Cloud-maven – Page 44 – About real clouds, weather, cloud seeding and science autobio life stories by WMO consolation prize-winning meteorologist, Art Rangno

Rare “Geo-Astro-Meteo Conjunction” captured on film!

Well, it used to be film….

Blobs of sprinkle clouds pummeled Catalina yesterday beginning soon after 12 Noon and ending only after 7 PM when an extraordinarily rare “Geo-Astro Meteo Conjunction” (GAMC) was observed due the conjunction of a rainbow, a moonrise exactly over Mt Lemmon, and the top of Mt. Lemmon itself visible through rain. The GAMC “trifecta” scene, is thought to occur only once every several hundred years. The duration of yesterday’s scene was about 3 minutes, the cloud with the rainbow having produced a sprinkle here just prior to the rare scene. Only more rare than the GAMC is a sunrise exactly over the crest of Mt. Lemmon with a rainbow in the direction of the sun.

Three sprinkle periods were recorded yesterday, the longest between 5:43 and 5:45 PM. The others occurred at 12:28-12:29 PM, and 7:26 to 7:27 PM. The rain brought June’s monthly total to a trace, ending the prospect of a completely rainless month.

No accidents were reported due to excited motorists reveling in the “rain” on their windshields, having attention diverted from driving. Local meteorologists explained that higher dewpoints than expected allowed a few drops to reach the ground instead of evaporating completely from the high-level virga that had been forecast earlier. The higher dewpoints allowed cloud bases from which the virga fell, to be 100 millibars, or about 4,000 feet, lower than computer models had predicted. The meteorologists blamed a lack of data far upwind of Catalina for the forecast gaffe.

Below, a rare GAMC, one that you will like not see in your lifetime if you did not see it yesterday:

7:28:26: A Trifecta scene is observed toward Mt. Lemmon (the rounded hump below the moon). This scene can only occur with the rain and sun in proper positions to produce an arc of a rainbow over Mt Lemmon, but the rain must be light enough so that neither the moon nor Mt. Lemmon are obscured in any way. Yours, today only, for $1,000,000. — 7:28:26: A truly rare GMAC scene develops toward Mt. Lemmon (the subtle, rounded hump below the moon). This scene can only occur with the rain and sun in proper positions to produce an arc of a rainbow framing Mt. Lemmon, but the rain must be light enough so that neither the moon nor Mt. Lemmon are obscured in any way. Yours, today only, for $1,000,000.

Moving on…..yesterday’s clouds

6:33 AM. Pretty Altocumulus, fatter version of "perlucidus." Didn't look to be as interesting a day as it turned out to be. This layer was about 12,000 feet above the ground. — 6:33 AM. Pretty Altocumulus, fatter version of “perlucidus.” Didn’t look to be as interesting a day as it turned out to be. This layer was about 12,000 feet above the ground.

12:38 PM. Some Cumulus begin forming underneath the sprinkle clouds (ice visible on the bottoms of the Altocumulus clouds on the left. — 12:38 PM. Some Cumulus begin forming underneath the sprinkle clouds (ice/virga visible on the bottoms of the Altocumulus clouds on the left–that made the bottom smooth.)

1:17 PM. Gorgeous example of Altocumulus castellanus (no ice/virga). — 1:17 PM. Gorgeous example of Altocumulus castellanus and floccu (no ice/virga).

5:30 PM. Cloud complex of the day, loaded with sprinkles, CMJs were predicting that sprinkles, and ONLY sprinkles, were about 5-10 min away.

5:46 PM. Following the sprinkle, eyes should almost automatically turn to the east for a some rainbow eye candy.

7:37 PM. The pretty cloud day closed out with a satisfying sunset.

The weather ahead

Today looks like it will be pretty much like yesterday, lots of mid-level clouds cold enough for virga, as you can see out there right now (just after sunrise), supplemented by afternoon Cumulus. Altogether another pretty day with reasonable temperatures held down by clouds and virga around. We’re on the edge of this mid-level moist plume coming up out of the Tropics, BTW. Rain is foretold by the quite wonderful U of AZ Beowulf Cluster calculator to only fall in the SE corner of the State today. This from last evening’s 11 PM AST data.

The later model runs have had potent Hurricane Crissy’s moist plume missing us to the east now, so don’t really want to talk about it. Winds in Cristina now 145 mph sustained as it rapidly intensified from yesterday’s 75 mph. Should mean good surf along the west coast of Mexico and a certain south-facing southern California beach haunt of CMP, called, “Zuma Beach”, where the acclaimed dramatic series, “Baywatch” was first filmed.

