Near miss on rain; pretty clouds and a nice sunset

Here are a couple of scenes from pretty yesterday, a day that the phony numerical models had rain predicted for us one to two weeks in advance, and then dried that system out as far as we here in Catalina are concerned as the days got closer.  This happens all the time in the models, so you would think I would develop a tough skin to these repeated disappointments, but I haven’t.  Oh, photos.  Here they are-the middle panel having a nice pancake-like stack of Altocumulus lenticularis clouds northeast of Charouleau Gap:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what was the missing ingredient? Well, the core of the jet stream at around 18,000 feet above sea level, what we call the 500 millibar pressure level as well, stayed just to the north of us. If you have read this blog, you know that the core at 500 mb has to be over or to the south of us and that didn’t happen. Its a necessary condition in the cool season here, but not always sufficient. Shown below is last evening’s 500 mb map, courtesy of the University of Washington with station plots and infrared satellite imagery. Those two flags and a wind barb for our Flagstaff balloon site (“rawinsonde” site) shows that the core of the jet stream was just about right over Flagstaff at that time, and the wind was over 120 mph (105 knots)! Note that the wind at the same pressure height on this map is “only” 65 knots over Tucson.  By this morning, that core had settled a little more southward to between Albuquerquequeque and El Paso, and along with that the precip shifted a bit south as well.  Darn, had this happened 12 h earlier we likely would have gotten a small amount of rain.

If you look at a loop of the radar echoes during the late afternoon and overnight from IPS Meteostar, you will see that the precip is confined to near that jet stream location and northward.

Shown on the Washington Huskies loop is another powerful storm about to strike the West Coast.  THIS one WILL bring the jet stream core south of us as it passes over on Monday night-Tuesday morning, the 23rd-24th, and circumscribed inside that jet stream core will be moisture and clouds low enough to produce at least scattered showers, and may a nice rain band of a few hours duration.  So, maybe the rest of January won’t end up as rainless after all.

The best thing about this next trough is that it gets stuck as a cut off over west Texas and causes quite a bit of rain there in that drought stricken region for a couple of days.  Might have to drive over there and see how happy the people of west and central Texas are when the rains begin.

Don’t want to end this session without a long distance model teaser, “big storm” from IPS METEOSTAR as shown here valid on February 3rd at 5 PM AST.  Note how it resembles once again our early winter pattern of the isolated cut off upper low.  Hmmmm.   Maybe there will be something to this one because of this winter’s theme song of cut offs.

 

The End.

Looking ahead to February…to keep rain in the Catalina future

Forgetting about that rain foretold in the models sometime in a January 21st-23rd window there for awhile,  there might be a big storm at the start of February!

Trying to distract you from that earlier though of rain in just a few days because now the models think the core of the jet stream and rain/precip with it will only affect the northern portions of the State of AZ.  The last few runs have been COMPLETELY dry here and so going into a funk.

But, “hay”, look below at this dreamy (read, probably “unreliable”) output for February 1st at 11 PM LST (whole sequence here, click on 06 Z run time)!

Oh, well, its the best I can do to talk about rain/snow in Catalina now.   Sometimes its tough being a precipomaniac in a desert.

Clouds?  With the jet streaming near us, but to the north, we should see lots of nice cirrus-ee sunsets and sunrises from time to time over the next few days.  That will help any funk.

The End.

 

 

A Stratocumulus Monday

Yesterday gave us “Catalonians” the perfect example of Stratocumulus clouds.   But why didn’t it rain from those dark clouds, save a few drops, maybe even a brief drizzle episode that mostly moved across Saddlebrooke around 9 AM?

Those Stratocumulus clouds were GENERALLY not cold enough at cloud top to have ice crystals form in them.   There were some very light showers, mostly east of us during the day, and THOSE clouds got cold enough at cloud top to have ice form in them.

How cold does a cloud top need to be in Arizona for ice to form in it?

Around 15 F (-10 C).

