Rain 1 for November

Here are the surprising totals from the Pima County Alert gauges.  Mt. Lemmon received 0.31 inches from last night’s little rain!  And most gauges, except the ones in Catalina, got measurable rain.  Very nice NWS radar-derived rain graphic here (and below), something that shows we probably got a sprinkle here in Catalina.  (Trace detector was not parked outside last night, a huge oversight caused by too much football on TEEVEE.)

Rain totals from 6 PM to just after 4 AM AST last night. Note how rain streamer just missed us to the east.
Rain totals from 6 PM to just after 4 AM AST last night. Note how rain streamer just missed us to the east.

Some residual clouds are around and likely will provide some nice sunrise shots, but the rain possibility is over for now.

2:27 PM
2:27 PM.  Altocumulus perlucidus
3:49 PM.
3:49 PM.  Altocumulus, getting fatter here, tending toward castellanus and floccus (tiny Cumulus clouds)
5:41.
5:41 PM.  Altocumulus castellanus clouds getting bigger yet, pretending not to be doing anything.  No virga showing here, but some was beginning to show up on the extreme SW horizon at dark, as clouds began to fill in toward the S through SW.  The appearance of virga would mean that the cloud tops were higher and colder than are seen here.

Next chance for rain is late tomorrow afternoon through overnight tomorrow as clouds fill in late in the day.  US mods have backed off rain here, while our Canadian friends with their mod still have some (shown here) as they have calculated a deeper trough;  more strength and amplitude (more of an extension to the south of us).  However, its a marginal situation and the most that can fall here in Catalina in “Rain 2” would be less than a tenth of an inch.

Way ahead….

Some mod runs still have decent storms affecting Arizona in the 9 to 13 day period, 12th and 17th of November, to be specific, from last evening’s 11 PM run.  Not good to be too specific at that forecast range as you know.

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.