated below:
Fluctuating love. Love is dynamic, ever changing, here seen in Robin becoming Loretta. But we know how truly “Ed” did love “Robin” at one time, enough to paint a billboard, a sign of the truest love. Ed was careful enough to post the exact date that he loved Robin.
Below, my new love:
Valid on date night, Friday, February 20th, at 11 PM AST.
Of course, I truly believed I loved that prior map more than anything, but then this one came in, so full of a potentially wonderful, if stormy, relationship. See how the powerful flow curls so gently southeastward in the eastern Pacific off Baja1! It would then be moving over the warmer-than-normal waters of the “California Niño”2 still in progress, gaining warmth and a wet personality, as she goes.
See, too, how the strongest winds in her are not yet at the bottom of the curl, but are still behind her to the west, indicating that she will migrate that bit farther southward over still warmer waters before she arrives to meet us here in Catalina.
Look, too, how a high pressure, that entity that blocks storms and causes pain and drought, has been recused to the Gulf of Alaska, allowing this regal, “queen of storms”, to flood in to us, arms open in a welcoming grasp! I am so happy today!
How much rain can we expect from a loveable pattern like this?
Oh, a few inches in the mountains, maybe an inch or two here, too. A “broad” trough like this would take a couple of days to travel through, too, so the duration of storminess will be exceptional. More on this situation farther below….
In the meantime, just ahead, a true rain dance
The computer models have been equally fickle in what’s more immediately ahead, first having some for a couple of days, then taking it away, and now those rains are back in the Feb 12-14th time slot. A small, dry system passes over us, produces a good Santa Ana wind situation in southern Cal, gets stuck southwest of us, wobbling , spinning dizzily around down over the waters of the Gulf of Cal and eastern Pac, and from there then comes back over us again (!) with a treasure of clouds and water for our wildflowers and other biota. Here’s the sequence, which includes a famous weather dance, called, “The Fujiwhara”, you remember, “EEE-yah, round and around and up and down….”, in this case, a REAL rain dance for Arizona! One of the “partners” in this dance is a sensuous, humid and warm, no, “hot” low twirled north out of the deep Tropics. See below, with modifications, from IPS MeteoStar:
Valid on Wednesday, 11 PM AST.Valid at 11 AM, February 14th, Valentine’s Day. How appropriate to have dancing lows on that day.
The rain from this rain dance arrives here overnight on the 14th 15th. Amounts are likely to be between 0.25 and 0.75 inches, ending on the evening of the 16th. Snow levels will be real high again due to the sensuous nature of this storm, much of its moisture having come all the way from off Acapulco.
After a little clearing spell, the beautiful one comes in to give Arizona a real water treat! See below these predictions based on the 5 PM AST global data ingestion:
Valid at 5 AM on Thursday, February 19th. The colored regions are those in which the model has calculated amounts for the prior 12 h. This will be a cold blow, with normal snow levels, not above the top of Mt. Lemmon as we saw at the end of January.Valid 12 h later, 5 PM AST, Thursday, Feb. 19th. Wow!
5 AM AST, Friday Feb. 20th, even more substantial rain has fallen here!
Its still been raining substantially in the 12 h prior to 5 PM AST on the 20th! Washes would be flowing, for sure.
Clouds discussion: on the formation of Cirrus; an example:
4:04 PM, Feb. 6th. Patch of Cirrus spissatus with a flocculent mass has suddenly appeared in the midst of it, one that could be taken as a much lower cloud since it looks initially like Altocumulus.4:09 PM.4:28 PM. Now fading over the horizon, that original flocculent mass has all the attributes of CIrrus, with crystals falling out to produce a tail leaning back due to lower wind speeds below the level where it formed.
The End, quite enough really!
—————————————
1Of course, we men are inexorably drawn to gentle curves; it can’t be helped. There’s no way around them.
2Not to be confused with “The New Niño” (“Region 3.4”) or the “Classic Niño” (the original one off Peru) both of which have died out for the most part. The California Niño is when there are warmer than normal waters off, you guessed, the Californias! (There are a lot of Niñoes in weather, btw.)
but when I saw this map this morning, I loved it immediately, and so much; at first sight. I wasn’t going to blog today, but when I saw it, my whole life changed.
