..due to an absence of weather.
Distractions from disappointments; so many yesterday
Thought maybe a nice distraction from yesterday’s rain disappointment would be looking at some file boxes from the University of Washington’s Atmos. Sci. basement. This shot taken a couple of days ago.
Enjoy thinking about what might be in these boxes, and what you would do with the contents. Have some extra coffee, talk it over with friends, think about how much you might offer if one of these boxes was something on a quiz show, and you had one thing you knew what it was, but had to take your chances on what might be in one of these boxes1? Or if saw them in storage locker you were bidding on. How much? Lots of possibilities to think about.
———weather part——
You started to get a bad feeling about yesterday, in spite of the juicy clouds on Samaniego Ridge, bases around 15 C, extremely warm for AZ, meaning full of extra condensed water compared to our normal clouds, when the north wind began to blow, and the temperature was struggling to go beyond 80 F.
Usually, when the cloud bases are low, it doesn’t take a LOT of heating to power them up into Cumulonimbus (Cbs) clouds because the condensation itself releases heat. But struggling to reach 82-83 F here was just too little heat.
Late in the afternoon we did have a nice, if weak, Cb on the Cat Mountains (no thunder, of course, it was that weak). They did get half an inch on top of Mt. Lemmon and a couple of other places, so at least SOME rain fell near us.
And, not only did we have the “juice”, high amounts of water in the atmosphere over us, but also a nice cyclonic swirl passed overhead yesterday, too, something we normally look to cluster Cumulonimbus clouds into large groupings with major rains. From the U of WA, you can see it go by here.
To finish off thoughts of yesterday, some mood music to go along with those thoughts, I would like you to now hear covers of “pretty songs” by the Circle Jerks.
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Here are your clouds from yesterday, I know you’ll want to see them again, mope around some more about what could have been. We will begin our review of yesterday’s clouds with today’s morning rainbows:
No real chance of rain now for a few days. Oh, me.
The End.
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1Example of a quiz show where you bit on a mystery box if you want, or take the thing that’s offered in front of you.
A little rain overnight! 0.09 inches!
Let us first begin first by NOT exulting too much over our own rain, but let us revel in that rain that has fallen in the Plains. New Mexico, too. From WSI Intellicast this beauty for the past 7 days:
Below is our national drought status at the onset of the week above (for July 30, 2013), and indicates why so many of us should be thankful for this past weather week:
Here are some area-wide 24 h totals, ending now, from the Pima County Alert system.
Yesterday’s clouds
Well, they didn’t get so big, so soon over the Lemmon, as foretold by one model referred to yesterday, but there was something later in the afternoon near the top of Lemmon. Can you detect whether that the turret shown below is mostly “glaciated” or not? You know, that’s why I do this, to learn you up on clouds and when they got ice and therefore are precipitating out the bottom even though here you can’t see the bottom. It all for YOU. Its no problem for me, of course.
While to the uninitiated this Cumulonimbus capillatus anvil may have appeared to be heralding a storm, overspreading the Catalina sky the way it was, the lack of cumuliform portions, the fraying edges, not hard ones, indicated it was in its dying phase. Photo of anvil with metaphorical sign; yours for $2,000 (more than usual because some mental effort was expended). Now that I am thinking about money, I think I will demand a million dollars to continue blogging, and see what happens.
Nice sunrise this morning….
Another morning of remnant rains moving through right now, rather than the full blast. As usual, these clouds and rain showers are likely to be dissipating in the later morning before doing much.
Looks like one last day of possible big showers here….check this out from the U of AZ, 11 PM run (WRF-GFS mod).. Lets hope so, cuz its gonna be dry after this for a few days.
The End.
At the risk of repeating myself…
…says the sky on August 5th, referring to almost the exact same sky as on August 4th at this time. Also, both days had OCNL LTG (texting “occasional lightning” here in weatherspeak) off the to distant NE, unusual for this time of day. Even heard thunder this AM.
Below, which shot is from today, just now, and which boring shot of “stratiform” debris clouds from complexes of Cumulonimbus clouds that have dissipated instead of arriving here full strength boo-hoo is from yesterday?
So what’s the routine now? Gradual thinning with isolated showers, ones that also eventually disappear, followed by brighter skies, and growing of Cumulus clouds like desert weeds in July after the first rain. You’ll have noticed by this time that was a cloud scruff (Stratus fractus) on Ms. Lemmon today, indicating that the moisture is enhanced today over yesterday when the bases were appreciably above Ms. Lemmon. So, a better chance of rain, sans any model glimpses, but then since rain was very sparse yesterday, except for that 2 inches that fell in the mountains S of TUS yesterday afternoon (1.61 inches measured at the Florida Canyon Work Center), almost anything would be an enhancement of a rain chance here over yesterday so I have fudged some words here.
