3:53 PM. Three little rows of clouds are emitted from the Tortolita Mountains to the west, drift over Oro Valley. These kinds of “streets” are there, and usually emit form the same spots, every time we have a moist, but shallow layer of air, and there’s a bit of wind. We met men would call this situation a “cloud-capped boundary layer” where air rising to form these clouds doesn’t get any higher, usually due to a stable layer like an inversion. The visual divergence, where one of the streets looks to be going to the left, and the one on the right going to the right, is due to perspective. Cloud streets are virtually parallel to one another. The flow at cloud level was toward the photographer, me. You got Cirrostratus on top of these Cumulus/Stratocumulus clouds. (Where clouds like these are more isolated, we call them, Cumulus, when the same clouds group together into masses, we start calling them Stratocumulus. Its kind of a fuzzy area in our fuzzy classification system (see Catalina cloud maven’s cloud classification article in the Encyclopedia of the Atmospheric Sciences, 6 vols., yours for $2258.20, “only one left in stock”, Amazon says, and the great Judy Curry, is Ed.–better get it before its gone!
5:03 PM. That little zone (center, here) on the Tortolitas is still pumping out the clouds. Compare the back edge of this larger mass (which now would be Stratocumulus) with the origin point of the previous photo. The cloud street is the one on the left that goes off the screen.5:32 PM. That high Cirrostratus layer steadily thickened, becoming Altostratus here, as the afternoon wore on. Seemed like another storm was moving in. Those isolated Cumulus clouds and their “streets” filled in, too, becoming large, dark areas of Stratocumulus, adding to the false anticipation of a rain as a storm skirted Arizona.
The weather way ahead after the upcoming heat wave
I have been staring at this weather Rorschach test for a few hours now, and there’s not much to say about it, except that there seems to be two eyeballs near the North Pole, and maybe one of the yellow lines forming a jaw down there toward Greenland, possibly a tilted drivers cap toward Russia.
Clearly the global patterns are “unsettled”, to use one of our favorite forecasting words. (“We will have ‘unsettled’ weather over the next few days”, as one might say in Seattle most of the year.)
Below, “troughing” is suggested in the SW, but not much. The Asian trough, anchored along the coast of Asia, is shown moving offshore here as it should during the spring, and that in turns helps form a trough downwind in the SW US, as we see happen in the spring over the long term (in climatology). So we can only hang our hat on climo, that these uncertain times shown below in the plot below will resolve into something better than more drought.
We can also ponder the larger question of, “How’s come we can put a man on the moon and various space junk on Mars and can’t forecast the weather beyond about a week?” Its crazy.
Or even the vastly larger question concerning chaos theory, a theory that rests on the phenomenon that small perturbations in the initial state of unstable systems are able to make huge changes over time, thus:
“Will a space probe, going off into deep space, as is happening now, an artifact that’s not supposed to be there, unsettle the unstable Universe?”
Valid for 1700 AST, March 17, 2014.
Pretty thoughtful blog today, I thought. Usually don’t go this deep, but it just kind of happened.
…weren’t quite realized1 in the rain totals that our storm produced; the very exciting prediction of several inches of water content foretold for Ms. Lemmon didn’t happen (see ALERT gauge listing below, saved for pretty much the maximum 24 h period of our storm.)
Still, rains were substantial, the occasional morning lightning was great, and in a few places in PC (Pima County) the rain total did exceed 2 inches, with amounts of an inch and a half in the Cat Mountains. Good, better, but not as “great” as in expectations, except maybe at Park Tank, Reddington area, where the ALERT gauge says, 3.78 inches. Also, if you didn’t catch it, a stupendous sunrise and sunset; see pics WAY below.
Here in Sutherland Heights, 0.60 inches fell, by far most of that during the middle of last night when strong storms bounded in and abounded all over eastern AZ with a final rainband. Here’s what that 3rd and final rain “act” looked like on radar and in the satellite imagery last night (very exciting weather shape, BTW; “the curl”):
Radar and sat imagery from IPS MeteoStar for 1:15 AM. The heaviest rain fell just to the north of us. This “curl” configuration indicates that a potent part of the trough was passing by, causing clouds to explode upward from the tip of the “tail” near Rocky Point on their way to the NE from there. Got even bigger as they passed by us and headed toward Miami-Globe area. You can also see the three bands of rain that affected us, more or less still intact.
