Perlucidus translucidus doesn’t get any better than this; neither does future weather

Let us begin today’s cloud lesson by examining the perfect example of Altocumulus perlucidus translucidus:

9:11 AM. I am sure many of you were exulting over being able to add such a grand example to your ,perlucidus collection. Quite satisfying.
9:11 AM. I am sure many of you were exulting over being able to add such a grand example to your perlucidus collection. Quite satisfying.
5:02 PM. That Ac perlucidus got a little exuberant, thickened up to lines of Ac opacus (dense gray lines in the distance, topped by Altostratus and Cirrus.
5:02 PM. That Ac perlucidus got a little exuberant, thickened up to lines of Ac opacus (dense gray lines in the distance, topped by Altostratus and Cirrus to make the scene pretty gray.  Kind of amazing how many gray days we’ve had in the midst of drought.
6:27 PM. The aforementioned clouds led to a nice pastel-ee sunset.
6:27 PM. The aforementioned clouds led to a nice pastel-ee sunset.

The rains of March

From NOAA’s WRF-GFS model run based on last evening’s global data, this beauty below.  A model cannot calculate more areas of rain and snow in, and west of the Rockies, than this one!  So, headin’ for a big change here in the West, as we deserve, after our AZ non-winter.  See caption for details.

Valid at 5 PM, March 22nd. The colored regions are those in which the model has calculated precipitation during the PRIOR 12 h.
Valid at 5 PM, March 22nd. The colored regions are those in which the model has calculated precipitation during the PRIOR 12 h.  Its way out there, and could be “March Model Madness”, but, odds are we WILL be seeing rain here in Catalina after mid-month when the jet pattern changes.  Rain also indicated here overnight on the 16th-17th, and a few isolated light showers around tomorrow afternoon and evening! “Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes”, as David Bowie might say, or was it The Who1 or both? Oh, well.  I like to leave you with something to think about all day.

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BTW, Science mag, in their tradition of catchy, amusing titles in their plain-language summaries of peer-reviewed technical articles that appear later, ones that are generally not comprehensible, used this The Who song excerpt when titling an article about the Argentine “tawny crazy ant” (I did NOT make that name up!) invasion now affecting the southern US:  “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss”, a title cribbed from the great The Who song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”  Feb 28th issue, p974.

BTW, its hard to write a sentence that sounds grammatically fluid and correct when writing about the works of the great The Who band.

Speaking of ants, I used to collect big red ants when I was a kid and try to transplant them into my back yard; kind of start a local big red ant invasion.  I thought you would like to know that about me.

The End.

By Art Rangno

Retiree from a group specializing in airborne measurements of clouds and aerosols at the University of Washington (Cloud and Aerosol Research Group). The projects in which I participated were in many countries; from the Arctic to Brazil, from the Marshall Islands to South Africa.