A measly 0.01 inches is all we got here yesterday in a Seattle-like rain from an overcast that sputtered drops drown over a couple of hours, one that could barely wet the pavement, if we had any here in Sutherland Heights. Of course, we surely drooled at the close call that drained Saddlebrooke yesterday afternoon (see below). Probably washed more golf balls into the CDO wash like that storm did last year…
Also, 0.75 inches fell, too, where Ina crosses the CDO wash yesterday, “so close, and yet so far away”, as the song says. Oh, well, another missed rain that I have to crybaby about1. Will get some final pictures of the 2014 summer greening today before it fades away in the many dry days ahead to help make me feel better now that its over.
Here’s your cloud story for yesterday. It was pretty neat one, full of hope, even if that hope was eventually dissipated unless you lived in Saddlebrooke… The U of AZ time lapse film for yesterday is great, btw.
6:31 AM. I am going to say these are Altocumulus castellanus clouds, though they are a little low and large for that genera.
6:33 AM. This was a pretty scene… Here an isolated Ac cas rises up. Distant small Cumulonimbus clouds, weak ones, can be seen on the horizon.
9:18 AM. Before long, those pretty Cumulus clouds were springing to life off the Catalina Mountains, the sky so blue behind them.
9:19 AM. A rare “High Temperature Contrail” (HTC) slices through some very thin Altocumulus perlucidus. This aircraft phenomenon has also been called, “APIPs” for Aircraft Produced Ice Particles.) Recall that Appleman (1953) said that an aircraft couldn’t produce a contrail at temperature above about -35 C. But, he was WRONG. They can do it in a water-saturated environment at much higher temperatures, even as high as -8 C (see Rangno and Hobbs 1983, J. Clim. and Appl. Meteor., available through the Amer. Meteor. Soc. for free, an open journal kind of thing.)11:48 AM. Before noon, all thoughts of past glory were gone as the Big Boys arose in a hurry. What a dump here! The cloud, since it is not showing an anvil nor obvious fibrous appearance, still pretty cauliflowery even though the discerning CMJ would not be fooled by its icy composition, it would be a Cumulonimbus calvus (“bald”).3:40 PM. Probably THE most hopeful scene of the day. A large complex of Cumulonimbus clouds was emerging from the Tucson mountains, heading in this direction. But more importantly, were the cloud bases forming over Oro Valley ahead of it, likely, it seemed to be pushed upward by the outflowing winds ahead of the distant cells. Also, that cloud bases were forming and extending westward from the distant cells offered another rain-filled scenario that could happen as they approached from the SW.
4:14 PM. When the southwest wind arrived, it did in fact cause the clouds overhead to swell up like aphids on a Seattle rose bush, but as bad luck would have it, they were piling up just to the north of us and over Saddlebrooke where they all all those amenities and don’t really need a lot of rain.
4:40 PM. After the first base dropped its load a little beyond Saddlebrooke, another cloud base darkened and expanded over Saddlebrooke, but this time, began to unload there. Here, like the seldom seen pileus cloud, these strands of the largest drops being to pour out of the collapsing updraft. You have about two minutes to see this happen because if you look away, the next time you look there will be nothing but the “black shaft.”
4:45 PM. A remarkable transformation. How can so much water, you wonder, be up there in a cloud?
6:05 PM. As the threat of any significant rain faded away, there was at least some “lighting” excitement, produced for just seconds as the sun shone on this….Stratus fractus cloud. Again, you must be watching at all times to catch these little highlights.
6:58 PM. Time to say goodbye to Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds like these, until maybe next summer.
The End. Probably will go on a hiatus now.
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1Its good to remember that there is a little crybaby in all of us, isn’t there?
First, this sight yesterday afternoon was interesting to me and I thought you should see it.
2:09 PM. Multi-strands of rain (aka, “dancing strands”) pour out of large, firm cloud base in Oro Valley. You won’t see such tiny features like this very often. Usually represent very large drops, formerly hail or soft hail we call graupel up higher. There are in this type of cloud always very tiny strands of graupel and hai aloft like this, but not so separated and so dense as here. The ones aloft might only be 10 yards (“meters”, if you’re thinking outside of football) wide. The rest of the rain shaft on the far right is in the fading mode, decreasing as the Cumulonimbus cloud above has exhausted its liquid water fuel (the part above the rain; its just rain, its “rained out”, no real cloud until much higher up when you get into the ice part, snowflakes.)
Second, it would appear that I hit the “publish” button before I intended to, before I really got going and figured out what I was going to say. I was no where near that button!
Third, this will be an assembly job, if anyone is out there, this piece will be gradually coming together, the nuerous errors being corrected on the fly, if it ever really does come together….
Maybe I will deflect attention with a spaghetti plot, get people wondering about that. Yeah, that’s a good idea. They won’t know what to make of it while I think up something to write.
Valid September 9th, 5 PM AST. I think you should really consider this today; talk to your friends about it. You might want to go to NOAA and look at all of them, to see how this one gets to this point. I strongly recommend that you do that.
Next, here is some rain data from Pima County. Then, some from the USGS. Dan Saddle, up there on Oracle Ridge looks to have gotten the most in a nearby gauge in the Catalinas, with 0.83 inches measured. Was that really the most that fell up in our mountains yesterday. Of course not! Not enough gauges to hit all the cores that struck those mountains, and its without doubt than 1-2 inches fell in the best ones.
2:10 PM.2:10 PM. Looking at a second core.2:17 PM. Combining cores.2:21 PM. Dancing strands storm joins the fray from the west, dark base about to unload.
In conclusion, Q. E. D.