Precipitation Report for the following time periods ending at: 03:59:00 03/02/14 (also learn where stuff is) (data updated every 15 minutes) Data is preliminary and unedited. —- indicates missing data Gauge 15 1 3 6 24 Name Location ID# minutes hour hours hours hours —- —- —- —- —- —- —————– ——————— Catalina Area 1010 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.28 0.43 Golder Ranch Horseshoe Bend Road in Saddlebrooke 1020 0.00 0.00 0.24 0.43 0.67 Oracle Ranger Stati approximately 0.5 mile southwest of Oracle 1040 0.00 0.00 0.16 0.31 0.51 Dodge Tank Edwin Road 1.3 miles east of Lago Del Oro Parkway 1050 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.28 0.47 Cherry Spring approximately 1.5 miles west of Charouleau Gap 1060 0.00 0.00 0.35 0.55 0.83 Pig Spring approximately 1.1 miles northeast of Charouleau Gap 1070 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 Cargodera Canyon northeast corner of Catalina State Park 1080 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.24 0.35 CDO @ Rancho Solano Cañada Del Oro Wash northeast of Saddlebrooke 1100 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.31 CDO @ Golder Rd Cañada Del Oro Wash at Golder Ranch Road
Santa Catalina Mountains 1030 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.43 Oracle Ridge Oracle Ridge, approximately 1.5 miles north of Rice Peak 1090 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.39 Mt. Lemmon Mount Lemmon 1110 0.00 0.00 0.39 0.71 1.02 CDO @ Coronado Camp Cañada Del Oro Wash 0.3 miles south of Coronado Camp 1130 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 Samaniego Peak Samaniego Peak on Samaniego Ridge 1140 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 1.46 Dan Saddle Dan Saddle on Oracle Ridge 2150 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.30 White Tail Catalina Highway 0.8 miles west of Palisade Ranger Station 2280 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 1.34 Green Mountain Green Mountain 2290 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 1.54 Marshall Gulch Sabino Creek 0.6 miles south southeast of Marshall Gulch
Santa Catalina Foothills 2090 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.75 TV @ Guest Ranch Tanque Verde Wash at Tanque Verde Guest Ranch 2100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.16 0.43 DEQ Swan Swan Road at Calle del Pantera 2160 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.31 Sabino @ USFS Dam Sabino Creek at USFS Dam 2170 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.59 Ventana @ Sunrise Ventana Canyon Wash at Sunrise Road 2190 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.75 Al-Marah near El Marah on Bear Canyon Road 2200 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.71 AC Wash @ TV Bridge Agua Caliente Wash at Tanque Verde Road 2210 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.79 Catalina Boosters Houghton Road 0.1 miles south of Catalina Highway 2220 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.83 Agua Caliente Park Agua Caliente Park 2230 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.79 El Camino Rinconado El Camino Rinconado 0.5 miles north of Reddington Road 2240 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 0.91 Molino Canyon Mt Lemmon Highway near Mile Post 3 2390 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.39 Finger Rock @ Skyli Finger Rock Wash at Sunrise Road
Redington Pass Area 2020 0.00 0.08 0.55 0.67 3.78 Park Tank Redington Pass, 0.8 miles south of Park Tank 2030 0.00 0.04 0.28 0.39 2.09 Italian Trap Redington Pass, 0.7 miles east southeast of Italian Trap Tank 2040 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 1.14 White Tank Redington Road near White Tank 2050 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 1.14 Bellota Ranch Road Bellota Ranch Road near Redington Road 2070 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.24 0.87 TV @ Chiva Tank Tanque Verde Wash 0.5 miles south of Chiva Tank 2080 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.16 0.87 Alamo Tank Redington Road near Alamo Well
Rincon Mountains 4100 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 1.06 Manning Camp Manning Camp in the Rincon Mountains 4110 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.47 Rincon Creek Rincon Creek at X-9 Ranch
Greater Tucson 2110 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.71 TV @ TV Road Tanque Verde Wash at Tanque Verde Road 2120 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.59 TV @ Sabino Cyn Rd Tanque Verde Wash at Sabino Canyon Road 2300 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.16 0.63 Well D-37 Rosewood Street west of Harrison Road 2310 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.16 0.67 Well E-23 Rancho El Mirador north of Broadway Boulevard 2320 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.47 Beverly Well C-51 Beverly Avenue at Hawthorne Street 2330 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.08 0.51 Kolb Boosters Kolb Road at Golf Links 2350 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.39 Rillito @ Dodge Rillito Creek at Dodge Boulevard 2360 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.43 Rillito @ La Cholla Rillito Creek at La Cholla Boulevard 2370 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.28 0.63 Alamo @ Glenn Alamo Wash at Glenn Street 2380 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.35 DEQ Ruthraff Ruthrauff Road at La Cholla Boulevard 4160 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.55 E-8 Irvington Road near Pantano Road 4180 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.12 0.51 Pantano @ Houghton Pantano Wash at Houghton Road 6040 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.04 0.43 Santa Cruz@Valencia Santa Cruz River at Valencia Road 6180 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.39 ArroyoChico@Cherry Arroyo Chico at Cherry Street 6190 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.59 Arroyo Chico@Randol Arroyo Chico at Randolph Way 6230 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.55 Ajo Detention Basin Tucson Diversion Channel at Ajo Detention Basin 6240 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.12 0.63 DEQ Cntry Clb Country Club Road near Columbia Street 6250 0.04 0.04 0.16 0.20 0.75 Craycroft@Golf Link Craycroft Road at Golf Links Road 6260 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.08 0.55 Tucson Electric Pow Irvington Road at Belvedere Avenue 6270 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 0.59 Pima Air Museum Valencia Road at Pima Air Museum