Valid at 5 AM AST, February 18th. I have never loved a map so much. Sure, its not raining yet in Arizona, but the portent of a happy, rainy life together, this trough and me, is HUGE. It was born only last evening from the 5 PM AST global data crunch from our best model, the WRF-GFS, too. Here, presented in all of its beauty, by IPS MeteoStar, a Division of Sutron Corp..
Sure, the flaws will come out later as the next stage of love evolves; we all know how it goes, but I can say I truly am now in that first stage, that “obsessive-delusional” stage we’ve all been through, when that mousy gal over there suddenly becomes EVERYTHING, and is PERFECT! How did you not see her before!!! There’s no room in your mind for anything but her; its like a sci-fi movie where alien has taken your mind over. Yep, “been there, done that.” Wrote some bad poetry, too, part of the insanity that is love.
Its the same with this map. I’ve been waiting all my life for a map like this, well, at least since I moved to Arizona from Seattle.
Look, too, there’s no flow in the Gulf of Alaska, its all down off Baja, and its so STRONG and BEAUTIFUL! How can you NOT love a map like this! I just can’t consider that maybe its not real, that she won’t be like her majestic presence here, storm royalty, on February 18th….
This would be such a big weather love storm for us, and without even looking further there would be a big, powerful low at the surface, too. She’s not going to be just a shallow upper air disturbance, like some can be, but a real amazon up and down the whole atmosphere. Inches of rain would fall again in the mountains in AZ, maybe here, too, if she comes to us like this.
In the meantime, the models have been coming up with a repeat of the bizarre-in-the-first-place sequence where a low nearly goes over us, sits to the SW of us, then comes back over AZ as we saw near the end of last month. This one is not so strong as last month’s, nor as wet, but still likely to produce some scattered light rains here beginning on the 12th, lasting all the way through to the 15th since its wobbling around so close to us. Likely things will be somewhat different than shown here. A few days ago, all of this action took place east of us, and then the models began creeping the whole sequence westward until we got in the rain zone.
Moves down from the north across eastern Cal. Valid Feb 11, 5 am AST. Hasn’t rained here yet.Sits and spins mode, Feb 12th, 5 AM AST. Light showers move into southern AZ.Moves up and back over Catalina, Valentine’s Day. Showers continue in the area.
The End, of the “Love Storm” blog
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1Please modify the words in that song to those above to fit a weather context.
While yesterday did not have the drama of the prior few days, there was aerosol drama anyway, a real battle took place against the forces of evil, represented by air loaded with urban smog, and good, clean air to its north, in which we were initially immersed.
A rare fog bank streamed out of Tucson toward Marana, Continental Ranch, and south Oro Valley and beyond. The moist air near the ground associated with our recent deluge, and capped by an inversion, combined with very light winds allowed fog to form in the first place. Its westward trajectory into the southern reaches of Oro Valley is associated with the normal sloshing of winds in Tucson, from southeast in the morning, to northwest in the afternoon on “undisturbed” days. On most mornings, all we see is a haze layer close to the ground that streaming out of Tucson down that way. In this case, the smog layer was in the form of fog, droplets wreaking with all kinds of untoward particles and chemicals like sulfates, nitrous oxides, hydrocarbons, etc., these from cars, wood burning stoves, factories, etc, all the things associated with modern life in an urban center except for wood burning stoves. As a smog-containing fog, it was pretty, however.
However, most of the time, maybe nine out of ten, that thin smog layer stays south of Catalina, can’t quite get here. But yesterday, the forces of evil resulted in an advance of the smog-fog to Catalina. A southwest wind came up in mid-morning, and like a tidal wave, that low thin layer slurped its way up the Catalina Mountain sides and Oro Valley, rolling over everything, growing deeper as the long absent sun warmed the ground, dissipating the fog, leaving the aerosol contained in it, “naked”, as it were.