Here’s the TUS  5 AM AST sounding for yesterday from the Weather Cowboys at the University of Wyoming showing the tops are right around that (normal) ice-forming limit.  Where the lines split apart is close to where the cloud tops are, and the temperature lines slant downward to the left.

You may have also noticed that the clouds got markedly shallower here after about 3 PM, noticeable in the U of A movie after 3:30 PM AST.  That was also close to the time an upper level trough and the accompanying slight wind shift occurred.  To the rear of the trough, there is always a piston of downward moving, drier air that’s going to squash cloud tops.  By the evening TUS sounding, cloud tops were barely below freezing.

Some cloud shots from yesterday’s overcast:

Sharp-eye folks will detect a sprinkle over Charouleau Gap

The weather ahead

Still looking for rain here on the 22-23rd, HOWEVER, the last two model runs confined the rain to N of us! Not good.

Nor Cal rains/flooding episode begins overnight as a series of semi-tropical storms strike the coast.

Wish I could be there for surf and on the turf there, but I have my blog audience to think about. I don’t want to let both of them down by being gone for the 10 days of this great storm series, exploring the rain intensities in the coastal ranges of Cal.  Oh, well.

Still think total rains in the best coastal mountain spots over the next ten days will be 30 inches or more, actually not terribly unusual in the King Range and similarly exposed sites.

Twice as nice; 0.53 inches in Catalina (0.58 inches as of 6:39 AM AST)

What a superb rain that was last night.   It just kept coming until finally we piled up an astounding-to-me 0.53 inches by 4 AM this morning.  The regional rain reports from around Tucson can be found here.  As you will see, the upper regions of the Catalina Mountains got around an inch (1.22 inches at CDO wash at Coronado Camp now).  Mt. Lemmon probably got a little more, but the record says “0.00” due to snow at that elevation.  This is a substantial boost for our emerging spring desert vegetation after our four week drought.  This is so much better than that near rainless January of last year!  Looking at some of the statewide precip reports, it looks like the Catalina area and the Cat Mountains got more than anywhere else.  Lucky us.

If you would like to relive yesterday, at least in clouds, go here to the U of AZ time lapse.  One of the things you will see later in the day are Altocumulus lenticularis clouds over the Catalinas.  You will see their upwind edges spurt upwind (seem to go the “wrong way”, against the wind) as the lifted air got more moist, one of the tricks that these clouds can pull.  You will see quite a panoply of clouds in this movie, from Stratocumulus, Altocumulus, Altostratus (dead gray and smooth higher layer), Nimbostratus (when the rains come) along with some mammatus formations.  Hmmmph.   There’s that “m-word” again, the one I used so many times yesterday.  Wonder what’s going on?

“But wait, there’s more!”  

If you call now (well, actually if you continue reading) you’ll find that a few more hundredths of rain are possible this morning before about 8 AM AST, AND, (We interrupt this blog for an important message: “hey”, just started raining again now at 5:03 AM!  Yay!)

all of the model runs are indicating rain again on the 22-23rd timeframe; even the “pernicious” 00 Z run from the 5 PM AST global data.   (I have questioned that output of late, rationally or irrationally,  because it kept drying the State of Arizona out whilst the model runs before and after that time, foresaw precip in spades in the State.

Here is a sample of the IPS Meteostar renderings of what happens in our rain window of the 22-23rd according to our latest model run, one from 11 PM AST data.  Note green areas of precip in the 6 h ending at 5 AM AST, Jan 23rd.  This is pretty satisfying since another good rain will keep us on track for a great spring bloom.

On other fronts…

While I could go on to talk about all sorts of things due to the ambiguity of the subtitle phrasing above, I will actually only talk about weather fronts, not this or that. 

The coming floods in northern Cal-Oregon still on track.  Storms break through from the Pacific “under” the Bering Sea “blocking” high, one that diverts the potent Asian jet stream that comes into the Pacific into two branches, one of which is forced southeastward in the central Pacific where water temperatures are warm.  (Just heard some rain on the roof again.  What a nice sound that is!)  The other branch goes deep into the Arctic and merges with the southern branch in the eastern Pacific after it turns southward over AK.