In spite of the numerous heavy shafts of rain around yesterday, none formed above Catalina, except at the north end of town over there by Edwin Road where they had quite a dump in the middle of the afternoon. Only 0.12 inches here in the Heights of Sutherland. Still it was nice to see those Cumulonimbus blossom into such majestic clouds yesterday. So, today may be it for them, at least close to us. Here are a few more sights from yesterday’s fine day:
6:06 AM. Day started with some fine-looking Altocumulus castellanus, which, according to my cloud chart, one that can be found in fine school catalogs everywhere, it might rain within 6-96 hours. Worked out pretty well yesterday.9:34 AM. Of course, the best indicator of a good Cumulonimbus day ahead is tall spindly clouds like these. Shows the atmosphere is loaded with instability, or, if you really want to get fancy, CAPE (Convective Availiable Potential Energy). Clouds are going to mushroom up very easily, and way past the ice-forming level where rain will form.10:32 AM. And within the hour, rain was falling beyond the C-Gap.11:34 AM. A siting of the seldom seen “pileus” cap cloud on top of a rapidly rising turret. They were all over the place yesterday, but are “seldom seen” since they last only a few seconds as the turrets punch through them.12:18 PM. This pretty sight of Cumulus congestus with a remnant of a thin tower that had shot up and glaciated.12:34 PM. Within a few minutes, those two congestus clouds had erupted into this beauty with another pileus cap toward the north end of town.
6:43 PM. Trailing raindrops. The lack of visible ice at cloud top indicates low updrafts, and marginal ice formation, tops just barely reaching the temperature level where ice forms. That level tends to change some each day due to different aerosol and droplet concentrations, but is generally near the -10 C to -12 C level in Arizona. In oceanic regions, where clouds have larger drops and form drizzle and rain before reaching the freezing level, ice first forms in clouds closer to the -5 C level.2:09 PM. No ice or virga present.
“So what gives Mr. Weatherblogperson? Most clouds had no ice and a very, very few did, ones that had some rain fall out of them. Below I have handcrafted a diagram with too many arrows and text on it, just for you, my friend, to help explain the mystery of yesterday’s clouds. I think, or rather hope, the excess text and arrowing will be self-explanatory…..
The balloon sounding data from Tucson yesterday afternoon at 5 PM AST (launched around 3:30 PM, actually).
Overhsooting tops? Here’s the biggest one of the day yesterday. Most however, because they are colder than the environment, collapse quickly and as is often the case in days like yesterday, there is NO overshooting top by the time the ice and rain start to fall out the bottom of the cloud. But, you can bet before that happened there was one.
3:21 PM. Looking SSW toward Tucson at light rainshower with an overshooting top above most tops. Need a fatter arrow. That top is above and beyond the slope down part of Pusch Ridge.7:01 PM. The large patch in the distance would be Stratocumulus formed by the spreading out of Cumulus cloiuds.
First, before de-briefing yesterday’s disappointment, this happy map for early September.
Valid at 5 PM AST, Friday, September 6th. The models are really trying to help us out with our drought, and once AGAIN, they have come up with a doozy of a prediction to do that. Crunched by the illustrious WRF-GFS model from the 5 PM AST global data, millions and billions of calculations involved, btw, rigorous math employed, too, and look what popped out!
Some background in support of the map above:
Presently, we have the two Niños going (the newly written up in Nature, “Cal Niño”, and the regular “New Niño” down there in ocean region 3.4). This fall, that combination of two Niños gives us a huge leg up on having a significant rain from a tropical storm because both Niños, with their massive areas of above normal sea surface water temperatures, will help dying hurricanes get closer to old Arizony before falling apart. The warmer the water, the longer they last.
The forecast map above is no less than the THIRD model-of-some-kind’s prediction in the just past two weeks that a tropical remnant/center will go into Arizona. The first two weren’t even close, Julio, was it, that the Canadians said would go over Yuma a couple of weeks ago. And then the big one that is forming now was supposed to do come into AZy in one WRF-GFS model run about a week ago. Now the Big One, will die way out in the Pacific without even getting close.
What’s more, as the one person who reads this blog, you will know that we examine spaghetti to see if there is ANY credibility to such a long range forecast, most of which should be put in trash immediately. Here’s what made the above happy map even that bit happier, below, from the NOAA spaghetti factory. Its been annotated for your enjoyment
Valid on Thursday, September 5th at 5 PM AST. This map suggests, with moderate confidence, that a trough will exist along the West Coast, something that if in that location, will steer storms into Mexico or the SW US as they drift up the coast of Baja. The blue circles along the Baja coast clusters the position of the hurricane/tropical storm whose remnant may be steered thisaway. That yellow contour (5760 m) is the actual prediction that was made by the model of the “contour of interest”), and it shows that there was a little too much amplitude in it compared with what might actually happen (blue lines are generally not to far to the south. Please ignore the slight time offset (1 day) in the two maps. Its seems to be all that’s available…
So lots to be happy about this morning after a disappointing trace of rain yesterday here in The Heights of Sutherland.