The End.

Another hurricane (“Cristina”) forms off Mexico; can AZ rain be far behind?

Looks pretty good…. Two completely different computer models show tropical moisture getting into Arizona in about 5-6 days a resulting preview of the summer rain season. You can find quite a bit of “green pixies” (areas of rain denoted by areas of green pixels) in Arizona here from IPS Meteostar’s rendition of our best model, the WRF-GFS. And, the Smoking Canadians have rain in our area in their model, too. This is going to be the best chance for measurable rain in Catalina since early April!

In the US model linked to above, you can also see the residual low pressure center from today’s Hurricane “Crissy” moving up the coast of Baja Cal in five days. Finally, could we have a month with above normal rain after not having one since November 2013 (or was it 2012?) Might happen, after all we deserve it. So, I will now predict that June will be above normal in rain in Catalina, AZ.

You can keep track of Crissy here. I will be tracking Crissy, that’s for sure.

Below, an example of rain (with drizzle) in case you’ve forgotten what it looks like in a research aircraft with laser beam imagery of all the stuff you’re flying through:

Rain as seen by aircraft instrumentation, arranged in order of small to larger, left to right. — Rain (and drizzle drops) as seen by aircraft instrumentation, arranged in order of small to larger, left to right. The horizontal lines are just about a millimeter apart, so the biggest drops here, one that aren’t breaking up, are about two millimeters in diameter. Drizzle drops, as CMJs know, are those between 0.2 to 0.5 millimeters in diameter, so there are a lot of those. BTW, these were collected while the aircraft was flying at about 160 knots (80 meters per second). Pretty amazing you can image these drops as they go by so fast!

The discerning reader will want to know what spaghetti sez; what are the chances that the steering winds in the middle of the troposphere will steer Crissy toward us as it moves around off’n Mexico. Will those steering winds help Crissy’s moisture get into Arizona and over Catalina?

We seek help from spaghetti and, indeed, the spaghetti shown below is “supportive”, that is, it shows that the “planets are lining up” for rain here, as an astrologer might say, those people we look to for personal guidance in everyday matters; whose forecasts are so important no newspaper can go without them without causing an uproar on the part of their readers.

See writing on figure below for some additional weather interpretation.

ann spag_f144_nhbg — Valid for 5 PM AST June 16th. Those red lines suggest that Crissy’s remains (RIP) might indeed be directed at eastern Arizona! Big trough for this time of year foretold along West Coast with high confidence, as indicated by “bunching lines”, perfect for drawing tropical storms northward into the Southwest US. If not us, then those dry areas of New Mexico and west Texas virtually guaranteed for some tropical air.

Yesterday’s clouds

10:53 AM. Mostly Cirrus uncinus, bisected by a contrail.

2:38 PM. Cumulus humilis and fractus boiled up out of 100 F plus air at the surface. Tops warmer than -10 C, so no ice, just those thin patches of Cirrus on top. — 2:38 PM. Cumulus humilis and fractus boiled up out of 100 F plus air at the surface.
Tops warmer than -10 C, so no ice, just those thin patches of Cirrus on top.

3:08 PM. Cirrocumulus atop Cumulus fractus clouds.

Nice Altocumulus around this morning, but moisture is really confined to that level, not deep enough for rain at the ground. The Cumulus that form this afternoon will have bases around 14,000 to 15,000 feet above the ground. They should be deeper than yesterday, and so ice is likely to form in the larger ones (and we hope that you will log that in your daily cloud diary), but only tantalizing virga is likely, maybe with some brief windy periods near them.

The End

While being hot, looking back at our cool season rainfall at Catalina

Here you go, the cool season (October through May, 2013-14) rainfall for Catalina, such as it was, updated from 1977-78:

2013-14 cool season precip graph2 — I’ve added a historical note about Biosphere 2, gleaned from one of the tour guides up there. Of course, the full story, one of idealism thwarted by love, jealousy, murder, and ultimately, cannibalism, will likely never be told. Not everyone came out intact. Note, too, that MUCH drier winters than this past one occurred at and just after the turn of the century, which is pretty astounding.

The weather ahead

Nothing in sight, except some interesting high and maybe middle clouds from the deep Tropics in a few days.

The End.

Clouds without comment

Pinching the old Consumer Reports segment, “Quotes without Comment” page from decades ago, for a title. But after that title, I changed my mind and will write a coupla captions.