Southern Tucson Area 6200 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.20 0.67 Summit Elementary Summit Street at Epperson Lane 6210 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.12 0.59 Franco @ Swan Franco Wash at Swan Road 6220 0.00 0.00 0.20 0.20 0.83 PC Fairgrounds Houghton Road at Dawn Road 6280 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.16 0.63 Wilmot Wilmot Road 2 miles south of Old Vail Connection Road 6290 0.00 0.04 0.55 0.55 1.42 Corona Sahuarita Road at Sewage Treatment Plant
Altar/Avra Valley Area Area 6370 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.31 1.77 Arivaca Las Guijas Mountains near Arivaca 6380 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.31 1.10 Altar Wash @ Hwy 28 Altar Wash at Highway 286 6410 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.24 0.59 Diamond Bell Diamond Bell near Stagecoach Road at Killarney Avenue 6420 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.31 Brawley@Three Point Brawley Wash at Highway 86 6430 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.28 Vahala Park Wade Road at Los Reales 6440 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.24 Brawley@Milewide Brawley Wash at Milewide Road 6450 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.16 0.43 Hilltop Rd Hilltop Road at Riveria Road 6460 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.28 0.35 Picture Rocks CC Picture Rocks Community Center 6470 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.16 0.35 Michigan @ Calgary Michigan Street at Calgary Avenue
Marana/Oro Valley Area 1200 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.28 CDO @ Ina Road Cañada Del Oro Wash at Ina Road 1230 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.24 0.31 Oro Valley PW Calle Concordia at Calle El Milagro 1240 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.28 0.35 Moore Rd Moore Road at La Cholla 1250 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.24 0.35 Pima Wash @ Ina Pima Wash at Ina Road 1260 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.28 0.43 Big Wash Big Wash at Rancho Vistoso Boulevard 1270 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.20 0.31 CDO @ Big Wash Cañada Del Oro Wash near Oracle Road 6020 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.24 0.35 Santa Cruz @ Ina Santa Cruz River at Ina Road 6110 0.04 0.04 0.08 0.24 0.24 Avra Valley Airpark Santa Cruz River 0.5 miles east of Sanders Road
Vail Area 4220 0.00 0.00 0.16 0.16 0.79 Rancho Del Lago approximately 1.8 miles northwest of Vail 4250 0.00 0.04 0.39 0.43 0.94 Pantano @ Vail Pantano Wash 1.5 miles southeast of Colossal Cave Road 4270 0.04 0.04 0.24 0.24 1.06 Salcido Place 6 miles north-northwest of Mescal 4280 Site temporarily removed due to road construction Cienega Crk @ I-10 Cienega Creek at Interstate 10 4290 0.04 0.04 0.20 0.20 0.91 Mescal 2 miles northwest of Mescal 4310 0.00 0.00 0.55 0.55 1.22 Davidson Canyon Davidson Canyon Wash 0.25 miles south of Interstate 10 4320 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.12 0.43 Empire Peak Empire Peak 4410 0.00 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.75 Haystack Mtn. Haystack Mountain
Green Valley Area 6050 0.00 0.00 0.47 0.67 1.61 Santa Cruz@Continen Santa Cruz River at Continental Road 6060 0.00 0.08 0.16 0.20 1.22 Santa Cruz@Conoa Santa Cruz River at Elephant Head Road 6080 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.12 1.34 Santa Cruz@Tubac Santa Cruz River at Tubac 6310 0.00 0.00 0.20 0.24 0.98 Keystone Peak Keystone Peak 6320 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.08 1.18 Tinaja Ranch near Caterpillar Proving Ground 6330 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.08 1.10 Anamax Mission Road north of Continental Road 6350 0.00 0.04 0.12 0.12 1.18 Elephant Head Butte near Elephant Head Butte 6390 0.04 0.20 0.35 0.35 2.80 Florida Canyon Florida Canyon Work Center
There were numerous storm totals over 2 inches throughout the State, mountain ones that can be seen in the USGS rolling 24 h archive here (amounts will diminish due to the continuous updating that goes on, as with the PC ALERT gauges), and in the rainlog network from the U of AZ, and in the CoCoRahs reports for Arizona, the latter two sites do not have complete 24 h totals ending at 7 AM AST until several hours after 7 AM AST.
Southern California rains exceeded 10 inches in several mountain locals over the past few days, almost 14 inches at one mountain site in Ventura County. So, SC’ans are quite happy, today anyway.
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Wow; those sunset clouds!
Good grief, there was quite the spectacular mammatus display late yesterday. Even resembled the great mammatus ahead of the El Reno tornado in OK last May. Then, as the sun set in a brief clearing to the west, the downward protruding bulges became lit, and the yellow-orange color of the fading sun light (as it passed through a great distance through the lower atmosphere and the shorter wavelengths of blues get scattered out) lit up the ground and foothills of the Catalinas. It was almost too gaudy to be real and not “shopped” as we say today.
6:51 AM. Sun burst on Stratocumulus bases.4:22 PM. Incoming Cumulonimbus mammatus. The core of this shower was far to the S beyond Pusch Ridge.