Yesterday’s clouds
Boring, for the most part, though that clear slot to the west near sunset provided some nice lighting around. To wit:
8:16 AM. Overcast in Altostratus opacus, with some areas of Altocumulus.3:00 PM. Some excitement down the road over there by SaddleBrooke Ranch. One or two cells developed yesterday afternoon, in spite of the low temperatures (that’s 80s here in Arizona).3:14 PM. Other than a couple of shafts, the day looked pretty much the same on the way out as it did on the way in. Overcast Altostratus opacus with shreds of Cumulus fractus here.6:28 PM. Get cameras ready when you see a slot like this! The clouds are Altocumulus opacus, some virga off in the distance suggesting higher tops. Also, to the east, the clouds were Altostratus, a mostly ice cloud while here the cloud is mostly supercooled liquid water. How’s come? Frequently top tops of Altostratus, often at Cirrus levels, drop precipitously when troughs approach, and when that happens, you end up with a layer that is mostly ice-free. A sharp drop in cloud tops is what happened here. Those Altocumulus clouds, though dark looking are probably not even 3000 feet (1 km thick). Altostratus clouds are rarely less than 2 km thick.6:36 PM. Clear slot to the west caused this nice highlight to creep up the Catalinas.6:39 PM. The green of the 2014 summer.6:45 PM. Was still filled with hope that those distant Cumulonimbus tops would creep in overnight, at least produce some light rain as a stratiform deck. Didn’t happen.
Yesterday’s non-storm:
Dropped a lot of rain down in SE Cal and western Arizona; I guess we should be happy for them. Imperial, CA, at -49 feet elevation, got 1.46 inches! And areas around Yuma, nearly an inch.
But that trough flubbed up moving NE during the night. Below, the scene from 5 PM AST last evening when “little troughy” looked potent. From tSan Francisco State U/Haight-Asbury District/, this nice map:
Yesterday at 5 PM. Little troughy (LT) full of thunderheads and rain over there by Yuma. Passed over us last night, but the storms aged and fell apart as we do.
Going back to the possibility of a hurricane remnant hitting Arizona, something I seem to be stuck on, “If the left one don’t get you, then the right one will1” We’re talkin’ hurricanes here, not about fists and number nine coal. The many hurricanes and tropical storms that are forming this year, about one every five minutes it seems, including Lowell of late, and the monster that is forming now, will be moving too far to the “left” of Arizona, out into nowhere in the eastern Pacific to die with their life sustaining rains. But ….our day will come this year I think! remember our logo: “Right or wrong, you heard it here first!”
In the mid-60s this morning. Can it feel any more that fall is upon us this morning?
An unusually strong “trough” (a bend in the winds that points to the Equator) aloft will be moving across our region today, and as it does, it will be clustering storms, much like they were bunched together two days ago. Remember that those bunched thunderheads came through in a band about mid-day. Something similar is foretold for today, except a little later. We hope that it takes a little longer than about 25 minutes to go through today, too. Violent weather is expected in AZ today, too, with the PHX NWS office particularly worked up by this possibility and that office has already issued public advisories about frequent lightning, terrific winds, and huge dumps of rain.
Dry and fall like days will follow today…..meaning morning low temperatures will probably drop into the 60s here as the dry invading air moves over us. With the lower sun angle these days leading to deeper blue skies overhead, the lower morning temperatures, you will definitely be thinking about college fubball in the days ahead.
Pay especial attention to what Bob has to say, our premier senior heavy weather forecaster, and your NWS for watches and warnings. Mike at the U of AZ will be weighing in as well later this morning. Could it be a tube day, too, somewhere? Will be watching.
Not very certain there will be any more August rain here after this, a very dark thought. As you know the chances of rain start to decline at this time of year.
Looks like it needs to be updated…..
Yesterday’s clouds (not in chronological order, just because…)
Maybe I make it too easy for you every day…
Ice developed early and often in those morning Cumulus as they transitioned to weak Cumulonimbus clouds with tops that weren’t so high, but considering how early that happened, it led someone to think that it might be a really good thunderstorm day. But then the air aloft dried out and those Cumulus tops couldn’t reach the ice-forming level by afternoon, which was quite a disappointment for someone.
Here are some pretty cloud scenes for you:
11:01 AM. Ice is obvious here. But, what kind of ice? If you look closely you can see that the ice crystals in this glaciated turret are comprised of hollow sheaths and needles, since the top of this cloud modest; not that high and cold. Well, that’s what I thought, anyway, just something about the texture…. Those kinds of crystals form at temperatures higher than -10 C (14 F), which is an unusual occurrence in Arizona. Happened yesterday because cloud bases were warm to start the day (about 10 C, or 50 F). Huh? Seems like a non-sequitur. “Strangely believe it”, as we like to say here, ice forms at higher temperatures as the bases of the clouds get warmer because ice formation is tied to drop sizes. The warmer the bases, the larger the drops reaching the freezing level in Cumulus turrets, and those larger drops freeze at higher the temperatures.6:27 PM. A parheila or sun dog, or mock sun in Altostratus cumulonimbogentius (of course). Caused by ice crystals falling flat on their face, hexagonal plates, pristine ones, without any riming (cloud drops that have bumped into them and froze)7:02 PM. Evening Cumulonimbus with a nice rain shaft; sent a few bolts “down” which is technically incorrect since the most luminous thing you see is called the “return stroke” and actually is going from the earth to the cloud.)11:01 AM. Small Cumulonimbus forms over the Catalina Mountains. The turret on the left side is still mostly water, but would have a lot of small ice crystals in it. The center of the photo turret has glaciated, few or no liquid droplets exist.6:26 PM. Cumulus highlighted by the setting sun under Altostratus or Cirrostratus (take your choice–Cs can have shading late in the day, otherwise, no shading for Cs. So pretty a scene.Just a nice closeup of a Cumulus turret. The variation in shading displays the complicated arrangement of liquid water content in the cloud, those darker areas having more.9:43 AM. Going up? The Cumulus began forming on the Catalinas about 9 AM, a pretty early start, and that, a good sign of Cumulonimbi in our future.5:24 PM. Just another just a pretty scene with Cumulus humilis and congestus.