What drought? This giant weed popped up in the middle of an agave plant. Spurted up about two feet a day in the backyard! — What drought? This gigantic weed popped up in the middle of an agave plant recently. Spurted up about two feet a day in the backyard! Proabably some kind of wild asparagus. Must be over-watering this year since it sure as hell didn’t come up last year. Wonder if its edible? Cirrus clouds form the backdrop.

Cirrus patch trying to be Altocumulus perlucidus, but way too cold for that, its all ice, not liquid at all as an Ac per would be. Sounding indicates our CIrrus clouds are between 35 and 40 KFT above sea level, temps up there between -40 (also -40 F) and -50 C. So, cold air is fairly close by, only a few miles away really.

Hot dog. Bubba wanted to go out of the cool confines of the house, and I wanted to stay in to see what the little guy wanted to do, and why, when its 104 F outside. He chose a place on the boiling cement IN the sun, quite happy it seemed, until I brought him in after about TWENTY minutes! Almost as amazing as having a wild asparagus shoot up 40 feet in your backyard for no reason except maybe over-watering.

The weather ahead

Wish it could tell you there was some rain ahead, maybe tomorrow, but…I’d be lying again as I do from time to time. Nothing in sight.

The End.

Stagflation

Meteorologists have called stagnant pressure conditions with inflated temperatures “stagflation” for as long as I can remember, which is not that long. Anyway, that’s what we have before us, pretty much the same old thing, day after day, except for some really nice Cirrus patterns in the sky to go with those 100-110 F temperatures we get this time of year. You can see the upper level moisture stream coming over us here, from the Huskies, if you’re interested.

Mind-starting to drift off center now….

—————————–

Weather extreme note

If you noted the record-tying “trace” of rain at Vegas back on the 25th and were pretty happy about it, well, you’re going to be put out by this NWS message, passed along by climate guru and mischief maker, Mark Albright, just yesterday. Apparently, the NWS has been concerned over this record tying event for some time:

“RECORD EVENT REPORT…CORRECTED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAS VEGAS, NV
1059 PM PDT THU MAY 29 2014
…NO RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM PRECIPITATION WAS TIED AT LAS VEGAS
SUNDAY...
DUE TO AN EQUIPMENT ISSUE WITH THE PRESENT WEATHER SENSOR AT THE
MCCARRAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ASOS, A FALSE REPORT OF A TRACE OF
PRECIPITATION WAS REPORTED ON SUNDAY, MAY 25TH. AFTER FURTHER
INVESTIGATION, THIS WAS DETERMINED TO BE INCORRECT. THEREFORE THE
FINAL PRECIPITATION TOTAL FOR SUNDAY, MAY 25TH, IS 0.00 INCH AND THE
DAILY PRECIPITATION RECORD WAS NOT TIED.
THE ABOVE INFORMATION IS PRELIMINARY AND IS SUBJECT TO A FINAL
REVIEW BEFORE BEING CERTIFIED BY THE NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER.
$$”

Hope I didn’t spoil your morning.

On the other hand, you wonder what the NWS meant, “after further investigation…”? What might they have done to remove an extreme weather event, one that tied a record?

Let’s “jump in” and see what we can find out about this record-tying mystery. First, let’s pull up radar-derived precip maps for May 25th and May 26th and see if there is any chance it rained on the 25th. We have to do two maps since the end time of each radar precip map is for the 24 h period ending at 5 AM, whilst the record is for midnight to midnight of the 25th. Below, from WSI Intellicast are those two 5 AM AST maps in chronological order:

:

We can see that it DID rain in the 24 h ending at 5 AM AST on the 25th at McCarran Field, LAS, but not AFTER 5 AM ending on the 26th (map on the right.

But when did the weather observing machine think it rained?

By pulling up the hourly observations in text form below, we can see that the machine thought that rain began at 1519 Central Universal Time (8:19 AM AST) and rained for 11 minutes, ending at 1530 CUT. “RAB” means “rain began, truncated to minutes after the hour).

25 1456 SA KLAS >120 SCT   10        1011.1 77 45   0    0          29.92         1 10   0    0             AO2
25 1556 SA KLAS >120 CLR   10        1011.3 79 44 160    4        29.93                T                    AO2 RAB19E30
25 1656 SA KLAS >120 SCT   10        1011.0 82 43        3           29.92                0                       AO2
25 1756 SA KLAS >120 SCT   10        1010.6 84 42        5           29.91 85 70 8 04   0    T          AO2

Looking further, we can also see the text words “SCT” and “CLR” for the time periods in which rain was reported. Furthermore, the the “numbol”, “>120” , means no clouds below 12, 000 feet above ground level.

