Went on an hike yesterday to see what the water levels had gotten to in the Sutherland Wash, located at the base of Samaniego Ridge, during our historic downpour. I began at the Cottonwoods at the Baby Jesus Trail head and worked my way down the wash about a mile, to where the fence is that demarcates the Coronado National Forest boundary and the State Trust Lands. It appeared that the flow in the Sutherland Wash had reached depths of 4-6 feet in the narrower parts, and about 3 feet deep, and 80 feet wide (!) near the south fence. Had crossed that part of the wash by that fence many times on horseback. I had seen little streams of water in it a number of times, but nothing close to what apparently had happened on Monday morning; it must have been a stunning sight. The peak of our storm appeared to fall on the Sutherland Wash watershed.
First, nice sunrise yesterday. Hope you caught this.
6:01 AM.9:10 AM. Rocky surfaces on the Catalinas glistening from water. I thought maybe that water might be still be flowing in the Sutherland Wash, up against the foothills, but only in one little spot was it running.10:41 AM. Investigative work begins in the Sutherland Wash at the Cottonwoods near the Baby Jesus Trail head.10:41 AM. Using the investigative technique of looking for scour marks, debris piles, and mashed plants, the investigation began. In summary, I could find no evidence that the Sutherland Wash had ever had a higher flow in it than what occurred on Monday. Imagine the flow here, enough to push over that young tree!Imagine the volume of water going over this old cement wall, just south of the Cottonwods!
I suddenly realized, when viewing the mashed plants, pig weed and such, along side the untouched ones, that the concept of mowed lawns was likely introduced to early man since he would have seen how nice and orderly the flattened areas looked after floods compared to the wild, stalky, unkempt look of the untamed natural vegetation. Thinking about writing this hypothesis up, submitting to the J. of Amer. Cultural Anthropology…. Man always wants to tame things.10:50 AM Debris pile.Somehow these morning glories made it through the mayhem.More debris. It got to be kind of fascinating, started looking for the biggest ones, really getting into it.10:56 AM. Wash must have been about 4-5 feet deep here, judging by that neat, nice looking mashed down area on the bank.Certainly an implication of water violence here!Pretty marbled swirls due to multicolored sands. Almost hated to walk on it.More interesting swirls.Really getting fascinated by the drama presented by a debris pile. Hope you are, too.The wash has widened considerably here, but the violence is still evident. I thought this was a pretty dramatic viewpoint.The debris in this young tree suggests the wash was five or so feet deep here, pretty amazing when you add the velocity to that.At the end of the hike, here past the fence and where the equestrian trail enters the wash, measuring from bank to bank showed that it was 80 feet wide, and about 3 feet deep!But somehow, this little guy survived the scouring rampage.
The weather ahead….
Still looking like an upper trough along California will scoop up soon-to-be Hurricane “Odile” (not “Opal”, as suggested here yesterday) and send its remains into Arizona and with that, another blast of tropical rains. Another four or five inches added to our current water year total would make it look pretty good (hahah). Right now, Catalinans are looking at 14.56 inches for this WY (Oct to Sept). Average is 16.82 inches over the past 37 years.
The End.
PS: There was some ice in heavy Cumulus clouds off to the north toward Oracle Junction yesterday, BTW. Hope you noted it.
First, a tedious note about the Big One of two days ago.
While the Davis Vantage Pro 2 tipping bucket gauge registered a whopping 4.18 inches, a smaller plastic gauge from CoCoRahs here had 4.63 inches, after subtracting some rain (half an inch) I forgot to dump due to a brain cramp. A neighbor a couple hundred yards away here in Sutherland Heights, measured 4.65 inches in her gauge, and I now think that the 4.63 inches is the correct amount of rain for this spot. This goes with two other reports of 4.48 inches at Our Garden, and another one of 4.50 inches just a bit on the west side of Lago del Oro Parkway, and the 4.59 inches at the Samaniego Peak ALERT gauge just E of us. We seem to have been in the heaviest band of that storm! (Makes up for all the misses during the summer.)
The Vantage gauge is mounted above the ground, and some loss occurs due to wind, and also when the rain falls too hard, the tipping bucket can’t keep up. The CoCo gauge is ground mounted, and is protected from wind by surrounding natural desert vegetation (aka, “weeds”).
Below, from the University of Arizona’s rainlog.org, is a map of rain totals in our area and the northern areas of TUS. (The Our Garden and Samaniego Peak totals of 4.48 and 4.59 inches, respectively, don’t show up because they are not members of rainlog.org but probably should be so’s we can get all the rain we want to see in one site! I have added those values
Rain totals for September 8, 2014. The green values are for Our Garden and Samaniego Peak, along with the revised total for Sutherland Heights. Recall a neighbor here measured 4.65 inches!
In the meantime, from CDO at Wilds Road videos I took in heavy rain as the Sutherland Heights rain started to eclipse 3 inches, this larger wave that formed. I think it could have been surfed.