Started to rain here in at 3:45 AM…have 0.01 inches so far. :{
So far in AZ, Flagstaff area leading the way Statewide with about 0.90 inches. You can check out those amounts in real time here from the USGS, and here for Pima County. Also you can look at those amounts reported in real time at PWSs (personal weather stations) throughout Arizona on the Weather Underground “Wundermaps” as this exciting, much awaited day develops.
Point forecasts from the U of AZ “Beowulf “for today, based on 11 PM AST data, here. (Graphical version not yet completed.) You’ll see that a mighty amount of over 4 inches of water content is forecast for the top of the Lemmon (Summerhaven) from this storm. These calcs are usually a little high, but even 2 inches would be fabulous up there. Catalina, per se, does not appear in the point location list, but Oro Valley is expected to get around half an inch. We should do better than that here in Catalina/Sutherland Heights.
———-SC rain doings———
Forecast “10 in 24” at Opids Camp; got about 8, same for favored locations in Ventura County. Working on 10 for storm there as I write; another round of pounding rain moving into the LA Basin now. NWS tornado warning for east central LA expires at 4 AM today. (They saw rotation in a severe thunderstorm around Covina earlier this morning.)
BTW, go here to see how excited the Los Angeles branch of the NWS is today. You’ll see that their domain is a kaleidoscope of colors for warnings and advisories of all kinds! Ninety five percent of the time, they really don’t have that much to forecast in southern California, pretty boring really, so this is a great time for them to show their stuff, be excited, “show the colors.” (Me, too!)
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Some of yesterday’s cloud scenes
6:46 AM. Sunrise on the C-Gap.6:57 AM. Two levels of ice clouds, an rare site. The darker on just above the mountains is some icy remnant of an Altocumulus cloud that converted to ice. The whiter clouds are at Cirrus levels, likely some spot of droplets before almost instantly glaciating. The different colors give away the different heights, and also the difference in movement; one level moving relative to the other tells you this, too.8:37 AM. Microversions of Cirrus uncinus suddenly blossomed overhead; almost missed ’em. What was unusual was how tall the vertical parts were with tiny hooks at the bottom. That vertical part indicates a layer of air with no wind shear, a phenomenon almost always observed at cloud tops. The wind shear may have been “mixed out” by the up and down motions associated with cloud formation and dissipation.8:37 AM. Close up view of those tiny Ci unc.9:12 AM. “Webby” Cirrus. Has no official name that I know of.9:35 AM. Though the natural sky is slightly marred by a contrail, in general it was a thing of beauty all morning in particular with the high visibility, complex goings on in the cloud structure, deep blue sky, moderate breezes and temperatures in the 70s. This view, toward the Charouleau Gap, shows more of that “webby” Cirrus, and on the horizon, left of center, the rarely seen Cirrus castellanus which I report seeing almost every week here in AZ.10:37 AM. Less complicated Cirrus fibratus/uncinus patches moved in, followed by the development of small Cumulus clouds. Still very pretty though.2:50 PM. Your afternoon. The Cirrus thickened into a solid layer with gray, transitioning to Altostratus with these small Cumulus (“humilis”) below. TYpically thickening is due to the bottoms of clouds lowering (in this case, where the ice crystals falling out evaporate is perceived as cloud base) while the top stays about the same height. As the air moistens during the approach of a storm, the crystals fall farther toward the ground and the cloud thickens downward.
Rain beginning to pile up again in Cal as behemoth Pac storm moves in. See an actual, professional level weather map below, not a mickey mouse one. It will be good for you to see a complex weather map with all kinds of weather symbolia on it:
0.01 inches at Opids Camp, LA area mountain site, already (at 5:30 AM AST) out of predicted by C-M of 10 inches or so in the next 24 h; highest totals somewhere in central and southern Cal mountains likely between 10 and 20 inches for this one storm! California dreamin’1? Will keep you posted if I am right.
Here?
Really tough to forecast more than an inch in one winter’s day in a desert. Goes against the grain and the cactus, for that matter. Thought I would get some help from the great U of AZ Beowulf Cluster, but its still crunching the 11 PM AST data away as I write here at 5:30 AM. So, can’t wait for a really accurate answer. You should go there, though to get one….
Being crude, then, and I mean using a model with a huge grid spacing compared to that of the U of AZ Cluster model, the Canadian GEM indicates about 36 h of rain, 5 AM AST tomorrow to about 5 PM on Sunday, and even at a average of 0.05 inches over that time, you get 1.80 inches! Good grief. So, maybe now that BIG forecast by a BIG atmos sci faculty member at Colo State, “1.5 to 2 inches”, might be right, closer than my dinky 1 inch max forecast of yesterday. Its great to be wrong when you under forecast precip, but that’s about the only time!
Higher resolution US WRF-GFS mod run from 5 PM AST last evening has fewer hours of precip, BTW, partly because it DOES resolve the forecast in 6 h blocks, not 12 h ones like the crude Canadian model.
Also, the winds above us, being more westerly than southerly during the coming storm, is better for us here in Catalina. Deep southerly flows have to go over Pusch Ridge, and rain can be diminished locally that bit due to the downslope effect off the Ridge. Won’t have that tomorrow and Sunday, so that’s a plus.