Day went pretty much as planned for us by the models, with Cumulonimbus (“Cbs”, in texting form) clouds arising early and often, moving in from the SW, more of a fall pattern (which is approaching too fast for this Cb-manic person). If anything, those clouds arose earlier than expected with dramatic morning results;
But those storms that got here divided as they approached The Heights yesterday; cell cores went right and left with places like Black Horse Ranch down by Golder Drive getting 0.53 inches, and a place in Saddlebrooke, 0.94 inches yesterday, while we only received 0.23 inches.
Seeing this happen in real life was tough. Still, there was a last rain burst after only 0.14 had fallen that was really great as the sky began to break open and the sun was almost out when it happened. That last parting shower dropped a final 0.09 inches in just a few minutes. So, maybe we were a little lucky.
BTW, you can get area rainfall from the Pima County ALERT gauges here for the past 24 h. And, also, from the U of AZ rainlog network here. USGS. Coco. NWS climate reports. (Editorial aside: (earlier cuss word, “dammitall”, has been removed)—WHY don’t they gather all the rain reports into one comprehensive site???!!!)
7:04 AM. Soft top Cumulonimbus protrudes high above other clouds producing a long shadow on a lower Altocumulus perlucidus layer.7:04 AM. “Soft-serve” Cumulonimbus calvus top emerges above lower Cu and Altocumulus clouds. This kind of top goes with weaker updrafts, likely less than 10 mph.
10:04 AM. Showers and heavy Cumulus (Cumulus congestus) continued to range along the Catalina Mountains toward Oracle. These were nice clouds.10:14 AM. Looking in the upwind direction from Catalina, not much going on though storms are raging in the Catalina Mountains. That farthest line of bases, with that fat one out there toward I-10, though, drew your attention yesterday, I am sure, given the explosive conditions we had for storms.10:36 AM. OK, this is looking potent. Finally, tops have reached the ice-forming level and precip is beginning to eject out the bottom of the one on the right. So big, high, top visible, which was of concern, thinking it might only be a light rainshower. Generally, the higher the tops, the more that falls out the bottom1. 10:57 AM. A two part panorama of the incoming, broken line of storms. Part A above, looking SSW with Pusch Ridge on the far left.
10:57 AM. Part B of panorama, looking at this exciting line of showers and thunderstorms toward Twin Peaks, Marana, and Oro Vall
11:07 AM. A strong shaft has developed, indicating much higher tops than in the earlier scene above at 10:57 AM. 11:07 AM. Close up for instructional purposes. Let’s say you’re hang gliding and want to go up into the clouds. That lower extension next to the rain shaft is where the strongest updrafts would be, and, on top of it, the fastest rising top. Have a nice ride!
11:14 AM. Hole in rain aiming for house! This could be bad! Will cloud roll ahead of rain areas, buoyed my outflowing winds ahead of them develop new rain shafts?
12:23 PM. By this time it was all over, the 0.23 inches had fallen, leaving some evidence of flooding. In a change of pace, I wanted to get that evidence in combined with a sky photo so that you could see that there were still clouds around. Cloud has some ice in it, too.
3:53 PM. A final threat of rain appeared as the winds turned briskly from the north and new turrets formed above it and, for a time, headed toward Catalina. It was a dramatic scene, to be sure, but one that disappointed. The clouds forming about the outrushing wind from heavy rain to the north, diminished in size as they approached, no longer reaching high enough to form precip. Partly this is because of our lower temperatures yesterday afternoon, and because when the air goes southbound from areas to the north, its always moving a little downhill and that works against new clouds, too.
3:59 PM. While the dissipation of those clouds to the north was disappointing and not unexpected, to be honest, still it was good to be out and see how green the desert has gotten since the end of July.
The End
Oops today is supposed to be drier witih isolated Cbs, more tomorrow as moisture from TS Lowell leaks into AZ.
The extremely strong hurricane that forms after TS Lowell is sometimes, in the mods, seen to go into southern or central Cal (!) as a weak remnant circulation or stay well offshore, as in the latest 11 PM AST run from last night.So, lots of uncertainty there. Check out the spaghetti below for the bad news:
Valid in ten days, Aug. 19th, 5 PM AST. Those blue circles WSW of San Diego represent a clustering of the most likely position of that hurricane then. And, that cluster is too far to the west to us, or maybe even southern Cal any “good.”
—————————–Historic footnote—————————— 1“TIme to be distracted from the task at hand…. “Generally”, of course, is a fudge word. For example, in the tropics, it was learned back in the 1960s that rain fell as hard as it could about the time the tops reached the freezing level, and before ice had formed. Didn’t rain any harder even if the tops went to 30 or 40 thousand feet! These results were confirmed in aircraft measurements in the Marshall Islands, oh, back in ’99 (Rangno and Hobbs 2005, Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc.).