Can it rain to the ground from clouds higher than 12,000 feet above the ground? Its fairly rare, but it happens, as we Arizona sunbirds know from just the past couple of days when sprinkles fell from such clouds.

However, investigating even farther, we find that the machine is also indicating “CLR” or “SCT” conditions, meaning CLEAR or SCATTERED clouds above 12,000 feet.

Can it rain from CLEAR skies, too few clouds for the sensor to detect overhead? Or SCT skies? It has happened that the machine reports SCT conditions on a RARE occasion when a little Cumulonimbus is passing overhead. I think it was reported from Douglas last summer; thunder, too. Very odd, but not impossible.

But what we don’t see is any “VCRA” report, that is, the coding for “rain in the vicinity” that would be inserted next to the column of “10s” above if there had been any as detected by radar.

So, after a few hours of investigation, we have absolved the NWS of having improperly removed an extreme weather event: the trace of rain was, in FACT, erroneously reported from the McCarran Field weather observing machine.

(Actually the point of this rather tortured writeup is to expose you to a little of our weather reporting language called, METAR. You can read about it here pretty good. You can get those METAR reports from many places, here’s one.

————————-

A hodge-podge of cloud scenes from the recent trace of rain rainy day

(Counted over 100 drops on a wide area of pavement during the many, many sprinkle episodes two days ago; each one, I noticed, dried up in about two seconds, too.)

The End.

‘Manda rain

BTT you read this, rain oughta be falling or near by as the remnants of ‘Manda hurricane dribble into Arizona today. Looks like there’s just enough rain upstream right now (4 AM) to produce, hold your breath, a MEASURABLE amount here in Catalina! Likely will be just a few hundredths, though, as much as two tenths is about the top potential from this. At this point, anything measurable is a fabulous rain!

Mods have been oscillating on whether it would rain here for many days, but last night’s run ended pleasantly with a “correct” forecast of measurable rain. See green pixelation over Catalina below:

Valid for 11 AM AST today. Heart of rainband over us then, mod says. — Valid for 11 AM AST today.
Heart of rainband over us then, mod says. From IPS MeteoStar.

Your Catalina cloud day

(Also, another great cloud movie from the U of AZ here....)

5:15 AM. Cirrus, leaning toward “spissatus”, heavy dense patchy Cirrus.

7:42 AM. Cirrus fibratus/uncinus. “Cirrus” will do it.

4:35 PM. What would a day be like without Altostratus? Here, “translucidus” because the sun’s position is visible. When the sun can’t be seen, its “opacus”, like a lot of science can be.

5:27 PM. Walkin’ doggie and this seemed like a nice shot of the rustic neighborhood streets, the Catalinas, and up top, some glaciating Altocumulus, castellanus on the right side; hasn’t gone through the ice forming stage yet, or the ice hasn’t fallen out that’s in it.

7:18 PM, Crepuscular rays show up as the sun sets due to smoke and haze under the clouds. The clouds? A mix of flakes of Altocumulus and Altostratus (the solid blob), some Cirrus on top of it all.

The weather way ahead…

Not a lot showing up here for mid-June, so won't say anything about that. — Valid for June 12, 5 PM AST. Not a lot showing up here for mid-June weather, so won’t say anything about that. I suspect it will be warm, though.

Moon over the Tortolitas

7:09 PM. No visible sunspots on the “moon” either. Did you know that a long absence of sunspots, such as in the Maunder Minimum, was coincident with cold weather, such as that during the Little Ice Age, (though only a part of it)? A widely accepted causal relationship between sunspot activity and climate has not been established and findings of such relationships are usually considered controversial.

Remains of Amanda (Cat 4 hurricane) to bring rain to Catalina…maybe

The tropical fetch coming to Catalina (shown here yesterday) is from the remains of now strong hurricane Amanda, unusually strong for May for that matter, a month in which tropical storms in the Mexican Pacific are pretty rare, let alone have a Category 4 hurricane down there. Has sustained winds of 140 mph now, BTW.

When pointing out the tropical finches yesterday, was not aware that the low down there was, in fact, a hurricane. (Maybe I shouldn’t point things like that out, causing the one reader to lose confidence…. Too late now.) Check out this loop from the U of WA for the “pinhole” signature of strong hurricanes. Really happy to report that rain is on the way as May closes out (29th-31st are best chances for rain here).