It seemed for a time that a slight north wind might rule the day, and the smog would stay south of us as it usually does. Instead an ugly southwest wind developed, as often happens here in the afternoon, as air starts rising off the Catalinas to form Cumulus clouds.
And that’s part of what happened yesterday to bring us smog, besides us being in the protected lee of the Catalinas due to northeast winds aloft. When you’re in the lee, sometimes moisture and aerosols remain trapped there, like those cattails I used to pop open at the north entrance of the University of Washington’s Atmospheric Science Department on days with a strong southwest wind and those seeds would circulate in the lee for maybe an hour in really interesting swirls that could be seen due to all the seeds floating around and around, incoming people waving their arms to get them away because they would stick on your clothes. I was younger then (40s maybe), and I guess it was pretty childish. I’m not like that today, as demonstrated by this blog. I wish I had some cattails today, though.
7:04 AM. Fog streams westward from TUS.7:06 AM. Close up of “sfog” bank. Looks pretty outside, but its not inside. There are people like that, too.7:27 AM. Another close up, almost surreal looking with Kitt Peak Obsy in the background.7:35 AM. If you ever need to get warm, popping up out of the fog and Stratus is a turret due to a heat source over there maybe off Tangerine Road, I-10 area.7:57 AM. It seemed to be a little closer….. Hmmmm.9:44 AM. NO doubt about it, its creeping on cat’s feet toward Catalina! I have never taken so many photos of fog before, too. You could see trees and other prominences disappearing as this smog-laden fog came closer.10:54 AM. The warming air had dissipated the leading edge of the fog, leaving only shreds of Stratus fractus clouds that were coming toward Catalina. But now the the invading smog with it was revealed for all to see, that hazy layer below those clouds along the mountains.11:35 AM. The smog was reaching Catalina, the smog front advancing here along the side of Samaniego Ridge, with almost a little arcus-like Cumulus cloud marking its advance (left of center). It was a profoundly disturbing moment that what seemed like it was going to be a visually pristine day, was now going to be mucked up by some Tucson smog.12:35 PM. Got pretty bad down there by Pusch Ridge, before more heating mixed it up into Cumulus and Stratocumulus clouds topping the Catalinas.Also at 12:35 PM, but looking north into the pristine air that was to the north of the smog bank. This was not clearer looking just due to not seeing aerosols in the back scattering view in which itgs much tougher to see aerosols–they’ll look dark or brown. not whitish. The prior pictures call out areas of smog due to “forward scattering” of the sun’s light toward you by the aerosol particles.
5:24 PM. The sun set amidst the smog and so the light on the mountains had a slightly more orange look. It was still pretty the way the scene was framed by Stratocumulus clouds.5:55 PM. The sun sets amidst a well-loaded aerosol layer, looking orangy-red, and producing the reddish orange cloud base in a polluted Stratocumulus layer. The yellowish orange sky below cloud base, with faint undulations in it, shows that a smog layer is present, and, if you look closely toward the Tucson Mountains at left, you will see the top of the smog layer is becoming visible as an inversion forms, trapping it once again.
While on the first day, January 29th, the sun was only blocked by mid-level clouds, the rainy ones on January 30th and 31st provided a rain amount to remember here in the Sutherland Heights (and elsewhere–numerous records broken), 2.28 inches recorded over 24 h ending at 7 AM for the past three days, beginning with the 30th:
0.19, 1.56, and 0.53 inches, ending this morning.
Weeds and wildflowers really happy, as will be free range cattle and horses that get out of their pens in the days and weeks ahead.
———-experimental module———————–
We have an interesting experiment in progress, one we didn’t know we were going to have re wildflowers this spring.
A local wildflower expert on a public TEEVEE station here was quoted as saying that NOVEMBER rain was critical to wildflower displays. Hmmm. OK, but we had a RAINLESS NOVEMBER here!
So, no wildflowers? A limited display? Some key ones don’t come up at all because November was rainless, while October, December and now January had generous rains?
I don’t think so. My take is that everything will be hunky dory. HELL, no one will be able to tell that November was rainless in our upcoming wildflower displays.