The cut to the chase: minimum from this typewriter now HAS to be much higher than 0,25 inches as was indicated previously. Will go to 0.75 inches as the LEAST we’ll get (things don’t go well, main bands just miss Catalina, etc), with 1.5 inches as max by Sunday evening 5 PM.
Will not mention this forecast again, of course, if the rain in Catalina is outside these limits.
Yesterday’s clouds
Nice patterns and nice small Cu yesterday with great visibility again.
1:53 PM Finely granulated, and with a bit of color (iridescence) Cirrocumulus. Here, the Cc is at mid-levels, not at Cirrus levels. In our cloud classification scheme, which is a little funky, its only the tiny granulations that make it Cc and not Altocumulus. Happens a lot.
5:13 PM. Delicate Cirrus uncinus (hooked Cirrus).
6:18 PM. Sunset Cirrus uncinus, so pretty.
The End, except for a little peak at Opids Camp rain just now… Wow, was just 0.01 when I looked at the 3 AM ob, and at 6 AM is already over an inch!
Hope, too, you caught the beautiful sunrise just now. Will reprise it tomorrow.
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1Some of you will instantly recall the initial words to this pop tune:
“All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray, I went walkin’ for awhile on a winter’s day.”
These words were inserted after the “Mamas and the Papas” poke at LA smog in the original words were deemed by producers as less desirable in seeking a commercial hit. The original words that the song began with, before it was commercialized, were” “All the leaves are gray, and the sky is brown”, words that might offend Californians. Thought you’d like to know.
BTW, this video above is a PERFECT paradigm for this year’s sunny, warm and dry weather in the West, and the brutal winter back East. Take a look! Its great!
As much as 1-2 inches as far south as Ventura County so far, 3-4 inches in the coastal mountains of central Cal as of just now (4 AM AST). Rolling 24 h Cal State archive here. LA area rain here; keep an eye on Opids Camp and Crystal Lake FC. Totals in NW LA County just now going over an inch. Following this drought bustin’ sequence, while just a” two shot wonder”, will be like watching….I don’t know..something really exciting, a weather kind of Olympics, where the favored team “drought” is taken down unexpectedly by some upstart storm. Yes, I will play the Olympics card.
And remember, this is just the lightweight division today; up next, beginning Friday in southern Cal: “Sumo wrestling”, as a 400-lb storm moves in next to push aside “Team Drought” at least for the moment. (Is Sumo wrestling an Olympic sport?) Still expecting some jumbo rain totals in the mountains of southern Cal, such as more than 10 inches at places like Opids Camp in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Speaking of jumbo totals, a friend and expert weather forecaster (and big atmos sci faculty member at Colorado State who now lives part time in Catalina), sent a stunning e-mail to me yesterday expressing his opinion that Catalina will get “1.5 to 2 inches of rain” from the second “Sumo” storm, the one that eases into Arizona late Friday and arrives here by dawn on Saturday, and then continues for around 24 h. Cloud maven here can’t go that high in his guess, doesn’t have the “testicularis” you might say, to go that high; 1 inch max is all I can come up with, but would be ecstatic if in error!
Still, this is going to be FANTASTIC! Saw some perennial wildflower blooms on the trails yesterday (see below), ones in need of a little pick-me-up–actually a big one, and this will be great for them. Fauna, too, will be happy! It may be too late for the annuals…not sure. Poppies are few, and awfully stunted this year, as many of you know.
Don’t forget, too, before our storm; those gorgeous skies! Have camera and pen ready to document and make notes about them in your weather diaries Those skies we’ll be fantastic, too, like yesterday, which was a great day to be on a horse, watching the sky.
Even when its raining the skies will be fantastic!
How many of us, even if we’re from Seattle, are STARVED for low gray, dank and dark daytime rainy skies, clouds chopping off the Catalinas a thousand feet above us, listening to rain pounding on our roofs, then running off roof making puddles, those richer shades of desert green after the rain ends, the glistening, water-covered rocks on the Catalinas in the morning sun after the storm? Its a real treasure when rain falls here.
Yesterday’s clouds
12:23 PM. You got yer Cis spis (Cirrus spissatus) topping a few Cu fractus and humilis, if I may. It was so great to see those Cumulus clouds, reminding us that July and huge clouds are only about 125 days away!12:23 PM. You got yer Cirrus uncinus. Note fine strands hanging down. Amazing they can be so perfect, not erratic (see arrow), when the wind up there is about 100 mph!
3:54 PM. A great line of a Ac lenticular advanced over Oro Valley. This shot was about the best I got and its not that great.
3:55 PM. Not all about clouds..wanted to show you that I have more than one dimension. Here, a wild onion bloom maybe, slightly out of focus. Prickly pear is in focus, though.3:55 PM. Very nice Altocumulus lenticularis formed later in the afternoon downwind from the Catalinas.6:25 PM. Another very nice sunset due to some Cirrus spissatus and a few lower Altocumulus clouds.
On the weather horizon
Mods still have unusually warm weather here in the storm after life, 8-12 days out (cold in the East continues, too). But, then some Catalina rains continue to show up after that hot spell when you think May is already here.