Reprising yesterday’s cloud day…

1) Your day began with sprinkles from a cloud deck based at around 12, 000 feet above ground level (remember, too, that you can skip the “added value”, incremental approach below by just going to your great U of AZ time lapse movie. I thought it was really very pretty for yesterday):

5:32 AM. RW-- — 5:32 AM. RW– (very light rainshowers) were falling from what could be called a Altocumulus opacus deck with scattered taller turrets embedded in it, ones that produced the sprinkles.

2) clearing from the north:

6:24 AM. The shallow nature of most of the Ac deck is apparent as the backedge moves toward Catalina.

3) once the clearing arrived, small Cumulus began developing on the Cat Mountains and “?”:

9:36 AM. I have no idea. Move along now to the next photo.

4) nice small Cumulus all around, sometimes filling in to make it seem like a Seattle day in spring, with patches of Cirrus on top:

10:16 AM. Cumulus humilis and Cirrus. — 10:16 AM. Cumulus humilis and fractus (those shreds) and that beautiful Cirrus seemingly spreading its icy arms out (spreading likely due to perspective).

5) Was there artwork in the sky? You bet. A niche developed here I immodestly remind you, is that of cloud bottom photography, something I enjoy, and I think you do, too. Below is one of the best ones of the day from the Cloud Bottoms Collection:

10:16 AM. Cloud bottom of Cumulus humilis, maybe mediocris even, that was over ME. — 10:16 AM. Bottom of Cumulus humilis, maybe mediocris even, that was over ME. You look up, wondering, how deep is it? Will it form ice and rain on ME? Maybe graupel will fall out….since those are the first particles out the bottom of a growing Cumulus that is transitioning to a Cumulonimbus… So much to think about when a bottom is over you. Yours for $1,800, if you call now.

6) Late morning fill in:

11:23 AM. Cumulus and Stratocumulus dominated the sky for a time; looked threatening, but no frizzy ice seen around the edges, so as dark as they looked, no ice, no precip. — 11:23 AM. Cumulus and Stratocumulus dominated the sky for a time; looked threatening, but no frizzy ice seen around the edges. No ice; no precip or virga. Pretty, though, with those shadows and sun breaks on the Cat Mountains

7) Smoky sunset (not a western singer, though it would be a good name for one):

7:06 PM. Drifted down from the north. Likely hours old, judging by the striations in it (not well mixed out and homogeneous as would be smoke that’s days old). Could not find source in satellite imagery right off. I see that some of that layer is still visible to the SW this morning.

The End.

6) Wildfire smoke drifts down in a thin layer from the N to spoil our sunset. Note the reddish orange sun, a good sign of smoke and smog particles, tiny ones (typically, if you really want to know, that are 0.01 to 0.1 microns in size) that eviscerate the shorter wavelengths of sunlight so that only the reddish ones get through.

Tropical fetches

Flash: Very light rain (R–) falling at 5:30 AM! Amazing… Won’t measure though, as thickest clouds are already sliding away. But still, great to see, to smell the scent of rain in the desert, and feel the drops in this little surprise sprinkle!

—————————

Forgetting about that last big bust, namely the last big trough of the season that let us down by producing no measurable rain, let us now consider tropical finches, or rather, FETCHES, since an example is coming soon, one that might well bring rain. (I know what you’re thinking; you’ve heard that before, wrongly, I might add as in the LBT-LBB). Hope springs eternal I guess, though rain is predicted by both the USA and Canadian models, so there is some mathematical backing to this hope. See below, as rendered by IPS MeteoStar:

Green pixelation approaches Tucson-Catalina urban complex. — Green pixelation approaches Tucson-Catalina urban complex on Friday, May 29th at 5 PM,

Yesterday’s clouds

You can see them all at once from the great U of AZ Weather Department time lapse video for yesterday here in case still shots with captions aren’t enough action for you.

