In case you missed it last evening…. Don’t forget, too, that if you are standing in sunlight AND rain, that you are IN somebody’s rainbow. In fact, whereever the sunlight is hitting the rain is somebody’s rainbow. You can only see the one the laws of physics combined with drop sizes allow you to see. So, in a sense, the rain you standing in is brilliantly colored; you just can’t see it. Kind of cool, when you think about it.
Here’s the post mortem on yesterday.
First, morning Stratocumulus clouds topping Samaniego Ridge. 2) The occasional “sprout” of deeper Cumuli out of that mass.
But along with that, the Cumulus clouds elsewhere remained pretty flat (3), indicating there was something above the tops holding them back. That would be some sort of “stable” layer that would have to be overcome by more heating before any of these could surge upward farther and produce rain. Below, taken at 2:15 PM yesterday afternoon. With only occasional “sprouts” over the Catalinas that withered and died (4) instead of blowing up into thunderstorms, there was some reason for concern at this point. In fact, NOTHING sprung up over the Catalina mountains. Rain fell yesterday evening for a few hours, but we had to be “saved” from a dry day by a thundery mass, mostly the fading remnants of strong storms that marched westward from the White Mountains. The last photo, (5) shows that “stratiform” cloud mass (with Cumulus underneath it) that brought the steady light rain and rainbows. This photo was taken as the first drops began to fall.
Our rainfall was only 0.13 inches, but considering these masses often run out of rain before getting here, I was grateful for that.