That thick (likely more than 3 km, or more than 10,000 feet) and steady gray sky diet of Altostratus opacus clouds didn’t provide a lot of visual highlights most of yesterday, in contrast to the many Altocumulus flocculations of the day before. An example of yesterday’s sky for most of the day:
3:50 PM. Altostratus opacus. Or is it? Not much going on here1.
Virga hung down here and there, and some radar echoes during the day suggested a sprinkle here and there reached the ground, but none here.
Later, as usually happens, the tops of the clouds lowered, as did the bases, and we had some pretty Altocumulus again, some with long trails of virga, indicating a deep moist layer below cloud bottoms. For a time, as dewpoints rose, it looked like Ms. Lemmon might be topped with Sc, but those lowest clouds did not get quite low enough.
5:14 PM. Two layers of Altocumulus are present, the lower one having spires (Ac castellanus). Nice lighting on mountains.
5:08 PM. Two layers of Altocumulus are present, the lower one having spires (Ac castellanus), to repeat.
6:23 PM. Heavy virga issues from an old Altocumulus cloud, its once higher, pyramidal or mounding top has collapsed as snow developed in it and in essence, hangs down in an upside down version of what it once was (though not as tall as the virga is long here).The Tucson balloon sounding (rawinsonde) for 5 PM AST (launched about 3:30 PM, and rise at about 1,000 feet a minute.) BTW, takes about an hour and a half to get the whole depth normally measured, to around 100, 000 feet. During that time, or even during the first hour, the atmo is changing, so when its at 40,000 feet, what is measured at 3,000 feet isn’t the same anymore. Introduces slight error into models into which these data get fed. Models think its an instantaneous view of the atmo over Tucson at 5 PM AST (00 Z time). I think you should know this. Note tops of that Ac with heavy virga were about -30 C (-22 F)! Notice, too, that some of those higher, colder Altocumulus flakes are not showing virga in the sunset photo above.
Weathering just ahead….
Rain One (“Little Bro”) is moving onto California coast as I write. Residents in towns like the very-expensive-to-live-in Monterrey rejoicing as drops patter on rooftops now! The negative news here is that the Canadian model has lessened the area of rain in Arizona as Rain 1 passes over us, confines the rain to central and northern AZ mountains now, still light, but not as widespread as before.
At the same time, the US WRF-GFS model has been adding rain in AZ from Rain 1; previously it had NONE. Now, these mods have now come together over us2 to quote a song title from the last century, both showing about the same thing, so that’s probably what will happen. Just rain to the north of us. So, a little less of a close call to Catalina tomorrow as Rain 1 goes by. Just middle and high clouds for us, and probably some virga, nice sunrises and sunsets.
Rain 2, “Big Bro” moves into southern Cal tomorrow night, and still looks like a real and necessary pounder for southern Cal before moving on and drenching little Catalina. Will report on those SC amounts to see how big they get, too.
Rain should be falling here in Catalina by Saturday dawn and continue all day. Range of amounts, still a not-so-great quarter inch on the bottom (if things don’t go well), but top (if things go really well) still an inch! How great would that be? So, best guess about 0.60 inches here in Catalina, from averaging those two “extrema.” Later today, our U of AZ Beowulf Cluster model computations will start to have some quantitative amounts from actual calculations, not just a SOP guess from yours truly. Check here at the U of AZ later in the day for accumulated totals based on this morning’s 5 AM AST data.
Way out there
While our drencher on the weekend seems to be a one-shot wonder for at least a week after it passes, the longest view from our WRF-GFS, valid way out on March 13 at 5 PM AST, 360 h from last night’s model run, has another major storm moving into the SW, but this time it doesn’t come from the west, but from the NW. This is a climatological norm; storms tend to move from NW to SE during the spring months in the western US, and so there’s SOME climatology to hang your hat on that the rain forecast below for us may be a real event, not a fantasy storm, as so often happens that far into the future in our models. See the map below, from IPS MeteoStar’s rendering of the WRF-GFS to brighten your day that bit more, knowing one good rain is coming, and maybe, just MAYBE, the pattern is shifting to a normal one with an occasional rain here in Catalina beginning after mid-March.
Valid at 5 PM, March 13. Green areas denote those regions where the model thinks it has rained during the prior 12 h.
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1
3:50 PM. Actual Altostratus opacus. I’ve been talkin’ clouds here for quite awhile, and in a clever kind of a test, wanted to see if you could tell the difference between the side of my gray car and an Altostratus cloud. Its pretty important to me that you get this right.
It doesn’t get any better than this if you need rain and want 10 inches:
Valid at 5 PM AST, Friday, February 28th. Arrow (upper right panel) points to massive sweep of sub-tropical air into southern Cal, the whole SW really. This from the Canadian Global Environmental Model (GEM) based on last evening’s data.
Actually, 10 inches in a day is not so unusual in the mountains of southern California, which is something that’s going to happen if this model output verifies this weekend. Also, the storm takes a couple of days to go through, and so mountain totals of 10-20 inches are likely in the favored locations. Coastal areas would likely see 2-6 inches I think now with this configuration.