But the reader must be advised royally in this editorial side bar, that the writer is a cloud-maven, not a flower-maven as was expert quoted on public TEEVEE.
So, let the experiment unfold before our very eyes! A chance for all to learn things! Ans, how fun is that?
———————–end of experimental module——————
Too, I wonder how often three sunless days have occurred in southern Arizona? Was probably a rare event that these past three days mimicked Seattle or other Pac NW sites west of the Cascade Mountains in winter so well.
BTW, in an important climate note concerning the Pacific Northwest, it rains more in Eugene, OR, aka Duckville, more than in Seattle, in case you’re a football player and are deciding between the Washington Huskies and the Oregon Donald Ducks prior to the upcoming LOI Day, the National Holiday celebrating when high school kids sign Letters of Intent about where they are going to play college football.
And, continuing a high school theme, don’t forget to watch football today; the Seattle Seahawks, who live right next door to the University of Washington Huskies, will be playing in a big game, so maybe you could get some valuable autographs while playing for the Huskies…. Just a thought.
Back to yesterday……
I think the most surprising part was how nearly stationary rain echoes kept giving all day yesterday. So often, where clouds are almost stationary, they just rain out and thin. But it just kept coming, at least here in Catalina. And, as the storm came to a close, the expected sight of a frosty Lemmon appeared late in the day due to the gradually lowering snow level as the clouds suddenly lifted when a dry north wind rushed in. Should be more of that dry north wind today.
No rain in sight now…. Corrals can dry out, which would be good.
BTW, by later yesterday the local washes were running reel good. In case you missed the flows, here are some floody scenes:
1:48 PM. Here a semi-retired Catholic priest in non-traditional garb inspects the CDO wash at East Wilds Road.
1:49 PM. Looking downstream from the CDO wash and E Wilds intersection.1:56 PM. Perhaps you’re a person that has a preference for upstream views of flooding situations. Well, here it is, the CDO Wash looking upstream at East Wilds Road in Catalina. Trying to please everybody here, no matter what your preferences are.
Hiked out to the Sutherland Wash yesterday, arriving about 3 PM to take these docuphotos for you. These were taken near the horse crossing that leads to the “Rusty Gate” and the Coronado National Forest boundary on the east side of the Wash.
Had not seen the Sutherland Wash this big before, in person. Was much higher, though, during the September 8, 2014 event, as deduced from debris piles, when 4-5 inches fell in 3 h.
Yesterday’s cloud
It was pretty much the same one all day I think. We begin our cloud soliloquy with an unusual sighting of pure Stratus, present before the rain moved in again.
7:49 AM. Like a wall painted with Seattle gray paint, available at most fine hardware stores. That is the appearance of true Stratus, and we had that yesterday after dawn. Some fog, too, drifted through. Remember, when its on the ground its called, “fog”, while when its above you the same thing is “Stratus.” Estimated ceiling here, 100 feet.1:08 PM. In the afternoon the Stratus clouds began to break up at times, providing peek-aboo looks at Samaniego Ridge, which was kind of cool. Remember, that the Stratus clouds were not the ones precipitating, but rather the a layer of “Nimbostratus” above them was. However, as you know, a drop falling into a layer of Stratus clouds does not evaporate while it falls through them, AND, can even get bigger if some floating cloud drop can’t get out of the way (those larger than about 20 microns in diameter). So, to continue an educational stream here, while Stratus clouds, and Stratocumulus clouds may not produce precip beyond drizzle, they CAN help increase rain totals when they are present because raindrops are not evaporating when they fall through them, and raindrops may even get larger and the rainfall amount be more than otherwise due to the collection of some of the cloud droplets!
4:14 PM. Its STILL raining! Unbelievable for someone who thought this Nimbostratus layer would rain out and die in place. This is a really good shot of that layer that produced the rain that fell into lower Stratus and Stratocumulus clouds for most of the day. Some connections between the two did occur in the heavier rain areas, The low clouds were completely gone by this time, swept away by a dry north wind.5:15 PM. As the Nimbostratus layer lifted, eventually to Altostratus opacus, if you really want to know, frosty The Lemmon came out showing that the snow level had declined during the day.