10:55 AM. From a frame of a video taken at the CDO wash and Wilds Road intersection, this monster. Must have been 6 feet high in total height! So, you CAN “surf Arizona!”
Yesterday’s clouds
First of all, it was real disappointing to see so much haze in the air after so much rain! Not sure where it came from yet, will have to do some back trajectories to find out, but later…
6:14 AM Sunrise Cumulus6:54 AM. Crepuscular rays outline a Cumulus turret.6:54 AM. Distant Cumulonimbus offers hope for a similar scene later in the morning over the Catalinas, a scene that was NOT realized.8:17 AM. A great example of crepuscular rays and bad air.12:53 PM. Promising Cumulus congestus that really went nowhere.2:03 PM. However, it was not a completely rainless day, as can be seen, “dead ahead.” Some clouds got thick enough to rain lightly. In this Arthur’s opinion, this rain was due to the collision with coalescence rain process, not the ice one which I deem with a 51% confidence level.4:26 PM. Kind of losing interest in the whole day now as Cu disappear in favor of an Altocumulus opacus deck, one originating right out of Norbert if you saw the satellite imagery.
The weather ahead
Still pretty confident in more summer rains and tropical air after the current dry spell of a few days, this partly associated with the next tropical storm, likely to be named “Opal” or something like that with an “O” as it takes shape. Of course, we could look up what name it will be, but it will be named soon enough, so why bother?Its already a numbered tropical depression (a weak area of low pressure) down there off Guatemala now.
If you’ve ever been to Indian State of Kerala and the western Ghats, you know that yesterday, with the warmth, the thick, pounding rain with cloud bases at tree-top levels, visibility a mile or two, and with little or no lightning, was a true sample of India in the summer, maybe a July day in the western Ghats.
Congratulations for having experienced India and a TRUE monsoon day without having to go anywhere1.
The totals? 4.48 inches at Our Garden on Columbus Avenue, wettest day in their 37 year record. 4.59 inches on Samaniego Peak. The largest amount I could find was at Stewart Dam by the Salt River, 4.79 inches, all in 24 h, though most of these totals fell in less than 3 h. Below a shot of the CDO wash at or near its peak at Wilds Road, the latter a “street” if I may, one that might now surpass in difficulty the Charoulou Gap for the 4-wheeler and ATV crowd judging from the way it looked yesterday.
BTW, the shots below are from a video taken by yours truly in the pounding rain as the total here in Sutherland Heights surpassed the 3 inch mark, on its way to 4.18 inches. I was the only one there, except for Jessie, who runs Our Garden, who also showed up in the pounding rain right after I did, saying, “I thought I’d find you here.” Huh.
10:55 AM. Rainfall in Sutherland Heights was now surpassing 3 inches when this was shot.
11:00 AM at the Canada del Oro Wash at Wilds Road. 11:00 AM at the Canada del Oro Wash at Wilds Road, looking upstream from near there.
This was twice as big and fast moving as anything I had seen in the prior seven summers, though doesn’t compare to the August 2003 flood in which the CDO wash at this location got all the the way to Lago del Oro Parkway, a hundred yards wider than this.
With yesterdays soaking wet air over us, it didn’t take much to send turrets spaceward, and it MAY have been that those car-floating rains in the Phoenix area had something to do with what happened.
A gust front moving this way was evident in the satellite and radar imagery as new echoes raced to the SE from that whopper after midnight. The gust front appeared to dissipate before getting here, but then not long after the heavy rains began, the wind came up from the north after calm conditions marked the first inch or two. And the rains intensified. Clearly, wherever that wind shift came from, it gave the clouds above us another boost, to push an already memorable rain into historic proportions by helping generated the second two inches. (I hope you logged the time of this important windshift in your weather diary yesterday.)
Here are some shots from that historic day, one that we will likely not live to see again:
5:54 AM. Stratocumulus clouds with a higher layer of clouds reddened in the sunrise that provided a rosy glow where there were break and thin spots in the overcast. The clouds are only maybe 2000 feet above the ground at 59 F (15 C) or so, incredibly warm-based.
6:32 AM. This extraordinary shot. “Huh,” you say? Its beginning to drizzle from these shallow Stratocumulus clouds over there by the Catalinas, a RARE event in Arizona. When cloud bases are so warm, and therefore, contain so much water in them, water that is converted into larger than normal cloud droplets they can then reach the “Hocking threshold” (about 38 microns in diameter) for collisions with coalescence to occur, and that in turn allows drizzle and rain drops to form without ice! Rare to see Hocking’s threshold exceeded in our clouds! The day could have ended right here and have been a happy, memorable one. True drizzle even fell here in Sutherland Heights from these clouds just after 7 AM, too, and before the big rains hit. Did you know that this process of rain formation, called collision-coalescence, has produced the biggest rain drops ever measured, about a centimeter in diameter. And that was in clouds that did not reach the freezing level! And, nearly all of that western Ghat rain is due to that mechanism, in hurricanes, too. So, don’t need no ice for blinding rains when the air is so tropical as the air here was yesterday. Ice in those tropical situations is often more like fluff icing on a rainy cake, to make a strange metaphor, than a real contributor to what falls on the ground.