Twenty four hour totals of more than 25 inches of RAIN were observed in the southern California mountains in January 1943, and again in January 1969, to put a forecast of “just” 10 inches in one day in perspective.
Thinking about driving over there, to say, Hoegee’s Camp in the San Gabriel Mountains, where they once got 26 inches in a day (back in ’43). Would really like to see what heavy rain looks like in this basher; rocks coming down onto highways, windy, giant waves along the coast, a real weather hullaballoo. Maybe we should organize a storm tourism trip? Think of all the happy people we’d see, too, in this muttin’ bustin’ drought bustin’ bustin’ bustin’ bronc bustin’ storm, to kind of get in the rodeo frame of mind here to emphasize to the people of Tucson just how rough it will be on the city folk of southern Cal.
The good news here is that predicted rains have been increasing here in Catalina and throughout Arizona in the models as well. Maybe it won’t be too late for our spring greening to green up a little more. An inch is now possible here on the top end, minimum likely to be as much as a quarter of an inch (even if mods really off) ending on the 3rd.
Still looking at a close call, maybe some sprinkles before that from the first slug of rain that hits Cal, on Thursday, the 27th of Feb. Much of Arizona should get something from that first rain intrusion.
What a great cloud day it was yesterday! Fabulous.
Here are a few cloud shots:
Can you name them?
Today? Sat imagery makes it look like our middle clouds will be thick enough to produce isolated drops. Be sure to log any that you see.
Very happy to post this breaking future news here on February 24th. Close rain call on the 27th, too, as the first of two significant troughs with their low pressure centers march into California, bringing a drought break there of some consequence. Likely an inch or two in the coastal areas south of SFO (“Frisco”; rhymes with Crisco), and maybe even LA area as well with the first storm. That first one continues across Arizona bringing widespread, though light rains the central and northern mountains on Thursday the 27th.
Valid at 5 PM Thursday, the 27th. Upper left panel shows “little brother” trough over Arizona, and most of State covered by a little precip (lower right panel). Big brother on the move offshore of Cal, flow reaching deep into sub-tropics.
Then “Big Brother” hits Cal beginning on the evening of the 28th, gets here late on the first or early on March 2nd. The LA Basin rains in the second one look like they’ll amount to 2-4 inches, and maybe something from a quarter to half an inch here in Catalinaland when it arrives.
Model?
Canadian GEM (General Environmental Model). Sometimes, like their hockey team, it defeats the US models in weather forecasting, and I am riding the fence that it will this time. In the interest of disclosure, the US WRF-GFS model has virtually NO RAIN in Arizona on the 27th (!), whilst the Canadian one has widespread rains (both using global data from 5 PM AST yesterday). So, I reject the US model, one that takes the first storm too far north to affect AZ much. (This has sometimes been a problem for our US models.)
Second storm?
Both models have rain on the 1st-2nd, but the Canadian, much larger amounts in southern California where I grew up and, while having poor grades after puberty and the realization of girls (!) hit, nevertheless had some success playing baseball. Could be nearly a month’s worth of rain in one storm in the LA area, which averages about 3 inches in Feb and March, both, IF the Canadian model verifies. Those kind of amounts upstream would also mean more rain potential for us here, too. But, the fact that they BOTH have rain, is really great to see. One would think that some rain is pretty much in the bag. I hope they put rain barrels out in Cal!
After the storm…
Oh, me, look at this “Lorenz” (the chaos guy) plot:
Valid March 8th, 5 PM AST. Its awful as a graphic to begin with, but when interpreted its even more awful in the kind of weather it implicates for us as we march farther into March: in one word, Hot and Dry! Easterners won’t like it, either, as the severe winter continues back there, Lake Superior might remain frozen over until April! Jet stream is flowing along the red and turquoise lines, so cold air brought southward where lines aim toward the southeast, as over the eastern US.
A pattern like the one above is hard to maintain in March since the climatology of March-May leads to a trough in the western US. So hoping the awful pattern above will give way by mid-March or soon thereafter, as do easterners I would bet. Below, likely fantasy, since its WAY out on the forecast horizon, but this historic forecast (would produce historically cold weather in the East if it did verify, chances probably less than 30% as a wild guess. I just now saw it and it was AMAZING!
Valid March 11th, 5 PM AST. LOOK at that high pressure area and cold air slamming down east of the Rockies and strong low over New England. Good grief! Would be headlines if it happens.
Yesterday’s clouds
9:22 AM. Great example of Altocumulus perlucidus.1:47 PM. Later became blobby with heavy virga; Altocumulus opacus virgae if you really want to know.6:22 PM. Skipping ahead, these formations led to another in a long series of nice sunset shots. Hope you got one.
Most of us can easily understand the reasoning behind the bounty of media stories and pronouncements by some scientists/White House ones even, describing how global warming has led to such severe winters over the past few years on various continents. It makes perfect sense that as it gets warmer, winters will be colder, more severe in some regions, while other areas, like the SW this year get a global warming face plant.
