Gorgeous day yesterday with lots of…Altocumulus opacus with castellanus clouds here and there. But you knew what kind of cloud those were already. And our upper trough and clouds situation closed out overnight with a decent 0.23 inches of rain here in Catalina. “Nice”, since it wasn’t a sure thing that we’d even get rain when the tropical plume from former hurricane Kenneth (R.I.P.) was slipping by to our SE across Douglas, AZ and into NM. Dang. So, it WAS a 24 h to be thankful for.
There was also, ever so briefly yesterday, the “flying saucer” cloud, an Altocumulus lenticularis, apparently hovering above but really a bit downwind of the Catalina Mountains. This photo is one of the better of that cloud variety I have taken. Also, while it may LOOK like its hovering over Samaniego Peak, its really quite a ways downwind from there. You’ll see that in the U of A time lapse movie for yesterday here. It appears about one minute into the movie, or just after 9AM if you can read the time signature in the lower right hand corner. Lenticular clouds usually form when the winds aloft are quite strong, and the air at the level of the cloud is “stable”, resists moving up and down so you get laminar flow instead of turrets and bumps on the top. Below a couple of other shots characterizing the day.
Ahead? A LONG dry spell. Dang#2.
The End.