7:17 AM. Before long, heavier rains, this area fronted by a weak arcus cloud, were breaking out. With no thunder, and weak looking, “stratiformy” looking clouds, you do intuit that no ice may be involved, even if the rains are heavy. Look how thick and fog-like it looks in that rain area. About a half an inch fell out of this according to one “personal weather station” out there.
8:05 AM. Outside of some brief true drizzle drops, it hasn’t done anything here yet, but, “hey” this looks interesting as it approaches, though no rain was falling out of it. Recall, too, that lower portions of cloud like this indicate an area of updraft feeding a Cumulus base. Must be too shallow for rain to form…. Or was it? This is going to be a VERY tedious blog today.8:10 AM. Look! Just five minutes later, a little rain is falling out now and its heading this way and that updraft area is holding up. Maybe it will be enough to measure! (Note: Here’s where the rain ball got rolling, to make another awkward metaphor; it dumped 0.22 inches in a few minutes as it unloaded on Sutherland Heights. Note also that there is just stratiform (flat) and higher clouds behind this. Didn’t look like much more was going to happen. Perhaps it would be “too cloudy” and cool for good rains, something we often hear around here, and is largely true.
OK, its pretty hard to take pictures of rain, but these two below were the best I could do, and I hope you appreciate it. I have no idea why I took 85 pictures of heavy rain; they don’t look that great in retrospect, but it was exciting to be taking them…kind of lost control.
9:28 AM. What Oro Valley looks like from Sutherland Heights when its raining two inches an hour. Photo looks west.Also taken at 9:28, but 21 photos earlier than the one above, of the runoff from a local resident’s roof when its raining two inches an hour. Wow, snapped 21 photos in a minute! Hmmmmm… maybe some counseling is needed on self-control…
The rest of the day was truly history, and by afternoon, things were clearing out, and by late in the day left those usual, “memorable” scenes of our mountains decked in clouds. The mountains seemed greener, washed up as it were, more than usual after good rains.
5:11 PM. Residual Stratocumulus castellanus (because they have little turrets) top “Sam” Ridge.6:08 PM. Another just a pretty scene of our well-washed mountains. Samaniego Peak got 4.59 inches yesterday, as mentioned before.
Today…..U of AZ mod run from 11 PM last night sez no rain around here today or tomorrow. With the residual moisture we have, and clouds topping Samaniego Ridge this morning, it would be hard to imagine that early on in the day, later this morning that a few huge Cumulonimbus clouds won’t arise over the Cat Mountains before the drying takes hold. So, we might see some great clouds right away, and then watch them wither as the dry air manifests itself.
In the longer term, yesterday’s 12 Z run was amazing since it had more heavy rains down the road, a week or so out, with another “Norbert” like storm traveling up the Baja coastline. Imagine! And on last evening’s run at 5 PM AST, it has it in almost an identical trajectory as Norbert. Check this out. Never have seen that before, such a replication of something fairly strange in the first place. I just saw this now, and am so excited am going to slip it here adding already to “blog excess” and “reader fatigue”:
Valid on September 16th at 5 PM AST, this duplicate of yesterday’s map! UNBELIEVABLE!
————
1In the southern peninsula region of India, east of the Ghats in during the time of the SW monsoon, there are giant thunderstorms with incredible LTG, but they’re more scattered around than the “24/7” monsoon rains in the Ghats, rains that can produce up to 300 inches in a month, though averages are closer to 100.
Today will be a special one in the desert. Cumulus bases are going to be really LOW for summer, maybe only 3-4 kft above the ground, and likely warmer than 15 C (50 F). Maybe 50 F doesn’t sound special, but it is. A base temperature of summer clouds that warm is rarely observed here. And with that, and all the posts here about the temperatures that ice forms (around -10 C, 14 F) are out the window. Ice will form at much higher temperatures than usual.
This is because on a day when the Cumulus bases are that warm, rain forms by collisions between droplets before clouds even reach the -5 C (23 F) level, the highest temperature at which Ma Nature can produce ice. Rain mgiht even form in our clouds today even before the freezing level itself!
This is so exciting for an Arizonan who has studied ice-in-clouds development over the years because today ice will form in clouds around the -5 to -10 C level, and the mechanism of Mssrs Hallett and Mossop will be heavily involved as well as other lesser understood mechanisms to form ice in clouds today. And, along with that high ice-forming temperature will be categories of ice crystals that are rarely seen here, needles and hollow sheaths, ones that form at temperatures in clouds warmer than -10 C! You can see how excited Mr. Cloud Maven Person is. For comparison, it would be like a bird watcher seeing a _________, something pretty rare go by.