You may wish to pleasure yourself with another and very unusual occurrence of fog right now (7:02 AM) coming out of Tucson, heading toward Marana, south Oro Valley. Very pretty scene this miniute. Heading out now to capture on film.
What a great wildflower-producing/maintaing storm! While some, well most, of the exceptional weather expected, like TSTMs, funnels, hail, locusts, and afternoon arcus clouds, were not really observed, a lot of rain was. Here’s your cloud day for our stupendous storm, not yet over, beginning with a how-it-fell chart:
How it fell.7:43 AM. A very Seattle-like view if the Catalina Mountains were the Olympic Mountains west of Seattle, complete with standing lenticular cloud overhead, here due to the SSE winds aloft. Overnight, with just 0.19 inches, we were one of the driest places in SE Arizona due to shadowing of the rain due to that southerly wind.8:31 AM. Almost the same scene, lenticular plate overhead holding in place, though it soon began to fade.
9:00 AM. Hike to get closer to rain, and to see if Sutherland Wash, east of Sutherland Heights, had any water in it after a few inches had fallen on Ms. Mt. Lemmon. Very pretty sight, coulda been on the west side of the Cascade Mountains, except for the lack of forests.9:03 AM. Another dramatically gray scene, something in the way of a cloud street coming off the Catalinas at ME.9:08 AM. Classic Arizona rain day scene. Can’t really be anywhere else with that saguaro, can it? Oh, btw, there was NOTHING in the wash at the Cottonwoods!9:47 AM. Bored with the lack of rain, took this; Jake the horse, also bored, enjoys new sawdust while waiting for the rain which can’t seem to get here.. Dreamer horse looks on.
11:15 AM. Still wating for rain, though it continues to pound the Catalinas, which is good.10:50 AM. Still hasn’t rained here in Catalina after the rain near dawn. However, this nice cloud base began to hover to the south of us. Will it do anything? Stand by.
11:47 AM. That hovering cloud base, much like a lenticular, continued in place, but at this time, rain was beginning to fall from the downstream portions over us! And, look how summer-like the rain intensity looks on Pusch Ridge! It started to get real exciting now.
1:21 PM. Still R- to R falling out of this stationary cloud just upstream of Catalina. You could see that the backside of the rain upwind of us was only a mile or two away, but it never arrived during that 2 h rain. One of the most interesting rain situations you and I have ever seen. About a quarter of an inch fell during this situation. Nice. And still, the “Yikes” period mentioned yesterday, suggested by the progs, was still ahead! But would it disappoint?1:59 PM. For those meteorologists and cloud mavens that like to work without cheating and looking at radar, this scene should have got your heart pounding. Note the dark line on the horizon, “The Yikes Event”m triggered by “Red Curly Air” aloft, is about to happen!
1:59 PM. Close up of the arcus cloud on the and windshift line on the horizon about to move in.2:26 PM. In case you didn’t believe me, this. Visions of lightning and hail danced in my head; maybe some arcus would turn into a tube!2:57 PM. Cutting to the chase, the so-so arcus cloud fronting the rain just before the gush of wind and hours of rain for Catalina arrived. The rain here is just arriving at Oracle Road. No LTG, no hail, no funnels were observed though I listened and looked damn hard. That hangy-down thing did not have rotation. See chart at beginning of blog for the great rain that fell. Of course, with all the upper level support this had (“red curly air”) you knew it was going to be a wide rain band, not a cheesy narrow one. We didn’t get the more severe Cumulonimbus clouds probably because there were no sun breaks ahead of this line (as was anticipated); temperatures stayed cool, in the mid-50s. Still, it was a great work of rain (again, see chart).
The End, of yesterday’s cloud story, finished the next day after that. See yesterday’s cloud story today.
And, will there be a tornado today, too? Arcus cloud almost a certainty. Get cameras ready! Read on…farther down.
4 (FOUR!) inches at Park Tank, Reddington Pass area by 6 AM ! Incredible for so early in the storm! Check more totals out from your friendly Pima County ALERT regional gauges. Mods on track to verify those huge amounts that were predicted the day before yesterday! Washes will be running! Flowers happy! I’m happy! Lot of excitement here! ! !
