Pretty skies; pretty Cirrus

Here are some shots:

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Cirrus fibratus, straightish fibers of CIrrus lacking a tuft or hook at the top, in this case toward the left. For fussy folks who detect a slight hook, Cirrus uncinus would be OK, too. Not really too important to differentiate between these species. Just shows its moist up there, and, like yesterday, there was a trough going by;  air sliding up ahead of it, going down and clearing things off behind it (as happened late yesterday).
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Cirrus uncinus (tuft, center, with dangling strands of snow), something like the tops of deep storms on a rainy day. These little guys are also sometimes called “generating cells.” Vertically-pointed radars during storms show that those dangling strands of ice can make it all the way to the ground, the head, or cell, dozens of miles downwind by the time that happens since the wind is so strong at the tops of storms.
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Cirrus fibratus (foreground) and Cirrus spissatus where shading of the underside begins to occur in the distance.
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The rarely seen Cirrus castellanus, center, a cloud that can resemble the top of a Cumulonimbus calvus before it crumples back down into a flat fluff of ice.

 

The weather ahead

Tried to find some rain for you in the models, but only one had rain, and that was the low resolution (big grid spacing) Canadian GEM model posted here.  It had the  rainy panel (lower right) for SE Arizona calculated from last evening’s global data:

Valid for Wednesday morning, 5 AM, October 30th. The colored areas in the lower right panel are those ones where the model thinks it should have rained in the prior 12 h. Note heavier, red-blobs in AZ! How great would that be?
Valid for Wednesday morning, 5 AM, October 30th. The colored areas in the lower right panel are those ones where the model thinks it should have rained in the prior 12 h. Note heavier, red-blobs in AZ! How great would that be?  Again this rain is the result of a westerly trough grabbing the moisture out of a tropical storm off Baja, a very “iffy” situation, to quote a term oft used by the much honored, late atmos sci Professor Richard Reed of the U of WA1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, I am really learning about how much the WRF-GFS model likes to bring hurricanes and tropical storms into the Southwest.  Yesterday’s model run at 11 AM AST, had another doozie coming up the coast in two weeks still having tropical storm strength and its about to pounce on northern Baja, southern Cal, and maybe AZ.  Here is that depiction for your amusement, valid at 11 AM, Saturday NCAA football day, November 9th.

the stuff of dreams for Saturday, November 9th, 11 AM AST.

ann Sat November 9th 2013102418_CON_GFS_SFC_SLP_THK_PRECIP_WINDS_384

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The late Richard Reed, a man that did not mince his words. The nicest thing he ever said to me was, "Those guys have gotta be stopped."
The late Richard Reed, a man that did not mince his words. The nicest thing he ever said to me was, “Those guys have gotta be stopped.”

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.