Dewpoint temperatures are running in the upper 60s and was 70 F (!) at TUS earlier this morning! Indicative of a really, really moist day from a cloud standpoint even now is that line of Stratus fractus cloud halfway down on Samaniego (Sam) Ridge. And this is BEFORE rain has fallen. Not too unusual to see something like that AFTER a good rain, but before, its pretty rare.
All in all, a very tropical day ahead, very “Floridian” I would call it, and that means more water in the clouds above us ready to fall out, and more “fuel” to send those warm plumes of Cumulus turrets spaceward. That’s because heat is released to the air around cloud droplets as then form, and the more “condensate” the more heat. The warmer the cloud bases, the more condensate that occurs. Its quite a feedback loop.
The last time we had bases this warm and low, some “lucky” areas got “Floridian” dumps of rain, that is, 3 inches in an hour. (Three inches in an hour is pretty common in Florida in the summer.)
However, need some heating and/or a good symoptic situation to gather up the clouds today if we are to get more than just high humidity from Norbert’s remains. Last night’s model run from the U of AZ was not real supportive of a great day because while the humidity is here, and upper level situation is going in the wrong direction, is not going to help much. A lot of what we needed was expended over night in huge storms that are raking central and northern AZ now, with some sites in PHX reporting up to 2 inches since midnight! And as that upper air configuration responsible for their great rains moves away, what’s right behind it up there, will try to squash clouds.
So, while we have the ingredients down low for an exceptional rain day, its not in the bag. What’s worse is that drier air is now foretold to roll in from the west by tomorrow, further diminishing (not eliminating, though) the chances for a decent rain here in Catalina. “Egad”, considering all the promise that “Norbert” once held for us!
So, in sum, a bit clueless here as to what exactly kind of day we’re going to have. “Truth-in-packaging” portion of blog. I see rain has formed just now (6:41 AM) on Samaniego Ridge, AND to the S-SW, very good sign!
—a note on air quality—as inferred from visibility in a humid situation——–
Another thing you will notice is how clean the air is. We have tremendous humidity, and unlike smog-filled air back east, the sky will be blue, and the visibility good. If you’ve ever been back East, you’ll know that in most areas the sky between the clouds on humid days is pretty white, and horizontal visibility is reduced in the moist air, say ahead of a cold-cool front in summer. This is due to large haze particles that have become droplets before water saturation has been reached, a phenomenon called deliquescence. Its horrible. Really ruins the sky back there on humid days.
Enough semi-technical blather. We’re mostly about pretty cloud pictures here.
Yesterday’s clouds
There were some spectacular scenes yesterday, even though it was disappointing as a rain day, only a late afternoon trace here in Sutherland Heights. Here are some of the best.
6:34 AM. Altocumulus lenticularis hovers over and a little downwind of the Catalinas.10:03 AM. First Cumulus begin to form on the Catalinas, later than expected. I will using the words, “expected” and “unexpected” a lot today.1:21 PM. First ice seen, lower left top of blue sky and cloud border. Can you see it?1:24 PM. Soon after the first ice is seen, out pops the rain, that very faint haze in the center of the photo.2:12 PM. Mt Lemmon receiving 0.79 inches of rain in about an hour from this little guy. Note that the peak is TOTALLY obscured by this rain shaft.12:24 PM. Cumulus clouds kind of muddled around up there when yours truly was expecting a sudden eruption at any time. Really did not happen yesterday.12:26 PM. Mostly just a pretty scene, the blue sky, the Altocumulus perlucidus, and the Cumulus congestus erectus.4:17 PM. It was especially gratifying, after kind of a non event day, to have this unexpected late eruption of a Cumulonimbus NW of Catalina. Meant chances weren’t quite over for nearby developments.5:03 PM. Cumulus cloud street trails off the Catalinas. Will it do anything?5:21 PM. The ragged edge of the higher layer leads to a series of crepescular rays in the falling rain, while the Cu congestus turret sends a long shadow Catalinaward, A gap in the clouds allows the sun to shine on the rain falling in Oro Valley then. Can you imagine how great the rainbow was on the other side, say from the Tortolita Mountains? The rainbow isn’t seen in the forward scattering direction because its due to reflected light back toward the sun from within the raindrops.5:22 PM. Nice lighting on Samaniego Ridge, rainbow imminent,5:24 PM. Magnificent, the lighting, the rainbow. How lucky we are to be here!6:56 PM. Just when you thought the day was finished, this surprise. Well, it was to me, that’s for sure!
6:58 PM. Ghostly-like late blooming Cumulonimbus calvus and Cumulus congestus clouds rise up against the falling temperatures. Pretty neat sight.[/caption]
6:58 PM. More unexpected strong developments to the west after sunset.
The End!
Heck, if I worked on this much longer, the answer to what’s going to happen today would be in!
We saw some great shafts yesterday, and their content did not disappoint where they landed; 1.61 inches fell at a Saddlebrooke Ranch site, though only 0.06 inches in The Heights. Also, this piece contains a footnote.