Furthermore, extreme regional temperature extremes like the ones we have seen in the US this winter have NEVER happened before since 1976-77, and, oh yeah, 1962-63…oops, I guess 1983 had a bad winter back East, too. OK, maybe “NEVER” is too strong… Tree rings have some bad stuff in them, too, before the historical records begin. Lets just say that the “NEVER” above refers to the last 12 months maybe.
Well, as I posted last time, Mike et al (his friends) posted a letter to the uppity journal, Science, saying that attributing these kinds of extremes to global warming was based on evidence that was “not compelling” (i. e, in normal speak, BS, or likely BS1.)
But that’s not the way the Press is treating these claims.
Mike is kind of a complainer, well, actually, I never actually heard him complain about anything, professionally or otherwise whilst at the University of Washington, but anyway, continuing, he sent to our weather e-mail list at that institution kind of a complaint. He observed that his comment in Science questioning the evidence presented in support of the claim that global warming is causing the severe winter in the East, was not getting much play in the Press while the proponents of a not-a-compelling-theory were getting a lot.
Here’s what Mike sent out to us, FYI:
“Here’s a new posting on Andy Revkin’s dot. earth following up on our letter that appeared in Science last Friday. The clarification at the end of our posting is in response to statements in postings of Jennifer Francis and Charles Greene on dot.earth, alleging that we had misrepresented the Francis and Vavrus article in our Science letter.
There’s an article about Jennifer Francis’ work on the NPR blog 2/16. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/16/277911739/warming-arctic-may-be-causing-jet-stream-to-lose-its-way
She appeared on CBS yesterday and her work was featured on the BBC News web site http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26023166
In contrast, the press has shown very little interest in our Science letter. In a quick look on Google just now I found only one blog (besides Cliff’s and Judy Curry’s) that refers to it. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/16/Record-Cold-February-Sending-Global-Warming-Conspiracists-into-Deep-Freeze
Kevin Trenberth and Jennifer Francis were interviewed yesterday on Chris Mooney’s program, which will be aired this Friday.
The link leads to Wikipedia and other links there; Mike has gotten NUMEROUS awards for his work; none of those are from oil companies, at least that I know of.)
I emphasized “Mike’s” observation (not his real first name, BTW) about one-sided media coverage by using a larger and red font because, you see, Mike came down in yesterday’s rain.
By that I mean, he is an idealist, one that sincerely believes that the Press will cover a story evenly and will give both sides a fair hearing in the debate about global warming/climate change. Mike, BTW, is FULLY on board the global warming band wagon, as are his pals; they just wanted to point out that some claims are not well supported and are going too far; that’s all.
But we streetwise folk remember the words of Seattle’s Queensryche, 1989:
Balanced media coverage on climate? Telling the public in large fonts about the “puzzling hiatus” in global warming over the past 15 years or so, as it was termed in Science recently?
Not gonna happen in these polarized days of the shifting polar vortex, as the latter has always done from time to time.
Let’s look ahead in weather to see if any other extreme weather news sits before us in the models. Then imagine how it might be covered by the media.
Below, from our best model, and from late yesterday’s global data, something awesome has shown up and its been showing up for a few model runs of late, giving it enhanced credibility:
A GIGANTIC and terribly severe mass of cold air is foretold to extrude into most of the US from the Arctic in about 8-10 days. NOAA spaghetti plots VERY supportive of this very bad cold wave). Below, the awesome and annotated in excitment sea level map from NOAA WRF-GFS based on the global data crunch at 5 PM AST yesterday:
Valid at 5 PM AST, February 28th, only nine days away! Arizona still toasty. Word deliberately misspelled here to see if you’re paying attention, one of the many innovations here at cloud-maven.
So, how will another astounding round of cold air be treated by the media, and certain incautious scientists? Let us imagine newspaper headlines on March 1st, 2014:
“Globally-warmed polar vortex squeezed out of Arctic again onto International Falls, MN!
“Numerous low temperature records set yet again against the backdrop of a warming world!”
Later in the stories we might read:
“Demographic experts warn that If the earth warms anymore, and winters continue to be more and more severe in the US, illegal migration will be INTO Mexico, not out of it.”
Or…..
“Citrus growers to move crops to southern Mexico and central America to escape the warmer world of more severe winters.”
———————–End of imagination module—————
What in the cards for Catalina weather in early March?
Still looks pretty good, better than 50-50 IMO, for measurable rain here in Catalina during the first week in March. See below:
Valid at 5 PM AST March 1st. Green areas denote regions where the model thinks it has rained during the prior 12 h. Really bad cold wave in progress in eastern half of US. Will Lake Superior ice over?
The End.
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1Shouldn’t be taken as fact, just an assertion at this time, a hypothesis waiting for confirmation.
2From the concept album about drug mind control, “Operation: Mindcrime”, released in 1989 when the writer was quite the lefty. But then I heard that NPR interview with David Horowitz and Peter Collier, former editors of the rad lib Ramparts Mag in the 1960s and 70s and how they had come around over about a ten year period to be able to vote for Ronnie Reagan and I went, “Huh?” “How is that possible?” It would be like Bob Dylan singing songs about being “saved” in the Christian sense. Not even imaginable.