Those warmer storms, heavy with semi-tropical rain clouds, race to the West Coast once the southern jet breaks through the weakening southern part of the blocking high.  And once that jet stream has broken through, its days before things change, so the duration of rain adds to the colossal totals certain to occur now. In a ten day span, beginning tomorrow, the peak totals in this event will likely exceed 30 inches of rain.

Here is the current weather map (5 AM AST today) from the University of Washington that illustrates the odd flow pattern developing now from the central Pacific to the western US.  The block  is developing from a ridge in the eastern Pacific now (evidenced by the lack of green contours in it) that extends from the tropics all the way to the Bering Sea!  It will fracture in its southern portion tomorrow.  It has overextended its “reach”,  in a manner of speaking, at this point, and will fail just like a dam break and all those clouds to the west of it will flood eastward.  Its a pretty exciting thing for us precipophiles.

 

 

Canadian behemoth

One particularly bruising storm, one the size of Asia practically, with “tentacles” from the Aleutian Islands to Minnesota, was shown to develop in this series of storms battering the West Coast in the European model run by Environment Canada based on last night’s data.

I show this output below because you RARELY see a low whose circulation is this big, at least one of the biggest I have ever seen, portrayed on a weather map (upper right panel).  The map below showing this colossal low is valid for the evening of Jan. 21st.  The entire West Coast would be battered by this bruiser.

The End.

 

 

Pretty and eerie skies yesterday; let the rain begin today

Here are some examples from yesterday’s pretty, then toward evening, eerie skies with sprinkles, the latter due to backlit Altostratus opacus mammatus, to go the whole nine yards, an icy cloud with downward hanging protuberances that resemble something.  I’ve reduced the size of that image accordingly.  Below, in sequence, 1) Cirrus, 2) Altocumulus, 3) the incoming bank of Altocumulus with Altostratus clouds on the horizon late yesterday afternoon, ones with virga and mammatus; 4) the mix of Altostratus with virga and mammatus with Altocumulus after it got here, and finally, 5) that eerie scene last evening of what I would surmise was a sunset colored layer of Cirrus above the Altostratus clouds with mammatus that gave the Altostratus an orangish tint.   I seem to be thinking a lot about mammatus formations today.   Hmmmmm.  Oh, well the CLOUDS were nice, and I guess you might say, our official cloud names a little suggestive.  For the full fascinating day, go here to our great U of A time lapse movie for yesterday.

All of these clouds are emanating out of and around a low that a week ago, in the models, was supposed to have already gone by.  Well, what’s left of it finally goes over us today, kicked out of place by a quite rudely interjecting jet around a cold trough in the NE Pacific and over the Pacific Northwest.

Here is a satellite loop from the University of Washington showing those clouds that went across yesterday and those similar versions that will be crossing our Catalina skies today, ones that are coming deep out of the tropics.  You’ll want to crank up the speed button to really see what’s going, at the upper left of this loop.  The mods have been seeing a bit more moisture with this upper level low  (doesn’t show up on the surface maps at all) as time has passed and so maybe we can wring as much as a quarter inch out of it.  Here’s what the U of A Beowulf Cluster has to say about the incoming rain amounts.  These amounts, up to an inch in the mountains, would be fantastic and very satisfying considering the long dry spell.  The best chance of rain is overnight, so we’ll have lots of pretty clouds, probably a lot like yesterday, during the day before the really thick stuff moves in.

 

The ominous aspect, though VERY exciting to us stormophiles, is, when you review that satellite loop from the Washington Huskies Weather Department, is the accumulation of clouds and storms in a long belt just north of the Hawaiian Islands.  Take a look!  In just a couple of days, those clouds and storms will begin streaming toward the West Coast like a dam breaking, impacting most heavily, northern California and Oregon with tremendous rains.  You will certainly read about those rains!  From experience, I can tell you that the most favorable mountain sites for rain will likely receive 20-30 inches of rain in just a few days as this pattern develops and matures with one strong low center after another racing across the lower latitudes of the Pacific under the soft underbelly of a blocking high in the Bering Sea.