8:15 AM. The usual summer Altocumulus perlucidus deck.
10:56 AM. Cumulus begin to form under a layer of Altostratus translucidus. Now some people would call that higher layer “Cirrus”, but remember that in our cloud definitions, only one variety of Cirrus can have gray shading in the middle of the day, and that’s Cirrus spissatus, which besides is in much smaller patches that this. I know its crazy, but there it is.2:19 PM. Some darkening of the sky to the S–SSW toward Tucson. Its best if you don’t look at radar to see if there’s anything down there if you want to enhance your cloud interpreting skill set. Just let it come, if it is. Maybe its a spiral band around H. Norbert! (There was a big line of echoes heading this way….) Not much was going on over the Catalinas.3:01 PM. Earlier darkening not disappointing! “She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when she comes”! What a great and dramatic scene this was.3:28 PM. Things are happening fast as the rain shafts from this system tumble down Samaniego/Pusch Ridges! Winds in those shafts likely exceeded 50 mph where you see them racing down those slopes, Nice, promising base forming on this side of the mountains, too.3:56 PM. Stupendous shafts slide along Sam Ridge, while gusty SE winds blow in the Heights, pushing clouds up over and to the north of us.4:05 PM. One of the new cloud bases cut loose, but just to the NE of Sutherland Heights. Oh, me, so close.6:43 PM. Day clouds with an OK sunset on the several layers of debris clouds leftover from those great storms.
The weather ahead….
Just glimpsing the mighty U of AZ mod seems to suggest that there are two more days with substantial rains in the area ahead. Great! So, more great clouds and shafts to shoot, to be a little alliterative there at the end. Charge camera battery. Check weather service and what Bob has to say as well. Haven’t got time to make a good forecast…. hahaha, sort of.
The weather WAY ahead
In the long range, I found this important plot from last night interesting, and I know I speak for you as well:
A true “spaghetti” plot from the NOAA factory based on last evening’s global data. Its valid for Sunday, at 5 PM AST, September 21st.
Now it does appear from this plot that there is a ridge in the future along the West Coast, manifested1 (what a great word) by that hump in all those multicolored lines along the West Coast), a trough in the East (MANIFESTED by the dip in those same lines east of the Rockies). That means that the summer rain season, might actually be extended some instead of ending completely with the current rejuvenation. The summer moisture can extrude farther to the north when a ridge is present in the West. In the daily forecast maps, showers do return to this area after the present tropical regime ends, and that scenario is that bit reinforced by what “spaghetti” says.
The End
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1To sound more erudite, you might use that word today when discussing the outcomes of yesterday’s NCAA college football games with your sports friends. An example: “The Washington Huskies defense is not as good as we had hoped it would be as MANIFESTED by the FIFTY-TWO points in gave up to the Eastern Washington Eagles, a lower division team.”
3:56 PM. A little dessert, another shaft for you, a real good one over there on the Gap.
Surf along the Baja coast, that is, and dewpoints here. Whopping 67 F in TUS, 73 F in Nogales right now. Cat 3 Hurricane Norbert’s is creeping up the Baja coast as of this hour with SUSTAINED winds of 120 mph, pretty far north for that kind of intensity.
Norbert’s peripheral circulation is working its way into Arizona at last. Things aren’t so great upstairs on top of that moisture coming in down low, and so we can’t expect a LOT of showers around today, but more than yesterday, which was almost none. Things gradually improve up top tomorrow and the next day, and so more grouping of showers is expected. Norbert is still forecast by the USA! WRF-GFS model to pass over San Diego on its way across northern Arizona. It will go from a “lion” to a little kitty” by the time it reaches SAN and then it will be just a muddle of clouds trekking across northern Arizona after that.
The important thing about Norbert is the drought-relieving rains it will bring to much of the Southwest. Norbert and its remains will affect Arizona for a few days, then nothin’ after that. So, hoping we can get a few inches of rain out of this situation somewhere in Arizona before it clears out during the middle of next week.
Yesterday’s clouds
10:22 AM. Got really excited when I saw this happen, that extruding top from the raggedy Andy mass below! What a great sign for a few good Cumulonimbi, but not too many since it had dried out overnight!
12:01 PM. Cumulus congestus clouds continued to mass on top of Ms. Lemmon, but the expected explosion into a big Cumulonimbus had not yet occurred, somewhat surprisingly.
12:19 PM. First ice! Can you find it? Looks like things are beginning to boil now, big Cb moments away, (“Not”, as it turned out.) 1:05 PM. Another good sign was Cumulus congestus building over there toward Saddlebrooke Ranch and the valley areas. Looked like they, too, were ready to group and explode. Such a pretty scene.
1:32 PM. Things are getting “muddled.” Instead of nice firm cloud bases, we have kind of a mess. No Cumulus eruption is going to come out of this. At this time, you and me were just looking around to see if any tops had gotten cold enough to form some ice for at least a light rain shower on the mountains. Didn’t see any here.