Some of the biggest rain drops ever measured (5-10 mm in diameter!) were in clouds in the Hawaiian Islands whose tops that had not reached the freezing level–see Bob Rauber’s 1992 paper in J. Atmos. Sci., with Ken Beard, the latter who tried to get rid of intercollegiate athletics at UCLA when he was there in the turbulent late ’60s, as did the present writer at San Jose State (a story for another day). But then, BOTH me and Ken went on to become science weathermen, not the radical kind of Weatherman, i. e., those under Bernadine and Bill, because we left our radical roots and reggae back behind in the ‘1960s, 70s, and/or 80s (well, maybe not reggae…)
Been looking around at quite a number of model runs (well 2, anyway) trying to find the best one for you. Here it is. Its yesterday’s WRF-GFS run that was based on 11 AM AST global data. Has some great rains for us here in Arizona. Those rains, and that incredible hurricane that saunters up the coast of Baja in about ten days, aren’t depicted as well in later model runs, so there’s not much point in showing them. If you want a great, OBJECTIVE forecasting, you know, go to Bob, or the NWS, or wait for Mike L’s detailed one from the U of AZ later this morning! You’re not going to find “objectivity” here when it comes to forecasting rain for a desert region1. Let’s look at two examples of weather excitement in that now-obsolete-run-but-doesn’t-mean-it won’t-happen-anyway-just-because-its-a little-older-run”1: 1) Lotta rain in Arizona (that’s a different near-hurricane over there in the SW corner of the map, one that in one model run from Canada, formerly went over Yuma! Sorry Yuma, and all of Arizona, both of which would have gotten, in that event, a bigger dent in the drought than shown below. Oh, well.
Valid on Thursday at 11 AM AST. Green pixels denote those areas where the model thinks rain has occurred during the prior 6 hours. Most of AZ covered in green pixies! Sweet.
2) Fascinating near-hurricane just off San Diego on the 29th of August, likely surviving so well due to the California Niño mentioned here lately. BTW, this particular hurricane is predicted to be exceptionally large and intense out there when it revs up in a few days, maybe a Category 4 at its peak, looking at some of the model runs. “Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ how….” The Beach Boys, 1962, sayin’ it like it was for us near-beach bums way back then when the summer hurricanes in the Mexican Pacific sent huge waves poleward on to our southern California beaches, as the one below will2.
Valid in ten days, Friday, August 29th at 11 AM AST. Near hurricane brings rain to San Diego. Colored regions now denote where the model thinks it has rained in the prior TWELVE hours (coarser resolution because its not going to be that accurate in the placement of highs and lows anyway, so why waste time over-calculating stuff?
Yesterday’s clouds
What an outstanding, if surprising day it was! After it appeared, in later model runs available late yesterday morning, that the late afternoon/evening bash from the high country wasn’t going to happen after all (producing local glumness), we had a remarkable in situ explosion of cloud tops. Those clouds just erupted from an innocuous, patchy group of Stratocumulus that invaded the sky around 5 PM. Still, even with the early turrets jutting up there, it didn’t seem possible, at 7 PM, there would be much more growth into showers, let alone, thunderstorms with frequent lightning lasting several hours that happened. Eventually rain even got into Sutherland Heights/Catalina, with 0.17 inches here, and 0.12 inches at the Golder Bridge, and that didn’t seem possible since the rain shafts were so locked onto the Catalinas, and east side for so long. Dan Saddle, about 5 mi S of Oracel, counting the mid-afternoon thunderstorms that locked in upthere, got a 2.68 inches over the past 24 h! That should have sent a little water down the CDO. BTW, a location in the Rincons is reporting 4.09 inches in the past 24!
5:50 AM. Day started with “colorful castellanus.” Hope you saw this.12:26 PM. After a late morning start, the Cumulus congestus tops were streaming away from the origin zone of Mt. Lemmon to over the north part of Saddlebrooke and the Charouleau Gap. No ice evident yet, but it was just about to show itself. BTW, the “51ers” have a nice baseball team in Vegas (of course), this brought to my attention by neighbors recently, showing that a degree of strangeness permeates American life, as also shown in these blogs.
12:44 PM. Ice virga now seen in the right hand side falling out as I passed the budding wildlife overpass now being constructed on Oracle Road. I guess scents and signage will be used to direct wildlife to the overpass.
1:49 PM. Took about an hour more of rain and development for the thunder to start from these locked in turrets that kept springing on The Lemmon.
4:54 PM. Long before this, it was “all over’, the rains no doubt up there had helped to put the fire out, so-to-speak, and with no anvils advancing toward us, there was even hardly any point to remain conscious. It is finished.6:54 PM, 2 h later. Shallow grouping of Stratocumulus provided a nice, if boring, backdrop to the setting sun’s light on Samaniego Ridge.7:04 PM. Only ten minutes later, and I’m out wondering around in the backyard looking for a nice sunset shot, when I see this shocking sight for the time of day, a protruding turret far above the other tops. Still, I pooh-poohed anything happening but a ragged collapse in the minutes ahead. It was too late in the day for heating or anything else to generate rain in situ from these lower clouds (now topping Mt. Lemmon). Nice pastel colors, though.
7:32 PM. Though “pinkie” in the prior photo did fade, new turrets kept bubbling upward, and in disbelief, this one reached up beyond the ice-forming temperature threshhold (is probably topping out between 25-30 kft, not huge) and a strong rain shaft emerged on the Catalinas. After a little while longer, lightining began to flash to the east as the Reddington Pass area started to get hammered. Eventually in the early nighttime hours. these cells propagated to the west, giving us that bit of rain here in The Heights of Sutherland. How nice, and how mind-blowing this whole evening was!
Today
Got some Stratocu (castellanus in some parts) topping Sam (Samaniego Ridge) this morning, an outstanding indication of a lot of moisture in the air, moisture that’s not just at the surface. U of AZ has thunderstorms moving toward Catalina during the late morning (!) and afternoon from the SW, not the usual direction we’re accustomed to. So, keep eyeball out toward Twin Peaks or so for exciting weather today! Oh, my, towering Cu top converted to ice, must be 25-30 kft up there right now at 7:06 AM! Also, notice nice shadow on lower Ac clouds.
The End
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1“Truth-in-packaging” portion of web blog statement.