Man, I want to be in the King Range/Shelter Cove area so bad!  Let’s see, fly to SFO now, rent four wheel drive vehicle for forest back roads in the King Range, bring rain gauge, sleeping bag, tent for camping out and listening to 1 inch per hour rain intensity on tent roof.   Hmmm…..  Its doable.  Maybe all of us should go there today, get set up, and then wait for those pounding rains with 50 mph plus winds.  That would be great!

And the ocean waves will be something to see, too, along the Oregon and northern California coasts, thundering surf really.    Been there, seen it.  And believe or not, there are surfers who come to the West Coast for just these situations, the long tropical fetch that generates huge waves.  And there is even a small cadre of folks who race to the coast just to see that thunderous surf.  All very exciting.  Well, kind of getting distracted here, and a little nostalgic.  Those big rollers would look something like this.

 Also, since I have doubtlessly piqued your curiosity about Shelter Cove and the King Range, below a shot of the King Range from Shelter Cove, a shot in the King Range, looking toward the highest peaks, and finally, an example of the people of Shelter Cove.

Now, where was I concerning Catalina?  Oh, yeah, mods have more rain ahead, though we’re only sideswiped by the powerful storms affecting Shelter Cove.  Best chance for the next rain is on the 21-22nd.

In sum, today’s focus, or more accurately, preoccupations?  Mammatus and Shelter Cove, CA.

The End.








 




Dust settling rain on way, but not much more right away

Good morning to the both of you who reads this blog.  Expect 0.10 inches or less Sunday night.  Clouds?  This is going to be a great photogenic day, both today and tomorrow as delicate patterns of high and middle clouds race over us in advance of this little system carried by those increasing winds aloft.  Charge your camera batteries!

Model harrangue, northern Cal flood ahead, surfer note

Mods behaving well today except for the truculent 00 Z run of the USA WRF-GFS one, one that in this arthur’s opinion, has a “WARM BIAS” in that run.   For some reason, and I am more inclined now to REALLY think it is due to a “bad balloon” somewhere WAY upwind, the warmth over Arizona and the whole friggin’ West Coast is enhanced on that 00 Z run from earlier and later model runs.   The jet stream on the 00 Z runs shifts northward that bit as the warmth increases over us.

But then, in a model updated run just 6 h later, it is gone, the atmosphere gets that bit colder, the jet stream that bit farther S, and things stay that way in the 12 Z and 18 Z runs.

What this means for rain and such here is that lately the 00 Z model run takes future rain away, rain that has been on other model runs before that one.  But then it comes back again.   I am mainly referring to rain predicted beyond 7 days.   I have not yet discerned a lessening of rain for those events in the immediate future.

OK this is clearly more than you or maybe anyone wants to know, but I would, if I were you, pooh-pooh the 00 Z run and look at the ones around that time for chances of rain here beyond a week or so.  OK, that’s my hypothesis.

Here are examples of model outputs from two different runs, again from the folks at IPS Meteostar, comparing the output from last night’s 00 Z run with the one that came afterward at 06 Z.   The first two panels are the only ones beyond this next Monday that have ANY rain in AZ in the 15 days ahead of today.  Unless you have a microscope trained on these images, you’ll have to click on them (does same thing as a microscope) to see those itty bitty patches of green representing an area where rain is supposed to have fallen in the prior 6 h, ending at map time.  Gee, hope you got that.

Below these two “bad” ones from the 00 Z run, are two “good” images for about the same time as those first shown.

Look at all the AZ green now!  These are great predictions for lots of precip in AZ in 10 days or so.  It even takes longer for the rain to move on from AZ, hence, why I show four panels of precip below.

