About real clouds, weather, cloud seeding and science autobio life stories by WMO consolation prize-winning meteorologist, Art Rangno
Storm-weary Catalinans prepare for more strong storms, cold, and storm weariness
Catalinans experienced a FOURTH cloudy day in a row, and, over the past few days, including yesterday’s few drops that fell at 4:24 PM, have experienced over an inch of rain!
Some grumbling has started concerning muddy, pot-holed and puddled up dirt roads, about the washes running across roads lately, water and mud splashing on the car day after day, and brutally low temperatures dipping to well below 50° degrees in the morning now for several days in a row. Its 40° F here as I write this.
While a brief respite is in progress now, Catalinans were discouraged to learn that more strong storms are due in this weekend, bringing possibly damaging winds and heavy rains that will augment the poor road conditions.
How much rain?
Let us look below and see how much has been calculated by our best model at the University of Arizona’s Wildcat Hydro and Atmos Sci Dept (I am so glad they provide this service; I donate to the Dept, as we all should!):
Precip totals by 8 PM, January 23rd after a few storms have gone by. As you can see lots of red and yelleows in Arizona’s critical mountain regions for snowpack, and we’re in the inch or so of rain, pretty much like the amount produced here by the last storm. What a January this is turning out to be!
Hah! We can’t complain too much about inclement weather compared to California’s pluvialities. Here is a table and map of precip amounts for that State through just the first 14 days. Prepare to gasp:
A map and table of the highest 20 rainfall totals in California and Nevada just through January 14th. Astounding! And 10-20 inches more are expected at some of these sites before the month is out. Yep, by Jan 14th, one station was closing in on 40 inches of rain!
The remarkable aspect of this rainfall anomaly on the West Coast and in the Southwest, which is also quite wet, is that it could not be seen in climate forecasts days to a couple of weeks in advance. Its not that the folks at the Climate Prediction Center aren’t the best that we can get, its just a statement about how hard it is to get a longer term forecast right. Many are right, but lately, recalling the “Big Niño Bust of 2015-16” where the forecasts of a wet Southwest and central and southern California went terribly awry, those forecasts have taken a beating. Here’s what was expected this winter by the CPC, first, for January, a forecast made on the last day of December. when the forecast models we use day to day would have had some influence:
The precipitation forecast for January 2017 by the CPC.
As can be seen, the extreme rains that hit California, and our own well above normal precip, though on the doorstep on December 31st, were unforeseen. That’s how tough it is.
Below, the forecast for January through March, also going astray, though a recovery could be had by a very dry Feb and March in Cal and the Southwest, something not likely to happen now.
Below, the forecast for the three month period of January through March, also now going astray.
Glad I’m not forecasting for a month or three months! Gads, yesterday we had ice galore here and there, and I had predicted that morning that it was doubtful that ice could form in our clouds yeserday and how about that rainbow yesterday afternoon, to change the subject quickly, but smoothly; hardly a ripple, something gleaned from the election debates:
4:59 PM. A rainbow, an implicit indicator of ice in clouds yesterday. There was a lot in some areas, particularly over the Catalinas in the late afternoon.
Some additional views, including a horse, which should increase web traffic:
Horse, muddy corral, and supporting rainbow evidence for why the corral is muddy. Horse “Chero-key”: “Why is that rainbow on my butt?”Rainbow empties into a NWS-style, 8-inch diameter rain gauge. Real weathermen have real rain gauges, not the cheap plastic toy types. Just kidding, CoCo and rainlog, orgs that use cheap plastic toy-type gauges. Just kidding again, CoCo and rainlog. orgs.5:09 PM. Here a completely different rainbow, because I moved a few feet, and the rain drops in the prior bows have fallen to the ground, empties into yet another 8-inch diameter rain gauge, a tipping bucket one which is online at KAZCATAL4. Its been under-measuring the rain, however, for some time.