Only 0.15 inches here in Sutherland Heights/Catalina…. so far (6 AM). :{
Yesterday’s study in gray
Today!
Some excitement just now, after seeing that a major rain band had passed by, and we’re now in a break in the rain.
Will it rain more? Tune in at 11 to find out….. (hahahaha; we don’t do that here! More excitement.)
Went to U of AZ mod run from 11 PM AST last night, the very latest, then saw that a narrow, heavy band or precip, maybe a squall line, something out of the Midwest, was foretold for us Catalinans this afternoon!
Then went to examine upper air and positioning of vorticity maximums ejecting out of our incoming trough (vorticity maximums represented by redness in the plot below from the University of Washington’s Weather Department– color scheme by Mark Albright, the color man up there:
Positioning of “red curly air” (vorticity or rotational areas) in the atmosphere at 1 PM AST today, looking for the cause of the afternoon rainband. The approach of red curly air is accompanied by upward motion in the atmosphere. When I looked at this, I exploded with a “yikes!”. more excitement, today’s theme.
This was exciting due to incoming “red curly air” this afternoon above us, AND, due to those spreading out of the contours over us (see arrowhead). Diffluent contours are indicative of air spreading out aloft, something that leads to enhanced upward motion.
And, to blab on, the air aloft will be cooling off on top of our high-for-winter dewpoint air (50s), which should lead to large Cumulonimbus clouds, likely organized in a line of thunderstorms, as all this happens this afternoon or evening.
And, going over the edge here some, as is my wont, we might well see a funnel cloud somewhere today. This is the kind of situation that you can get them. So, to sum up today:
Possible funnels! Will they reach the ground somewhere in AZ? Maybe. Lightning! Hail likely, too! Rain rates likely to reach an inch an hour, though that rate may not last an hour unless you’re real lucky and get shafted real good.
Will be watching intensely for all these manner of things today! Haven’t been this excited since Oct 2nd, 2010, I think it was when they had that tornado in PHX!
Remember, too, our motto:
Right or wrong, you might have heard it here first!
The weather way ahead
While a long spell of dry weather comes after this 2 day event, the mods have popped up with a heavy dose of rain in two weeks. Of course, normally this would be considered Fantasy 101. HOWEVER, a slight amount of credibility is added when such a pattern that brings rain strongly resembles the one you have now. Check out these upper level flow maps out, as rendered by IPS MeteoStar, that has just moved their pay wall to March from February (yay!). The first one below is for today’s situation, and the second one for Valentine’s Day in two weeks. Look pretty similar don’t they.
You see, weather has a memory like your horse. You ride to Deer Camp way up in the Catalinas; you’ve never been there before, nor has horsey, and then you head back, but you’re not sure of the way.
Well, horsey will remember for you!
(To continue with the extra excitement theme of today’s blog!)
Well, the weather has a memory that we call “persistence”, likes to do the same thing over and over for awhile, and so when a similar pattern turns up in the models that you have now, we give it a little more credibility than none when its two weeks out, maybe 30% chance of actually happening (i. e., still a bit of a long shot).
Here’s what we have today; low off Baja spinning moist air from the far southern latitudes into AZ.Valid at 5 AM AST, February 14th, Valentine’s DayThe big rain accompanying the Valentine’s Day Storm.
Actually, there are no thoughts about the Super Bowl here. The title was just another cheap attempt to attract a reader that might be both cloud-centric AND a football fan, creating a moneyful increase in web traffic for this blog.
First you had your Cirrus, the highest of all clouds except for stratospheric nacreous clouds which kind of mess things up up there by eating ozone. We will not display n-clouds.