What happened to produce all these dense, morning clouds the past two days? Cloud gigantism in northern Mexico last evening and overnight. Must have had a TON of precip in these complexes that just exploded down there, inches of rain no doubt fell. Sure wish we had some reports under these magnificent blow ups. There are quite a few rain measuring stations in Mexico, but that data is not available from remote areas until they’re published. Here’s a view of last night’s Mexican eruption from IPS Meteostar.
!! PM AST U of AZ mod has rain “on the mountain” (the Catalina ones) by 3 PM AST, and, like yesterday strong storms to the south of us heading this way. But, like yesterday afternoons showers down thataway, they don’t make it here, the model reports. You can do the loop for precip here in their rendition of the WRF-GFS mod. Hoping Mr. Leuthold, our U of AZ expert, will shed further light on this when he reports here today between 10 and 11 AM. In the meantime, I am sure convection expert, Bob (Maddox), will have something to say before then.
Not looking that great for a juicy August rain season here in Catalina Sutherland Heights…. Recall last year we had about 8 inches in July and August here, and at the end of August the mountains and grasses were SO green!
The End.
Pretty and tall Cumulus, early showers and thunder, but, alas, a rain dud here
“Alas”, now there’s a word to don’t see every day…probably a little stiff from laying around so long.
Those Cumulus that shot up over the Catalinas early yesterday morning were a magnificent sight, and so full of promise. And while thunder was heard here just after 11 AM here in Sutherland Heights-Catalina, the showers just did not get off the mountains around here as hoped, though there were a few big boys (or “gals”, to be gender neutral) around to the NW-N and down to the S-SW during the afternoon. Here are the Pima County ALERT totals for the past 24 h. Lemmon had a good drop of 1.46 inches; that’ll surely keep those mountain streams going. But as you will see, not much elsewhere. Just a trace here, our mode for this summer in Sutherland Heights-Catalina area it seems.
BTW, all available model outputs (U of AZ 11 PM run not available at this time) show fewer showers than yesterday, though to CM, it looks like a very similar day to yesterday in sat imagery and such1. So, it would seem we have a another day with a chance for a good rain in the afternoon or evening, about like yesterday when some showers did form off the mountains and could have landed on us. Besides, even without rain, it was a pretty day anyway. Its all great.
Here is yesterday’s cloud history with its early promise, ultimately only fulfilled only on the Catalinas around here:
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1BTW, if you want a really GREAT forecast by a true expert, rather than a “shoot from hip” kind of one that CM so often offers, you have to read what Bob has to say today when he posts it. U of AZ experts also often refer to his careful analyses.
2Here they sing about something we probably don’t want to happen to Catalina, Arizona.
Thunderheads cross border, enter Arizona again
Its not a motorcycle gang, though it would be a good name for one comprised of meteorologists. Don’t think that’s gonna happen.
If you were watching carefully, and you had no radar capability on your smart phone, you could have still detected the presence of clouds producing rain. Here’s what they looked like, in a kind of a washed out, low-contrast view toward the southern horizon. AZ mod didn’t have them there, so it was a nice surprise to see them. It suggests that the chances of scattered rain today, and rumbles from the The Lemmon, are pretty good. Model output from yesterday DID have that for today; rain on The Lemmon this afternoon into this evening, drifting northwestward onto the valley. Yay! Waxing rain gauge so that the first drops don’t stick in the dust covered collector part, but zoom down into the inner cylinder (the part that magnifies the amount collected so you can read hundredths). You don’t want any water molecules from those drops, “leaving the building” before they get in.
Here’s a photo of those thunderheads crossing the border yesterday afternoon:
Nice to see some Cumulus mediocris shading Mt. Lemmon, too.
And here it is, nine minutes later:
So, there are pretty much all of your clouds for yesterday. What more can I do?
The End
This just in: just when you think you can’t possibly do anymore, this sunrise;
See below for title
“Hot ‘n’ pretty”
And it was yesterday. But if I titled this blog page that, I would get people complaining that they weren’t looking for a cloud and weather report from the prior day. Still, “hot and pretty” it was with those small Cumulus shadows drifting across our Catalina mountains, the shadows ever changing like the patterns in a kaleidoscope. Can anyone tire of these views? I don’t see how.