This is goofy, shouldn’t happen, but it is and I don’t REALLY know why, but of late that AZ drying in the 00Z run has been happening pretty regularly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Floody Oregon and northern California still ahead beginning on Tuesday

For storm chasers, a really nice place to be would be, say, Shelter Cove, CA, and somewhere in the King Range just north of there.  The mountains rise up from the seashore to over 4,000 feet and face the southwest.  In these situations, ones where the Pac jet breaks through  under a big blocking high in the Gulf of Alaska, something that will begin on Tuesday, rains of over 10 inches a day are pretty common.

Surfer note:  Expect giant waves as well along northern Cal and Oregon coasts after about Wednesday.  Here they come!

 

Models warming up to rain; some cloud shots from yesterday


Been kind of sitting around waiting for the billions/trillions of numerical model calculations to get it “right”, that is, to come back with some decent rain SOMEWHERE in Arizona after some pretty sad  dry model results over the past couple of days.

Today,  the great USA WRF-GFS model (rendered by IPS Meteostar) finally got it “right” by showing rain over Arizona on at least three days during the next 15 when it examined global data from this morning balloon, satellite, surface, aircraft, personal weather stations, rumors, TEEVEE weather presenters’ data, etc.   Here are the days on which rain is shown in our great state, a state that ranks 21st in objective measures of subjective happiness by US State.  The first rain is just this Sunday afternoon and evening, the 15th.  Be ready.   This is from the cutoff that got lost off the coast of Baja, one that was a week ago the models foretold that it was supposed to be over Catalina today!  Unbelievable.  It was only off by a 1000 miles.

The second AZ rain day is Saturday night into Sunday, the 21st-22nd.  This rain is only supposed to stay north of about Phoenix.  That’s OK.  That’s followed by a much heavier burst of precip on the night of the 23-24th, again mostly north of us (3rd panel).  That’s OK#2.  We benefit when the rain and snow falls in the north, too.

Lots to look forward to!

BTW, when that Pac jet slams the West Coast from the central Pacific, starting next Tuesday afternoon, it will cause a lot of excitement for weatherfolk and plain folk as floods develop over the following few days in northern California and Oregon.  In some places in northern California it has been as dry as the Great Drought of 1976-77, which was dang dry along the whole Pac coast.  They’ll soon be “exulting-complaining” about all the rain filling up the reservoirs and washing things away, respectively.  Watch your local newspapers.

 Yesterday’s clouds (see below)

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What a great, if a cool day it was, to watch Altocumulus and Altostratus pass by. There were a number of places where it looked like an aircraft may have created some virga in supercooled Altocumulus clouds, but lots of natural mammatus type virga, too. You can see the whole day go by from the U of A campus time lapse camera, pointed at the Catalina Mountains, here.  That small hole in  the middle shot was likely caused by an aircraft, the ice from that passage, long gone.  And, of course, there was the superb sunset!  How nice it is to be here.

While waiting for a “better” numerical model output….

As we say, “if you don’t like the model run now, wait 6 h and get a new one with different results.”

Last night’s model run based on global data taken at 5 PM Arizona time, was truly mediocre in rain in Arizona in the week to two weeks ahead.  Sure, great storms bash northern California, where they need rain desperately this year, and Washington and Oregon as well, ones that are likely to make the news, the jet stream was again retracted to the north in that run.  Take a look at this, courtesy of IPS Meteostar for Sunday, January 22nd and notice where the reddish area is compared to the output I showed yesterday (below).  The impacting jet stream is now centered over Portland, Oregon, fer Pete’s Sake!  Its outrageous.  No rain is imminent here with a map like that!  We’re on the wrong side of the jet stream as anyone can see.  Just yesterday, we had the kind of output from global observations that showed the Pacific jet stream (JS), this on model calculations from only six hours earlier than the output shown in the first panel.  As you can see, in that slightly earlier run, the JS is shown bursting into California at almost the exact same time on January 22nd instead of into Oregon.  That second panel was loaded with rainy portent for Arizona (see last panel)!   So, its worth checking into IPS Meteostar, a weather provider I favor for their nice imageries, later today to see what the 5 AM AZ Time global obs say.