Cirrus, as you know, ALMOST always precedes lower clouds since they’re moving so much faster than the lower ones. So we get a sequence of clouds before it starts to rain that generally is the same, over and over again as in that movie about weather, Ground Hog Day. But let us ramble on…
First, patchy Cirrus, then maybe a sheet of Cirrostratus, then the lower stuff as Cirrostratus thickens downward to become that gray sheet called Altostratus. Throw in a few Altocumulus clouds that become a sheet underneath, and voila, your in Seattle, with rain on the doorstep. Yep, that’s the Seattle, and well, the Middle Latitude Pre-Storm Cloud Sequence (MLPSCS)2.
7:41 AM. Birds on the wire, waiting for the storm, notice the invading Cirrostratus fibratus. Low smog plume moves NW out of TUS and into Marana again (at very bottom of image).
10:49 AM. What a fine example of Cirrus spissatus (Cis spis) trailing larger ice crystals, certainly these would be “bullet rosettes”, looking something like a cholla bud, except the spines that stick out all over in this type of ice crystal look like hexagonal columns radiating out of a tiny center crystal. The ones NOT falling out are likely stubby solid columns, plates, prisms, and “germs”, the latter not really germs, but tiny, amorphous ice crystals not having grown a particular shape yet, all too small to have appreciable fallspeeds like the bullet rosettes. A whole sheet of this cloud having so much ice falling out would constitute what we would call, “Altostratus”, gray and deep.
11:46 AM. Another interesting scene. Are these Cirrus clouds spreading out, or is it perspective? Note bank of thick Cirrus on the horizon, too. (I think they were actually spreading out some.)12:49 PM. Here comes the next lower layer, Altocumulus clouds. However, note that ice formed in or just above this layer of Altocumulus, indicating that although it is one comprised of droplets (liquid) it is VERY cold. What is your next thought? HTCs (High Temperature Contrails) or “APIPs”, where aircraft that fly through them seed them by producing huge numbers of ice crystals due to extra cooling provided by over the wing flow, jet exhaust water producing extreme supersaturations, or prop tip cooling. Cause hasn’t been quite nailed down, but cooling is the leading suspect where the air is cooled to -40 C or so, and ice has to form in moist conditions.2:26 PM. With the Altocumulus and Cirrocumulus displays came periods of iridescence in the clouds, indicating tiny droplets less than 10 microns in diameter. There were more grandiose displays, but they were so gaudy my photos looked fake.
4:04 PM. Out ahead of the invading sheet of Altocumulus were these CIrrocumulus clouds with a cool herring bone pattern (“undulatus”). While called, “Cirrocumulus”, these clouds were actually at the same level as the invading Altocumulus clouds shown in the next photo. Its the fineness of the granulation that makes us refer to them as “Cc” clouds, even when they are in the middle levels, and not truly high clouds as the prefix “Cirro” would suggest.
4:09 PM. The invading sheet of Altocumulus perlucidus translucidus (no shading, honey-comb, flocculent pattern). On the horizon, Seattle-like solid veil of Cirrostratus, something that’s pretty rare here. This was an exciting scene because of the advancing layers, the darkening on the horizon, in the context of the major rain ahead.4:17 PM. You have to have ice in your veins if this shot doesn’t give you goose bumps. So pretty, all that uniform flocculation3 up there in Altocumulus perlucidus translucidus.4:24 PM. I can feel that you want more flocculation…
4:31 PM. Maybe just one more… Feeling pretty great now now that I’ve flocculated you so many times today. Three or four is about my limit.5:08 PM. APIP line, or HTC (“High Temperature Contrail”)–ones not supposed to occur at the temperature of this Altocumulus perlucidus translucidus, but they do anyway. Last evening’s TUS sounding pinned this layer at -24 C (-11 F!). Note that no other ice can be seen falling from these very cold clouds. The “castellanus” appearance of a contrail is extremely unusual, and may indicate a sharp decline in temperature at the level the aircraft flew. However, then it begs the question about why the Ac clouds aren’t turreted, at least, SOME. You’ll probably have to take CM’s word that its an ice trail. Note indication of a hole in the droplet cloud at far left of trail. That’s a clue.5:08 PM. To the southwest and west, layers of Altocumulus, some having turrets, and with a beautiful veil of CIrrostratus above, advance on Catalina. I love shots like this, though sans color, due to their rainy portent, even though our rain is not supposed to being for another 24 h, or this evening.