6:08 PM. While some heavy Cumulus and a couple of Cumulonimbus clouds were sighted well to the SW of us, the clouds here withered as it got drier during the day. You see, even though it was moist below, when Cumulus turrets begin shooting up, there must be (gradually) subsiding air to take the place of the air that shot upwards. So, the extremely dry air just above the tops of our Cumulus was sinking down and dessicating the air from which the Cumulus arose from. Oh, well. More moist up top today….. Won’t be quite so bad in helping to eradicate our Cu.6:45 PM. Cirrus spissatus cumulonimbogenitus (there’s a mouthful!) makes for a pretty sunset, as do those distant Cumulus towers as Norbert’s moisture begins to show up aloft.
Thank you, second burst of rain after about 8:15 PM. And what a great total on The Lemmon! Fantastic, unless some roads were washed out. 1.93 inches fell in only an hour up there. 1.85 inches fell in an hour at White Tail over there by the highway.
Catalina Area 1010 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.28 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Rd in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.28 Oracle Ranger Stati approximately 0.5 mi SW of Oracle 1040 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.43 Dodge Tank Edwin Rd 1.3 mi E of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.43 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 mi W of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.55 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 mi NE of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.87 Cargodera Canyon NE corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.24 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash NE of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.51 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Rd
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.75 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 mi N of Rice Peak 1090 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 3.07 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.63 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 mi S of Coronado Camp 1130 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.69 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.94 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 2.72 White Tail Catalina Hwy 0.8 mi W of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.59 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.18 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 mi SSE of Marshall Gulch
Looks like scattered showers today; a typical sequence after something major happens, like last night, is for the atmosphere to compensate with some drier air. So, today should be GORGEOUS in Cumulus clouds that pile up here and there on the mountains, but don’t expect to get shafted unless you’re real lucky. Wider spread rains expected tomorrow….
Yesterday’s clouds, if you care
Of course, you can the whole day in a hurry here, courtesy of the U of Arizona Wildcats Weather Department, in case you’d like to avoid all the cloud blather below….
6:20 AM. I/m calling this Altocumulus. Don’t see any ice falling out here, but some did off to the SW. Being an all water droplet cloud, I hope you were telling anyone that you were with, that, “Hell, this layer will burn off fast” since you know that water droplet clouds are more vulnerable to evaporating in sunlight than ice clouds like Altostratus, or Cirrus. And when this layer burns off fast, the Cumulus will arise in a hurry. Its great that you might have said that.9:13 AM. That layer is mostly gone, and there come the Cu!1:03 PM. The inevitable Cumulonimbus capillatus incus has arisen over there by Kitt Peak. But this photo is special for you because if you look closely, as I know you will, there is also a big dust devil near the Tucson Mountains (center of photo). I’ve noticed a LOT of dust devils form in nearly that same spot where this one is. Must be exciting to live down there!1:30 PM. Another daily benchmark, “First Ice” on the Catalinas. The ragged turret remains on the left have some ice underneath them if you look closely again, as I know you probably will. If you had an aircraft with cloud physics instrumentation and you were looking for the amount ice that formed in those ragged turrets, ones that once looked like the one in the center, nice and puffy, you would best fly toward the bottom of the rags, not at the top since as the droplets in the cloud shrink due to evaporation, the ice-forming stops. Thus sometimes the coldest part of the cloud in those rags has the fewest ice crystals, and more are found lower down, ones that formed by the freezing of those once larger drops, as would be starting to take place in the puffy parts.3:56 PM. The rarely seen pileus cap which I seem to photograph everyday on a Catalina mountain Cumulus congestus cloud top. Very pretty, and SO DELICATE! Things had kind of stagnated as far as Cumulus development went at this point over the Catalinas. Lots of small Cbs, but nothing really shot up, as it was beginning to do to the southwest and west.4:15 PM. Another rarely seen pileus top on a Cumulus congestus converting into a Cumulonimbus calvus; ice in a fading, glaciated turret is visible on the left (that smooth portion). Still, these tops ain’t much in height.5:57 PM. Now the big boys to the SW are approaching with huge “plumes” of Altostratus cumulonimbogenitus–you knew that, though in fading versions it appeared. Note dust plume on the right obscuring part of the Tortolita Mountains. And with their approach, and with the dust plume over there, you could easily figure that the wind was gonna blow pretty hard.6:00 PM. Only four minutes later, the dust was moving in and the wind was blowing from the SW at 25 to 35 mph. When the wind starts up, look up! That wind will be pushing the air over you up, and often existing darken as their tops rise, or new clouds form. Here, and in the next shot, that SW wind is pushing the air up on the slopes of the Catalina Mountains. Was hoping to see the strands start to fall from these bases near us, maybe feel some “rain plops” as we call them, those giant drops first out the bottom, but that didn’t happen here, but over there on Ms. Lemmon and Samaniego Ridge after that. Oh, well.6:06 PM. Another example of the clouds that piled up on the Catalinas as that SW wind was blowing. Wasn’t long after this that Ms. Lemmon was obscured in rain.
