The “boys” are back in town; those Cumulonimbus ones

Who can forget “Thin Lizzzy”?   I guess everyone.    A reminder of their one hit below:

“Guess who just got back today?

Them wild-eyed boys that had been away

Haven’t changed, haven’t much to say
But man, I still think them cats are crazy”

After some English language deviations above, it was great to see for the past coupla days some of them fat Cumulonimbus clouds we been missing of late.  Lotta lightning, too, which was fun to see.  At this point, I would like to point out that some residents of Catalina habitually leave in summertime so’s that they don’t experience our storms, colorful sunrises, sunsets and warmth.  Such a pity, wouldn’t you say?  Some go off to the White Mountains to their second palaces and villas up there, but at least these weather refugees remain in our State where you could drive up to see them if you really wanted to.  Others go off to such far away weather refugee centers as….Colorado, Montana, New Hampshire (?, really inexplicable), etc., to escape our photogenic storms and sunsets.

Besides, they got smog back East, smog so bad you can barely see the blue sky overhead on a humid day, just the kind of day where interesting clouds might be around!  Its awful.  Here’s an example from a University of Washington field project in Virginia, the view from the ground and then on top during a research flight.  Ghastly!  Certainly this kind of thing extends all the way up to New Hampshire on humid days and you have to wait for a cold front (they get a lot of them up there) for the air to clear out.  Ugh!

Below is what we in Arizona see on a humid day; these from yesterday.  Of course, for some little climate babies, maybe the temperature is a little too high here for them (100 F yesterday).  I guess that is pretty high… But you can see 100 miles off in the distance as well!  Look at those (Code 4) rainshafts out there.  “Code 4”?  Nothing visible behind rainshaft.  This is so COOL!

You may have noticed a southwest wind picking up here in Catalina soon after this complex of rain and lightning appeared, and a bit of a ‘boob off to the southwest, marked by a dark line of dust just above the horizon.  That outflowing wind got here and gave a nice upward shove to the otherwise innocuous clouds over us.  Watch what happened to this moderate Cumulus cloud as the SW wind began to hit.  #4, rain begins to fall out, the best time to be underneath and experience the biggest drops or hail.

Well, it pretty  much missed us, only got 013 inches as this spread to the north some later.   But, it all helps.  Leafy desert vegetation looking stressed before the last two days of rain, now totaling 0.32 inches here in Cat land.

Lastly, since I have too many cloud photos here, a picture of a horse grazing on somebody’s weeds.   Hypothetically speaking, perhaps the owner is in New Hampshire (today’s location theme) and would want to know that her horse is being exercised even after I fell off the day before.

The End.

"Thar she blows"

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.