5:59 AM. Virga falls from Altocumulus opacus. This can also be seen as like a little slice of the tops of many rainy days when cloud tops aren't below about -30 C or so. As here, those tops are usually still comprised of mostly liquid droplet clouds in which ice crystals form, grow, and fallout. If the air is not rising to replenish the doplet clouds, then you will be left with a patch of ice and virga, a patch that will eventually die. — 5:59 AM. Virga falls from Altocumulus opacus. This can also be seen as like a little slice of the tops of many rainy days when cloud tops aren’t below about -30 C or so. As here, those tops are usually still comprised of mostly liquid droplet clouds in which ice crystals form, grow, and fallout. If the air is not rising to replenish the doplet clouds, then you will be left with a patch of ice and virga, a patch that will eventually die. Estimated top temperatures, -12 to -15 C, a little colder than shown on the TUS sounding for yesterday near this time because we are farther into the cold air aloft than TUS is. Also, it would be unlikely that clouds like these would produce ice at the indicated TUS balloon sounding top of Altocumulus at -11 C. With their geerally small droplets, it needs to be colder than that. Egad! This is way too much info! But what kind of ice crystals would you expect in a water-saturated enviroment at around -13 to -15 C? Yes, that’s right, pretty Christmas tree stellar crystals, maybe some aggregates of dendrites. Remember, too, for aggregattes to form that concentrations of the crystals must be more than about 1 per liter. Too, since they are falling through a droplet cloud with droplets larger than 10 microns in diameter, you would expect those stellar crystals and aggregates of dendrites to exhibit some riming, that is, have impacted some of the cloud drops as they grew and fell through the cloud, though keeping in mind that the crystals must attain a diameter of about 200-300 microns in diameter before riming commences, helped by the fact that stellar crystals (planar ones) fall face down like a clown does when he’s trying to make people laugh and trips over something. Also, I think someone in that big house on the right is about to have a baby.

9:40 AM. With all the cool air over us, it wasn't long before Cumulonimbus clouds began boiling upward, giving someone some rain. — 9:40 AM. With all the cool air over us, it wasn’t long before Cumulonimbus clouds began boiling upward, giving someone some rain.

9:53 AM. While Cu boiled up quickly on the Catalina Moutains, and iced-out a plenty, they never really got the depth required to produce much more than sprinkles and virga. Can you spot the little bit of ice on the right side of this Cumulus mediocris?

10:30 AM. Nice example of the tremendous amount of ice being produced by such modest clouds (see right side here--nothin' but ice). — 10:30 AM. Nice example of the tremendous amount of ice being produced by such modest clouds (see right side here–nothin’ but ice).

1:01 PM. By early afternoon it was all over, the clouds too shallow, the tops too warm to produce ice even though they were still well below freezing. Just the way it is. Guess warmer than -10 C (14 F) at cloud top when you see a sky like this with no ice.

6:47 PM. Sunset so-so as high clouds to the NW blocked the sun so it didn't under light these clouds. Here, Cu flatten as the heat of the day, such as it was at 85 F, cold for late May, dies away, — 6:47 PM. Sunset so-so as high clouds to the NW blocked the sun so it didn’t under light these clouds. Here, Cu flatten as the heat of the day, such as it was at 85 F, cold for late May, dies away,

The End.

As close as it got

Like you, my heart started pounding when that bank of thick clouds on the horizon got close enough to see that there was a rainshaft to the ground with a minor Cumulonimbus on top of it (ignoring the fact that you could’ve been hanging out by the radar all day).

6:47 PM. Cumulonimbus with rainshaft to the ground slowly approached near sunset yesterday. Big dust plume also visible to the right of the shaft a little later.

Today, the heart of the cold air and best moisture are over us and TODAY we will get those local icing-out Cu and small Cbs with sprinkles here and there. Measurable? Not so sure. Will be lucky. LTG in the area likely today, too.

If you’re a low temperature anomaly centric person at this time of the year (in texting, “LTACP”, or just “LTAC” for short), you will likely enjoy today’s 10 degrees or so below normal afternoon maximum, chillier even with outflows from virga and the scattered light showers around.

More later, photos, too… Behind on animal chores now.

Yesterday’s clouds

I thought it was a pretty nice day for you, though a little disappointing due to the late arrival of the minor rain threat mentioned above. You had quite an array of clouds to discuss in your cloud diary, which was good.

Below, I reprise them for you:

6:30 AM. Altostratus, the State Cloud of Arizona I think; Altostratus. We see a lot Cumulus, of course, but sporadically in the winter following a storm or trough like today, and in our summer rain season, but Altostratus we see year round.

DSC_0087-1 — 8:49 AM. Mostly Cirrus uncinus (hooked, or tufted at the top).

10:03 AM. Accas: Altocumulus castellanus. According to my cloud chart, it could rain with 6 to 196 hours after you see these clouds.