Our last cloud chapter was rudely interrupted by drought, with the last “rain”, an embarrassing one, of just 0.01 inches here in Sutherland Heights a week ago. Areas around us, of course, got more.
6:40 AM. “Etched glass” Cirrus fibratus. The flocculent patches (center right) are newly formed ones in which the larger ice crystals that are falling out of the stranded regions, have not yet gotten big enough to fall out, but they will follow that same course.
7:08 AM. CIrrus fibratus/uncinus radiatus, or at least the perspective makes it LOOK like its converging in the upwind direction. Had to pull off for this shot, it was SO NICE!1:32 PM. Surprise of the day was seeing real Cumulus (mediocris) clouds forming over our Catalina Mountains underneath patchy Cirrus and Altocumulus clouds. Note the rarely seen pileus cap cloud, indicating a good updraft.1:32 PM. Close up of the rarely seen pileus cap cloud. Would really like to have been in it, and then feel the bump when the Cu top rises through it!2:04 PM. Nice to see some unexpected shafting around, even if they were weak, indicating the tops were not terrifically high. With bases at the freezing level yesterday (14 kft above sea level), ice would not form until lower than normal temperatures, maybe around -15 C (5 F), but then would increase with each lower temperature. Here guessing were likely around -25 C, 25,000 feet or so above sea level due to the weakness of the shaft. Got a higher later. Very iffy discussion here, but that’s what CMP thinks.4:31 PM. Evening closed out with R— (“triple minus”–hardly noticeable RAIN not drizzle, please) from mid-level clouds, Altocumulus being the lower, lumpy gray patches, and Altostratus Cumulonimbogenitus, being the one producing the sprinkles, not drizzle.
Today’s weather….
Well, its no fun telling folks what they already know, but will say it looks tentatively, relying on the U of AZ 11 PM AST run of last night, like a day similar to yesterday, except a cloudier morning, which I just saw was the case by looking outside right now at 5:49 AM. Cu develop, tops should get cold enough to produce ice-hence-rain and shafting. Hope its measurable today. Also, as you know, moisture levels increase over the next couple of days with substantial rains likely.
In a model curiosity, three consecutive runs of the US WRF-GFS model, beginning with the 5 AM AST, 11 AM AST, and 5 PM AST runs, all from yesterday, had the remains of tropical storm Norbert passing directly over San Diego with substantial rains there. What made it even more likely to happen was that the Canadian model run from yesterday’s 5 PM AST global data, ALSO had the remaining little center of Norbert passing over San Diego, Tuesday, September 9th! Amazing since Norbert is such a tiny feature in our models, at least by the time it gets near San Diego.
As reported here, a month or so ago, the newly discovered oscillation in ocean temperatures, called the “California Niño”, is helping to keep Norbert going longer as it trudges to the NNW just off the Baja coast. Water temperatures off Cal are warmer than usual this summer due to weak onshore flow for the past few months. When the flow is normal, it not only sculpts plants and trees along the Cal coast, but also causes upwelling of COLD water, horrible for beach goers.
Below, examples of wind sculpting1:
Bodega Bay, CA, just north of Frisco, that windy, foggy, “Stratus-ee”, and cold summer city. Note Stratus in the background hwew.rolling in off the cold offshore waters. No summer thunderstorms here! Imagine how awful it would be to live at this spot. Winters are pretty nice, though, often with frequent rains and wind….to balance things out some.
Also near Bodega Bay.
The End.
———————————— 1When a realtor shows you property with scenes like these around it, you don’t want to buy there, even if its not windy that day. If you’re a realtor, you’d want to have bushes and trees like this trimmed up real good. hahaha.
Those models have been titillating Arizonans with lots of rain in the coming days, but unlike most prize-winning1 meteorologists, I am going to only show you those with the most rain, rather than those in which the rain is skimpy, not impressive, like the latest model run from last night.
This is because I want you to start your day in a good mood, not a bad one. The summer-style rains in the area don’t return until about Thursday, but you probably already know that from TEEVEE weatherpersons2. Then those rains go on for a few days.
Here’s the BEST of the model predictions, well, two of them, from IPS MeteoStar, whose renditions of the US WRF-GOOFUS model I favor.
Now the first one is a model prediction that’s a couple of days old, the second two are only about 24 h old, having originated with yesterday’s 11 AM global data! The last two have rains of two inches in 12 h predicted in AZ, one center of that rain is just about over Sutherlands Heights/Catalina! Pretty excited and am glad I could find it for you.
Valid Monday night at 11 PM AST, September 8th. Well, it may not be “valid” anymore, but this is about as large an area of rain moving into Arizona as you will find in a model output, so its pretty great to savor. Valid Sunday night at 11 PM, September 7th from a later model run. Note the purple spot on Mt. Lemmon, indicating about 2 inches of rain in 12 h. Tropical low sits off Baja, and spurts NE into AZ after this map. Valid at 11 AM, September 10th. That tropical storm remnant is now over Arizona producing a lot of rain, though the major portion is just west of us.