The weather just ahead
Of course, everyone, including media weathercasters, are all over the incoming stupendous storm event. For a more technical discussion, here’s one by Mike L., U of AZ forecasting expert, who got excited enough about our storm to come to send out a global e-mail. I think you should read it, though I left out all the graphics. I’ve already been too graphic today.
———–Special Statement by Mike L———————————-
“A very unusual heavy precipitation event is forecast for the next few days across Arizona and New Mexico as extremely moist air interacts with multiple short waves. As seen in the below data from the NWS, the maximum monthly IPW for Jan is about 28-29mm. If the various WRF forecasts verify, the upcoming storm will set new a new January IPW record.
The 12z WRFGFS indicates very high moisture levels being advected towards Arizona due to a low latitude low located west of the Baja spur. While IPW has slowly decreased from the previous storm over much of the area, La Paz is seeing a upturn in observed IPW.
As seen below, at 5pm today, some convection is forecast near to the low. Lightning data has indicated there has been some strong convection during the day today. Model initializations are normally suspect so far from any upper air stations, but it seems that both the NAM and GFS seem to have the intensity and location initialized well. One item of note is that during the past few days, the models have had a trend of moving the heaviest precipitation back to the west. Initially, the heaviest band was well in to NM whereas you’ll see later, it is now over much of eastern/central Arizona.
By late tomorrow afternoon, the low has only moved eastward slightly, but IPW continues to increase over NW Mexico and into Arizona. Precipitation begins mainly over the higher terrain of eastern Arizona.
By Wednesday morning, the mid level low has intensified as a strong short wave dives down behind the mean trough along with CAA into the back side.
Significant synoptic scale lift is present over southern Arizona and into northern Mexico by this time.
Extreme IPW is forecast to be present during the morning hours on Friday and combined with the favorable dynamics, widespread moderate to heavy rain is predicted. As the low becomes cut off, there will be an extended period for precipitation.
Precipitation rates are forecast to be above .25″/hour in some locations during the morning hours.
Partial clearing is forecast by Friday afternoon which allows some heating. Combined with cooler air aloft and high IPW, moderate amounts of CAPE are present during the afternoon.
By later in the afternoon, as Bob Maddox pointed out, convection forms and results in some locally heavy precipitation.
Tucson’s vertical profile is quite impressive with 700 J/Kg of CAPE and some vertical shear to support organized convection. Hail is also a threat.
Convection continues into the evening over southern Arizona with a continued threat of hail and some lightning.
The 3 day QPF is very impressive with widespread 1 inch amounts with some areas receiving over 3 inches. Some of these areas are associated with the strong convection present on Friday afternoon/evening. Confidence is low to medium due to the lack of upper air data and lack of run to run consistency as discussed previously. Also, the output in this discussion was solely from the 12z WRFGFS. The WRFNAM from last night had the heaviest precipitation somewhat to the east. It will be informative to see the next suite of model runs overnight to see if this westward trend ceases. There is a chance that it could continue and the heaviest precipitation is actually farther west than depicted below.
Very little of this precipitation falls as snow except at the very highest elevations, above 9k feet due to the sub tropical air-mass and lack of cold air.
Note that this discussion will only be available for organizations who are (or have) supported the Arizona Regional Modeling Program. This change will take effect before next monsoon season. Private individuals not associated with commercial/governmental agencies will continue to receive the discussions. If your agency would like to support the Program, please email me for details. “
————–End of special statement by Mike L—————————
The End!
1Let us not forget Simon and Garfunkel’s telling descriptions of Patterns of life; they repeat in clouds, too. (Pretty funny lead in commercial where Bryant Gumbel is asking, “What is the internet?”)
2Back in the old days when cloud forms were used to tell weather, Cirrostratus sheets, those high thin sheets, often with a halo, foretold rain 70% of the time here in the US (see Compendium of Meteorology, 1951). Deserts don’t much see this sequence. Cirrus are mostly meaningless in them, just indicating some withering tail of a system with rain that’s far away most of the time.