OK, now for the rest of the day, your daily cloud diary:
8:09 AM. You got yer normal TUS exiting smog plume heading for Mark Albright’s house in Continental Ranch over there on the right. There is some Stratus fractus in that plume as well. The damp air has caused some of the hygroscopic particles to swell up; be deliquesced, which increases the opacity of smog. Such an effect is particularly bad on the East Coast ahead of cold fronts when warm, humid, smog-laden air is brought northward ahead of fronts. Gads, its awful. Even when the sky is cloudless, you can hardly tell its blue! Above the smog, Stratocumulus.9:36 AM. Had evidence of a little smog up thisaway, too. Again, the whitish haze is due to deliquesced partilces. As the air dries out and the day warms up, this effect disappears. even though the aerosol particles that were “deliquesced” are still around. The Five Satins, “Still Around.” Gads, that takes me back a-ways when I was 2 inches taller than now….10:10 AM. Smog plume, as sometimes happens, begins to drift northward as the mountains start launching Cumulus clouds and cause the wind to move toward them. Can’t say too much about the central cloud feature, a gesture of some kind it would appear.10:27 AM. Nice lighting scene I thought. Cumulus turrets were rocketing upward at this time.1:48 PM. Not much going on. Underlying Cumulus bases lifted, some Cumulus spreading out adding to the slightly higher general Stratocumulus deck. No ice around, as was forecast.3:02 PM. Something is going terribly WRONG with the anticipation of no ice producing clouds yesterday. Rain begins to fall on the Catalinas.3:20 PM. A totally humiliating, completely glaciated tiny Cumulonimbus remains breaks into view from the Stratocumulus deck. On the other hand. another fascinating day of ice multiplication here in Arizona! Look at that little guy, all ice, and tops almost certainly warmer than about -12° C from sounding data. This would mean that those 10s to hundreds per liter of ice that you’re looking at are needles and hollow column ice crystals called “sheaths.” Man, I wanted to sample that cloud so bad! What happened to cause this cloud was that at one point its top got a couple of degrees Celsius colder than the surrounding clouds that did not produce ice. Rain was reaching the ground at this time o er there even though it is in the dissipating stage, too.3:43 PM. In the meantime, the showers emitting from the clouds over the Catalinas were getting more enthusiastic (read, “personally insulting”). No doubt if you could get on top, they would have looked exactly like that dissipating Cb shown above.
But, then there were some great sun and lighting scenes in those showers, not to mention the brilliant rainbow that was to come:
4:47 PM. Its a little crazy, I know, but I just love these rainy, sunlit scenes on our mountains, or those sun and shadow scenes that I post so many of. Just never will get tired of them.4:51. More of same. Notice inclusion of man-sized rain gauge in foreground. Its a nice touch if you, too, have one, which I hope you do. It really says who you are.
The End
Thanks, if anyone is out there….
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.
Hi Art: reading your opening words, I was starting to think you were describing us here: Muddy roads and potholes ect. We’re finally getting out of this long cold SPELL (note: some people locally call it a “cold snap”, which isn’t true since it lasted for 6 weeks). Now we have mild temperatures (near 50F in the rain). Won’t take long and the buds on the bushes will be swelling and the snowdrop flowers will be rising out of the ground.
Hi, Roland,
Good to hear that a cold “snappell” is leaving–haha. SIX weeks is way too long for a “snap”, I have to agree.
Here the ground is just beginning to burst with green, which is so nice. We’re finally getting those El Niño rains we were promised last winter! haha, sort of.
Hi Art: reading your opening words, I was starting to think you were describing us here: Muddy roads and potholes ect. We’re finally getting out of this long cold SPELL (note: some people locally call it a “cold snap”, which isn’t true since it lasted for 6 weeks). Now we have mild temperatures (near 50F in the rain). Won’t take long and the buds on the bushes will be swelling and the snowdrop flowers will be rising out of the ground.
Hi, Roland,
Good to hear that a cold “snappell” is leaving–haha. SIX weeks is way too long for a “snap”, I have to agree.
Here the ground is just beginning to burst with green, which is so nice. We’re finally getting those El Niño rains we were promised last winter! haha, sort of.
a