Now those last two panels of rain are due to a strange situation. A tropical storm brings a surge of showers into Arizona as it passes off Baja heading for death in the cold waters to the NW. But then it stalls, goes in circles for awhile, and comes shooting up into Arizona bring the rain shown in the last panel! So, we get TWO rains from the same storm!
What are the chances this strange storm track will actually happen? Virtually none. But “virtually” none is not all NONE, to paraphrase a memorable line in Princess Bride, so there IS hope that major September rains WILL occur in Catalina/Sutherland Heights in the 10 days ahead. I’m counting on it. Waxing rain gauge now so that drops slip easily down the funnel and into the smaller measuring tube. Be sure to at least wipe the dust off the larger collecting funnel before these major rains hit so that “no drop is left behind”, again paraphrasing something I heard somewhere.
Expecting 1-2 inches during the 7 days beginning this Thursday, with outside chances of it being even MORE. I love predicting a lot of rain for a desert, so you’ll have to take that into account. If you’re upset at this disclosure, being kind of crybaby, and want really good “objective” forecasting with great graphics, then go to Bob M or the NWS! To HELL with you!
The End.
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1It was a consolation prize in cloud seeding studies3, i.e., not that great, that we (Peter Hobbs and I got) like winning the main prize would be. Kind of fits in with my athletic “prizes”; all second team this, all second team that, honorable mention this, etc.
2Some of these “weatherpersons” have not been well trained, and have been “on air”
(!) referring to sprinkles of rain as “drizzle.” Unbelievable. No university-trained meteorologist would make such an ignominious error, unless of course, they skipped classes in cloud microphysics.
3My role in getting that prize was due to finding fault in the work of others rather than contributing solutions to problems.
Like you, I did not expect to see ice-in-clouds yesterday. I could feel your surprise when I looked to the north and saw traces of it in the exhaling part of a Cumulus congestus–like you, really didn’t think I’d see clouds that large, either. But there the ice was.
Later, it was even more obvious, and a fat cell even developed up there toward Globe in mid-afternoon. Didn’t expect to see one so close.
Also, did you catch the cluster of Cumulonimbi on the north horizon at sunrise? That was an unexpected sight for you and me as well.
I wonder, too, if you were down at Steam Pump and Oracle you noticed that a few drops of rain fell? That was really unbelievable, since it was practically clear overhead when I exited the PF gym and saw them on the car I had just washed and waxed in the belief that no rain could fall for at least 10 days. Yes, it was a day of surprises for both of us.
Didn’t think I’d be bloggin’ today, either. Life has so many unexpected twists and turns.
Yesterday’s clouds
6:05 AM. Unexpected sighting number 1: Dawn Cumulonimbi up there toward the Mogollon Rim.
11:07 AM. Unexpected sighting number two, ice! See center right frizzy, smooth area in “exhaust” part of Cu.11:37 AM. Unexpected sighting #3: Didn’t think those turrets could extrude so far into the extremely dry air above those tops, but there it is, extruding like anything. (Center right). Also note the ice in the lower tops, left center, and the hint of a rain shaft! Unbelievable. The dark blob at left in mid-air, obscuring a portion of the cloud, is a pipevine swallowtail butterfly that surprised me by flying into the frame as I snapped the photo. Yesterday may have been the most surprising day of my life, maybe yours, too. 2:18 PM. “USN4”: This gargantuan cell up there by Globe. Unbelievable that a cell this big was so close to our area considering all the dry air that was moving in.
2:28 PM. A surprisingly thin turret that has gone completely to ice (right side). The extruding turret on the left, certainly would have some ice in it, but also, as you can see from its texture, has a lot of liquid cloud droplets in it, too. This is a nice example of the glaciation cycle in a small cloud.
3:40 PM. Showers, and likely some thunder out there, just a few miles N of the Biosphere 2 facility. A pretty scene since the blue of the sky is darker now as the sun’s elevation sinks toward the winter solstice.
3:48 PM. Thunder beyond the Lemmon. The turret on the left has converted to all ice, while the mounding one in the center, still has some liquid cloud droplets. The “soft-serve” look on the left, compared to the crenelations of droplet clouds, in particular, that darker turret in the center, is due to the differences in concentrations between the two phases. There are always fewer ice particle concentrations than droplet concentrations in clouds, and so droplet clouds look thicker, have sharper edges, more detail. But, we’ve been over this more than a few times. Sorry to belabor the point.
The weather way ahead
Mods continuing to show rain in our area sometime between the 6th and 12th of September, which would result in a non-rainless September. Sometimes, those mods think its due to a tropical storm remnant of a tropical storm that hasn’t formed yet. So, its quite mystical, that rain.
Still, the indications are that some rain will return after the long dry spell ahead.