Why do these fluctuations occur that prevent confidence in weather predictions more than a few days out?  Well, we have a reason:  “bad balloon.”  (Or “missing balloon.”)

While small changes in initial conditions in themselves can cause vast changes in model outputs many days ahead, sometimes these problems are caused by errors in measurements and probably more often, missing measurements in the global network.   The models then have to guess what is happening in the missing data regions, usually with the help of satellite measurements, and/or use the prior model run’s prediction of what was supposed to be in the missing region.

I am getting the impression that the quality of the 00 Z runs are not as high in reliability 1-2 weeks in advance as those at 12 Z.

In the meantime, while waiting for a new more better model run, a word about today’s clouds…

Right now (8:44 AM AST) we have an overcast layer of Altocumulus (Ac) with patches of Altostratus (As) clouds. The former are mostly composed of droplets while the latter are ice clouds. The TUS sounding indicates that the Ac layer is based at -20 C (-4 F). Those Ac clouds are ultraripe for aircraft produced ice, and right this minute, I would say that much of the virga around is due to aircraft on those “supercooled” clouds. This is particularly evident if you see straight lines of virga, or a hole with ice in it. Here’s a line of virga (those downward hanging protuberances called “mammatus”, to the SW of Catalina right now that looks suspiciously like it may have been produced by the passage of an aircraft through some Ac.  That passage would cause tremendous numbers of ice crystals to form, and then fall out as fine snow we call virga.

Roar of the jet

But where will it be?  While our little baby low center spins and almost dies before it gets here on Sunday-Monday with only the possibility of a few brief light showers now, the bigger question is where exactly will the jet stream break through and slam the Pac coast in about a week?   The model runs have been jerking that West Coast location around, but HAVE  been shifting it southward in the past 36 h of runs (hmmm, doesn’t sound good)  to the point where, in some results, Pac storms riding this roaring Pacific jet stream are far enough south to impact Arizona in a major way.  Take a look at these various predictions of where the “breakthrough” jet strikes the Pac coast, the first one from yesterday morning’s model run, and which I was just beside myself at how far south it was impacting the West Coast. In a day or so, major precip moves into Arizona, even our area (second panel). This was not the case in the model run just 6 h before this one.  Finally, the next model run just 6 h later, based on data taken at 11 AM LST, even MORE rain was predicted in AZ, and a substantial rain here.  Look at the 3rd panel and that darker green region over us! I was so energized!

I think you can tell, given the background of model eractic-ness, where this is going.  Its now like a Hallmark movie where everything seems to be just fine in the beginning, but then there’s the problem phase in the middle that must be resolved, followed by the satisfying ending where everything is fine.

Well, after these model runs below, we have entered the problem phase of our “movie” since the very latest model run, from last night at 11 PM LST, had no precip whatsoever in Arizona and the Pac jet slamming the coast much farther north again when it breaks through in a week or so.   If you read this blog, you will know that to get winter rain in AZ, you must have the jet stream wind maximum over or to the south of your location.  This is also true of most of the interior of the Southwest in winter.

I say to HELL with last night’s model run!  Not even going to show it.  It is true that the La Nina Southwest Rain Repeller, will try to do exactly that, push jet streams coming into the West Coast farther north.   The Climate Prediction Center  (“expert assessments”) further alleges, based on many different models, that the La Nina will even strengthen in January, and will likely persist all spring.  So, the tendency to push our incoming Pac jet streams north will always be there from here on out, dammitall.  So, you have to give, in spite of my cussing, the model output that showed no rain from last night credibility; that we will only be dry, and maybe a bit windy at times as storms skirt Arizona in the 1-2 week period from now.

But does an La Nina always “win” in pushing storms to the north in the late winter and spring?  Not only no, but HELL no, to cuss that bit more.  The presence of a La Nina, while tending to produce dry conditions, is not all powerful and wet conditions can occur in some La Nina years.