1Its chaos in the models due to errors in them we don’t always know about, chaos that we try to get a handle on with plots from the NOAA spaghetti factory. But you know all that already, so my apologies for repeating myself again and again. I thought I would see what would happen if I put TWO “1” footnotes….
2Of course, in those days, we had little knowledge about how many hurricanes there were down there due to the lack of satellite data and ship reports. But when the “Weather Bureau”, as it was called in those days did know, there was always good surf on the south facing beaches, like Zuma Beach. So going to the beach, unlike now where wave forecasting is so good, was a real crap shoot. You’d come over that first viewpoint of the ocean on Malibu Canyon Road, on your way to Zuma. one that over looked the ocean a little offshore from Malibu, and either go, “Holy Crap!”, or hope for the best. It was a swell time for lightly employed youth. Below, the best “Holy Crap!” view coming around to that viewpoint, early September 1963 (never saw anything like it before or afterwards; swells were never visible so far offshore from this spot, meaning Zuma would be gigantic). Still remember those Zuma waves, so far out to sea, as the height of small telephones…
Nearly drowned that day at Zuma, me and my pal ignoring lifequard’s advice not to go in. HELL, we’d been body surfing the biggest ones we could there for years by then. Fortunately, he didn’t have to come and get me, which saved a lot of face.
Yesterday afternoon and evening were remarkably similar to the day before; great, spectacular banks of brilliant white turrets with black bases approached from the northeast filled with rainy portent, but, as with that previous day, disappointed. Once again, those clouds tended to fade some as they much beyond the Catalina Mountains, southwestward across Catalina, Saddlebrooke, and Oro Valley. Even the rainfall here in Sutherland Heights, 0.08 inches, was almost identical to the day before!
While there were many similarities, one had to be hopeful looking at those clouds as they spread across the valley. They many more Cumulus turrets above them compared with the prior day, had not faded completely to flat stratiform clouds riding an outflow wind. In fact, if you noticed, as they encountered the warmer air to the west of us, ramped up into major storms around I-10 and farther west. They are still going strong, now, a little before 4 AM, approaching Puerto Peñasco/Rocky Point! (This is a peak time of day for rain in the Colorado River Valley, oddly, spanning Yuma to Needles since many of our evening storms here continue on to that area during the night.)
Models still have lots of rain in our future as tropical storms whiz by in the Pacific west of Baja over the next 5-10 days (models have, not surprisingly, backed off direct Arizona hits for now1). Still there’s plenty of time and water in the air to catch up on our normal summer rainfall. At 4.58 inches, we’re not terribly behind the six inches expected in July and August in Catalina, and with recent rains, the desert has rebounded in a satisfying green over the past couple of weeks.
From the afternoon of August 16th. Anyone for “cactus golf”?
Of course, it you were up early yesterday, you may have seen the lightning (LTG) to the south through southwest. We missed a nice complex of heavy rain that brought 1-2 inches in a couple of spots as it passed across Tucson and into the Avra Valley.
Your cloud day
6:32 AM. Miniature arcus cloud leads the way ahead of those heavy Tucson rains. At the leading edges, many of those clouds would be called, Altcoumulus castellanus, mid-level clouds with spires. But sometimes they cluster, as yesterday into clouds too large to be “Altocumulus” clouds, but rather Cumulonimbus ones with mid-level bases.7:03 AM. Rain continues to move westward into Avra Valley and Marana. Note crepsucular rays shining down on Rancho Vistoso or someplace like that. There are quite a few “Vistosos” around it seems.7:36 AM. I loved this little guy, all by itself of up there, trying to do the best it can to be something. Such a pretty scene if you can avoid the snail implication.2:05 PM. Of course, the “Cloud People” like me always want to document “First Ice” of the day in his/her cloud diaries, maybe mention it to neighbors later, and here is that moment for yesterday afternoon in this sprout off the Catalinas. Can YOU find that critical aspect of our clouds in this shot, one not taken while driving, of course? Remember, almost always in Arizona, clouds need ice to rain.4:44 PM. As predicted in the U of AZ model, great banks of Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds roar down from the Mogollon Rim and other high terrain to the northeast of Catalina with the promise of a substantial rain. Looking N across Sutherland Heights and Saddlebrooke5:36 PM. Incoming Cbs (Cumulonimbus clouds) getting really close, but cloud maven person forgets to look up and in a couple of minutes, giant drops are falling by the millions. Kinda reminded me of that time at the Mitchell, SD, airport in ’72 when I was radar meteorologist on a project having four aircraft that were to be sent up to try to prevent hail by “overseeding” them with silver iodide2. Well, it was midnight or so, the radar can’t look up, of course, but rather out, at storms to send the planes toward. Well, the 1-inch diameter hail stones started pummeling the airport from a cell that developed overhead, like that one yesterday afternoon did over Sutherland Heights!
5:41 PM. Surprise! Extra big drops, too, for a brief time, and 0.06 inches. It was so fantastic, as unexpected rain always is!
6:02 PM. Its looking “OK”, better than the day before here, with a couple of larger, solid dark bases. But, there are also those “weak” updraft updraft areas denoted by broken light and dark areas. Nice lightning on the left; lighting on the right.
6:37 PM. While one of those bases unloaded with a few cloud-to- ground LTG strikes over there by the old Golder Ranch in Sutherland Valle. The bases to the north of us just could not work thier way S, and pretty much remained in place, unloading on Charouleau Gap
6:49 PM. Hopes for a substantial rain fading fast as the cloud base this side of the Charouleau Gap rain area and estedning overhead of Sutherland Heights began to look chaotic, not firm and smooth. The rain that’s falling on the Gap needs to be replenished by new turrets that convert to ice, and if that’s not happening, then the rain just falls out and the storm ends. Here, that rainy area was just not being replenished by building turrets adjacent to it, and so it got lighter and lighter until it faded away. Also, the rain shafts never had that black, straight sided look that goes with strong convection.