This last photo shows a “cloud street”, an intermittent line of small Cumulus clouds,generated by either the Tucson Mountains, or maybe even as far south as from Kitt Peak. This line of clouds demonstrates that one of our best wind directions for rain is from the SW, as it was yesterday, and that was about the direction of movement for our those big rain cells on July 15-16th that drenched so much of the west slope of the Catalinas. This direction brings air that is moving upward due to the increasing height of the terrain north and northeast of us, and storms are not compromised by downslope flow as they were the day before when the wind rushed out of the north.
Many of you will want to know if I saw any ice from these clouds yesterday, to compare with your own notes. The answer is “no”, I did not see any. The sounding below shows why. Tops of the clouds were only about -5 C (23 F) and that’s too warm for ice to form in a cloud in Arizona–can happen over the oceans, or in clouds with real warm bases, but not here, not yesterday. Yesterday’s cloud bases were up around 12,000 feet above sea level, highest tops about 15,000 feet, so the thickest clouds in these photos were maybe 3,000 feet thick (1 km). See below.
July rain “factoid”:
Douglass, Arizona, has just passed the TEN inches mark for rain this month, a remarkable amount that is several inches over the prior record! Definitely have to get down there to see what TEN INCHES does to plant life there, maybe see some nice puddles, running streams, the whole great scenes of water in the desert. I think you should, too; get out of the house, experience some summer life out there, stop watching so much TV… :}
No rain likely here through the end of July. Boo-hoo.
A photogenic day, lots of action around, but not much rain here (0.01 inches)
Great rainshowers pummeled a few nearby areas yesterday; Horseshoe Bend just NE of Saddlebrooke, got 0.75 inches yesterday with another little pulse of water coming down the CDO later. But once again Nature bobbed a rainy apple in front of us, only to jerk it away, to mix metaphors royally. BTW, has there been a baby yet?
I wonder, too, if you saw in yesterday’s sad weather “play”, the colliding outflows NE of Saddlebrooke? Or the the ideal, dark, expansive, flat cloud base indicating a great updraft was feeding the rain shafts just to the north of us, ones that were propagating this way, riding the rain-cooled outflow racing toward Sutherland Heights, that wind shoving the air up as it pushed S, forming new clouds over it?
All this looked so promising to the non-cynical observer. As a meteorologist I was, of course, videoing these events to the north LONG before they happened since we often see this sequence develop to the north of us. But after you experience so many disappointments, as we have here in SH, you begin to expect bad no matter how promising they look at first. Its kind of like being a Cubs fan. You KNOW nothing good is going to come of the season. So that’s where I am now, pretty much like a hopeless Cubs (or a Seattle Mariners) fan.
Have, of course, in five summers, seen this happen before, that is, “The Great Dissipation”, when rain is but yards away, moving down from the N and then doesn’t make it. You probably have, too.
Part of the reason, maybe a large part, is that the wind rushing south from areas north of Saddlebrooke, and especially out of the Charoleau Gap, is going downhill. This means that the upward shove out of the rain shaft is being compromised by downslope motion at the ground. Often, in spite of this downslope motion at the ground, the upward shove is still enough to keep a respectable cloud base going, feeding more precip into the rain shafts that develop above. So, while there have been other situations where strength of the “incoming” is weakened, there was still an upward shove strong enough that we still get drenched.
But not yesterday.
The cloud bottoms/updrafts, necessary for new rain to form and reach here, broke up just as they arrived over Sutherland Heights, with one last gasp rain streamer, the end product of the last decent cloud base/updraft, landing only a mile or less away to the east before giving out completely. Man, that was tough to see.
Here’s a photo diary for yesterday, which, BTW, was one of the most photogenic summer days ever IMO (took around 300 shots (!), though part of that excess was because my camera malfunctioning and had to repeat many):
Now to get through the dry, HOT few days ahead…. Will be tough.
However, take a look at this radar-derived precip map for the US for just the past 7 days, and just look at how the droughty areas of the SW and Plains States have been hit with tremendous rains during this period. So great to see so much, especially here in AZ and NM. From WSI:
The End
The Saddlebrooke mash down; 2.48 inches in under two hours! Flow in the CDO!
Still a chance, a small one for a shower today, before it dries out for a few days. Mods pretty sure about rain on the Cats this afternoon, which is good. Should be a very photogenic day, with nice shots of more isolated thunderblasters.
With that out of the way…let us reprise yesterday, the good and the bad.