Idle speculation:   One wild card out there is that in the very La Nina-El Nino region where the water is cooler today than normal (about 1 degree C) there has been a persistent region of clouds and convection, quite contrary to expectations.  Its been feeding heat and moisture into the mid-latitudes since November and remains in that region, shifting very slowly eastward.  The CPC did not mention this feature in their global ocean expert assessments for some reason, though a giant blob of colder than normal cloud top temperatures is quite evident from this feature in their plots.   But what does it mean?   I don’t know.  But, since this anomaly (SE of the Hawaiian Islands near the Equator) is acting, in fact, like a little El Nino was present, perhaps it will lead to a less dominant La Nina drought tendency here.

You can see this anomaly here, in the University of Washington’s 24 h satellite loop for the western northern hemisphere.  (Hit the higher loop speed button for a nicer presentation, on the left side.)  The actual cloud producing region is about 1000 miles SE of HI now.  Quite nice.  You can see that it is also feeding clouds into our little baby low off southern California.

OK, REALLY idle speculation above.   But, based on only a gut feeling, I think the Pac jet slam will shift farther S again in model runs, and that AZ will benefit from the incoming storms and not be completely dry as the last model run showed from last night.  Recall, too, however, that I am biased toward precip, and feeling a little chastened by the disappointing run.

OK, enough!

   



OK to talk about a chance of rain again


With the New Year getting underway and all the excitement about the a possible economic rebound, I felt I couldn’t inform you that the model runs had gutted any chance of that rain here in Catalina in the next two weeks since the last post entitiled, “Return of the cutoffs followed by a Pac blast.”  I know you’re happy, too,  when you hear about a chance of rain in Arizona, and I would have made you feel bad after raising your hopes like that.

At that time, model outputs,  as far as the “Pac blast” went, were fluctuating wildly, but were at least consistent at that time showing a chance of a decent rain this Friday from a cutoff low dribbling down the West Coast.  That low was then supposed to “orbit” off Baja for a day or so, and then drift across southern Arizona and over my house, with rain with it.

Well, it ALL went away in subsequent model runs!

It was awful; I couldn’t bring myself to tell you about these dry forecasts, thus reversing myself and appearing to be wrong at the same time.

Perhaps I was being irresponsible as a weather discusser and I apologize.  No TEEVEE weather presenter would go silent for several days after telling you rainy things were on the horizon and then, with those days getting closer and the prediction changing to dry days ahead, not update you.

So, why didn’t I give you the bad news?

First of all, I didn’t want to hurt your feelings by saying something that wasn’t going to happen anymore, something you read here and counted on.  Perhaps I was being overly considerate.

And, also I remained silent because when the models have a great deal of “eracticity”, (i.e., huge fluctuations) such as they do with cutoffs, and certainly as they were having about where that Pac jet would bash the West Coast (would it be Juneau, AK or San Francisco?),  sometimes its best to “stay the course”  (hmmm, sounds like a political slogan).  Sometimes, when models fluctuate as they were, things resolve themselves in the direction that you are biased in (occurrences of rain), and YOUR OWN PRIOR FORECAST!  So its best to hang on (in silence).   ((That’s really what I was hoping for, to pull out an erroneous writeup at the last minute.))

And today is the day!  I can smile again, self esteem climbing that bit, because I can now present you with some chances of rain again.  I don’t even have to mention those awful dry, contrary model solutions (“solutions”, hah!) that would have made you sad.

Check these out from IPS Meteostar’s rendition of the WRF-GFS model run from just last night for this coming Sunday night, about 11 PM LST.  Note green blob in SE AZ!  (OK, the rain comes on Sunday not Friday as mentioned earlier, a mere forecasting peccadillo):

The “Pac blast ” (where the incoming jet stream impacts the West Coast has shifted southward again in this latest model run as seen below for Sunday afternoon, Jan 23rd,  in those reddish areas that denote the heart of the jet stream, shown over northern California.

As lows and waves accompanying that flow cruise into the Coast, some precip is shown in the northern third of AZ.  I think we can do “better” in the days ahead than just a tiny bit of precip north of Flagstaff a couple of times.  Hope so anyway.

The End.