7:03 PM. “Rosy glow” at sunset…yet another great name for a western singer! Where do these come from? But, getting back on task, notice the rain shafts and how wispy they are, with sloping rain. That indicates the tops aren’t too high, the updrafts weak, and the clouds probably just barely made it to the ice-forming level.
U of AZ mod run from last evening’s 11 PM AST data indicates a day today like the past two: coupla small Cumulonimbus clouds on the Cat Mountains by mid-afternoon, then a line of big storms again sweep down from the higher mountains to the NE in the evening. Maybe today we’ll get that big rain finally. If nothing else, the skies will be spectacular and dramatic again.
The End.
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1A peak just now at the 11 PM WRF-GFS run shows that the unusually strong tropical storm not so far offshore from San Diego has been resuscitated. Go here to see this exciting storm and all the rain we’re supposed be getting over the next two weeks. Getting pretty worked up about it again. 2Does seeding to reduce hail work? The evidence is mixed, and is not convincing to national panels or the American Meteorological Society. Still, that type of cloud seeding is carried out in many locations in the Canadian and US grain belts.
1) “Late” meaning you’ll have to slog through quite a few photos of your cloud day to get to the really neat ones… Of course, you can bypass all the verbiage and marvel here at the U of AZ time lapse. 2) Mod has drought-denting hurricane remnant moving into Arizona at the end of the month. Lotta rain seems to be in the pipeline before that, too, with an earlier TS remnant entering the western portion of the State this Thursday, Aug. 21st! This from the Enviro Can mod output from last night! How can things be better than this!
3) The note about a dog picture is a cheap attempt to attract new readers. See next to last photo.
10:56 AM. Late start, compared to recent days, for first shreds of Cu on the Catalinas. Not a great sign for rain.2:26 PM. Hope begins to build with this very tall, thin protrusion above the Catalinas and from the U of AZ forecasting expert, Mike, who foretells a good chance of evening storms in his daily take3:44 PM. Thunder on the mountain! Actually, it had been thundering for maybe half an hour by this time. It died a few minutes later, no further Cumulus popped up, a discouraging scene.5:54 PM. The “Great White Hope” in the form of Cumulus congestus tops entering anvil Cirrus appears on the horizon to the ENE and upwind of Catalina/Sutherland Heights. But, with NO Cumulus over the Catalinas, will can this complex of storms make it past them? Seeing such a scene raises doubts.
6:44 PM. This majestic hopeful scene. Surely now it will get here. But, the warning sign of weakening coming farther west is in the collapsing turrets at the far left. Not good.6:44 PM. A life-size version of the same incoming clouds. In using a wide angle lens, as in the prior shot, the impact of just how beautiful and majestic this scene was is lost. They just filled your view to the NE.6:56 PM. Underlit base area, center left, shows where outflow winds are sending an updraft into those clouds. However, that bright spot (dead center) is not good, shows there’s a hole in these clouds, a weak spot. No doubt it will pass over my house! But that rainshaft and rainbow are magnificent. Lots of cloud to ground LTG back there.7:00 PM. Rain (and rainbow) has reached the Charouleau Gap! Still, those bright spots are troubling, indicating that the updrafts are spotty. Also, it should have been time for the first strands of rain to begin falling from the “good base” on the left of the rain. Has the turret above it begun to collapse before reaching the ice-forming level, up around 20 kft?
7:02 PM. With the outlflow winds raging from the NW, with brief gusts to 50 mph, the lightning almost continuous, and the rain getting closer, little doggie became very interested in this dramatic scene as well.7:11 PM. With drops starting to fall, this almost biblical scene passed overhead. Still, as dramatic is it was, those bright spots are indications of a chaotic updraft above the outflow winds. What you want to see, for a good dump, is a solid dark base. By now, too, the lightning was in-cloud, didn’t see any more cloud to ground strikes, another sign of a weakening storm.
The hurricanes ahead
It was interesting to see that after yesterday afternoon’s blog, mentioning the newly discovered California Niño, as told by Nature recently, and about hurricanes that might last longer heading this way due to the weak El Niño conditions combined, that the 5 AM AST WRF-GFS yesterday morning (I had not seen it yet) had a hurricane remnant plowing directly into the State of Arizona, denting drought with heavy widespread rains, no doubt with flooding. In case you don’t believe me again, here, as rendered by IPS MeteoStar, this fabulous sequence for the end of August:
Valid too far in the future to be reliable, but we can dream can’t we?
The documentary photos, below, of a modest-looking Cumulus congestus cloud yesterday afternoon that lept up to the stratosphere in the 20 minutes that cloud maven person wasn’t watching. Yours truly, while videoing it from start to finish, only got two still shots in those 20 min due to a distraction1; was not taking photos of every cloud every three minutes as the “compulsar”, CMP likes to do:
1:51 PM. zzzzzzzzzzz. Not much likely to happen. Cloud is isolated over a flat area all by itself, no pals to group along with, so its certainly going to fade away after the itty-bitty amount ice on the right (frizzy part) produces, oh, maybe a sprinkle or slight rain shaft. Maybe I’ll take a nap while things are calm.
20 minutes later….something unbelievable has happened: a “volcano” of sorts erupted from this moderate, isolated cloud. I have never been so embarrassed in all my life not to have seen this coming. But it was also so wondrous at the same time.