Only 0.17 inches here in Sutherland Heights yesterday while Saddlebrooke was getting shafted, rain shafted, that is. Moore Road at La Cholla, over there, also got more than TWO inches yesterday afternoon. You can check the interesting amounts here and here.
Another near miss here at the house. May have to sell if this keeps up. July rain here in Sutherland Heights, now at only 2.87 inches (normal is 3.5 inches) while everywhere within radius of two miles has more, for example, about 3.5 inches already over there to the south on Trotter (just S of Golder Ranch Drive), and 4 or so inches in places in and around Saddlebrooke, almost within ear shot.
Here are the effects of more July rain than here; these shots from yesterday morning down in the Regional State Park next to Lago del Oro Road:
Continuing with vegetation shots after nostalgia break:
Also had a surge down the CDO wash. I know you like to see this, you love water, so here are two shots from yesterday afternoon after the Saddlebrooke mash down:
While the rain was a disappointment, all the other scenes yesterday caused more than 200 photos to be taken from it. Since I have termed myself, rightly or wrongly, as a “cloud maven”, I should show you ones I thought were exceptional, pretty and or dramatic. The first one, while I was looking forlornly at the Saddlebrooke cloudburst, “Why there, and not on me?”:
Here’s what rips your heart out, the big, smooth-looking base indicating a good updraft right overhead but nothing comes out. The giant drops, those ones that are the biggest ones in the cloud could be coming down, defeating the updraft that’s been holding them up there because they’ve gotten too big and heavy for it, and likeyly they were even were big hail stones or giant graupel particles (soft hail), and they’re up there. but the strands of those biggest drops begin to streaming downward just a mile away you see. First, you have some sky rage seeing those strands reach the ground just a mile away, your face reddening, but then, being by nature more contemplative, resign yourself to yet another miss as now the sky fills with dead looking debris cloud upstream of you, only producing light, steady “little baby” rain at best, rain that wouldn’t amount to that much, only might be important to a flying ant colony, but that’s about it. Heartbreak Hotel, right here, overhead yesterday, started thinking about moving on again:
Thought back, too, to all the promise, the propitious start to the day with those thunderheads, mimicking hydrogen bomb blasts, over the Mogollon Rim on the north horizon at 9:30 AM. As a cloud maven junior, you would been thinking, “THIS is going to be a special day today.” Here’s that distant scene, so fabulous to see, from Equestrian Trail Road:
Oh,well, you know the rest of the story. Still, there were so many great cloud scenes all day. I loved it overall.
The Lemmon cloud factory; smokin’ yesterday
The first t yesterday, from growing clouds topping Mt; Lemmon was at 9:30 AM, the earliest such event of the summer. Cumulus that grew immediately into Cumulonimbus clouds, then one cell after another in a continuous stream came off Mt Lemmon with no breaks in the dark bases above the spawning area. Had never seen that before. Usually there are breaks between cells, a brief clearing on even the most active days. And those cells really must have sprouted upward around 11:10 AM when, finally, a second blast of thunder occurred. After that grew much more frequent, and by early afternoon, it was almost continuous. Very exciting, as steady rain fell here.
Here in Catalina Sutherland Heights, we were the beneficiaries of the more stratiform (flat, dissipating) part of those Cumulonimbus that stayed rooted on the mountains. Those flat portions provided a more or less gentle rain amounting to 0.18 inches here. However, more than an inch fell in the Mt. Lemmon and Samaniego ALERT gauges. You can see more rain data here from the U of AZ rainlog. org home page. It is a certainty that some mountain sites got considerably more yesterday if you saw the repeated dense shafts of rain S of Samaniego Peak, where 1.10 inches fell. Guessing the peak (but non-measured total) was more like an 1.5 inches. This should recharge many of the normally dry creeks and streams on the Catalinas, and keep the green coming.
Another aspect, making yesterday one of the best visually pleasing days was the absence of haze and smoke. The sunlit Cumulus clouds that were forming away from the mountains and over Oro Valley were especially, pristinely white and gorgeous; took your breath away to see them piling up so high, and so purely, brilliantly white, so clean looking.
Here are some shots from yesterday, beginning with some “morning castellanus”, which were nice to see, too:
Today is supposed to be another early starter as well with rain on The Lemmon before noon, the model runs at the U of AZ from last night say. However, the longer term model runs indicate a break in the summer rain season for a few days after today. I guess that’s when our weather can be that bit unbearable here in July. Phooey.
The End