2:11 PM. Wha? Can it possibly be the same cloud? It was. LOOK at that rain shaft! Also, in the middle,about halfway up, that dark thing almost looks like vortex. Kinda reminded me of the Mt. St. Helens eruption.
Also seen was the rarely seen Cumulus congestus pileus tops here and there indicating strong uprushing currents pushing into the air above the top, and rushing up so fast, the air above the top is pushed up and starts to condense into a cloud before the actual cloud top reaches it. See below:
2:18 PM. Pileus cap cloud tops a rapidly rising Cumulus congestus turret over the Catalina Mountains. If you’re in an airplane with cloud instrumentation, you really want to penetrate this one right hear the top to get high measurements of liquid water, maybe two or three grams or so.5:14 PM. This thunderstorm was almost in the same exact area as the “volcano.”5:14 PM. It looked like a promising situation was propagating down from N of Charouleau Gap, but the new bases ahead of outflow winds crept closer to the mountains instead of extending out over the lower terrain and Oro Valley. This led to a dramatic rainshaft scene that CMP missed because he didn’t bail on a dinner situation at a restaurant. I guess it was quite a show when it cut loose a few minutes later, with a great rainbow, I hear.7:06 PM. Did catch the lastbit of the show in these Cumulonimbus mamma clouds. So, something to show for having a good time with friends at a local Goose Plaza restaurant.
For the full day yesterday, see the U of AZ time lapse. Its a rolling archive and so it will gone if you read this after today.
Time of the hurricane, and of the California Niño
Those model generated ones, that is, that are shown to come close to Arizona; “close” being within 500 miles or so, which, astronomically speaking, is incredibly close.
This time of year, we look forward to the possibilities that one of the many hurricanes that affect the Mexican Pacific will rush up Baja coast, angle northeastward and cross the border into Arizona. Remember that one in 1976 that hit Yuma with 76 mph winds? Yeah, like that one. Go here to read about it if you don’t believe me that Yuma experienced hurricane force winds from a hurricane. Mt. San Jacinto in southern Cal got over 14 inches of rain, too.
While the computer models have a tough time generating hurricanes in their right places too far in advance, they are remarkable in how many they generate, considering that those hurricanes pop up out of loose-looking cloudy masses, with weak areas of low pressure associated with equally, loosely-organized upper level features. To have a tropical storm leap out of that cloud mass, the upper air pattern has to spread the air aloft over those clouds so that more air can come into the developing storm at the bottom. And, as more thunderheads (though they don’t usually thunder much) pile upward, more warming aloft occurs, and that helps the air spread away even faster.
Today, we have a coupla interesting predictions, one by our Canadian friends, showing a tropical storm roaring up the coast of Baja just next Thursday. This from their 5 PM AST model run yesterday. The remnant of that TS goes into southern California! This is just 5-6 days away, which, in model time, is not that far off and usually is fairly reliable.
But, USA model (WRF-GFS) from 5 PM AST last evening, has no such feature! See below. Boo-hoo.
Still, something interesting has shown up in our own USA model about two weeks out that seems to be due to something unusual that’s happening off the West Coast. A new phenomenon, reported in Nature (!) and akin to the “The New Niño” (the one in Pacific Ocean Region 3.4) and the “Classic NIño” (the one we heard about as kids where the water off Peru gets real warm), has recently been dubbed, the California Niño.
This is an oscillation caused by the slackening of the onshore winds along the Cal coast. Those winds, when as strong as they usually are, cause really cold water to boil up to the surface; when those winds become slackers, the water warms tremendously.
This year the water temperatures offshore of the Cal coastline, are way warmer than usual. No wetsuits needed off Monterey this year (a friend says)! These warmer waters will help tropical storms stay together a little longer when they are directed north and northeastward toward southern California and Arizona. Yay!
This may explain why a hurricane/strong tropical storm is shown drifting to the NW only a few hundred miles SW of San Diego, as shown below, in about two weeks. The eye-popping stat in that model projection, is that the low pressure in the center is still as low as 982 millibars when its fairly close to San DIego! This shows that the models knows about the water temperatures out there (that kind of data is always being fed into them), and it thinks that a pretty good sized tropical low can exist that far close to San Diego with water temperatures as warm as they are.
All we have to do now is wait for the right upper air “steering” pattern, to keep the western motif here, so that those stronger storms are directed thisaway, to continue yet again with the western theme.
The prediction shows that the model thinks that conditions are warm enough to support such a storm relatively close to southern California. What grabs your attention is the 982 mb central pressure in the eye of that predicted storm two weeks from now. Let us not forget the near hurricane that blasted southern California in September 1939, likely having occurred during “Cal Nino” conditions.
Check these predictions out, first from Canada, where a magnifiying glass will be required to view details:
Valid Thursday morning, Aug. 21st at 5 AM AST. The storm is moving N.
Valid for the afternoon of August 29th. This one is moving NW.
The reason for the excitement is that troughs and jet streams are beginning to creep farther south and when they do that, sometimes they can “steer”, to use a western term again here, a storm toward the north and northeast. In June, July, and into much of August, the many hurricanes that form off Mexico and central America drift west and west-northwest only to die over the cooler waters north of the Equator.
More showers and thunderstorms are buiilding on the Catalinas! And late afternoon or evening rains are foretold here.
The End.
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1Ironically, the distraction was having his computer almost stop working because he had filled up the “C” hard drive with too many photos and almost nothing worked any more! Note: Put photos on a different HD. Leave at least 10 percent of the C hard drive “file-less”, so’s it can work properly.
