The title it refers to a flood of water vapor that will cloak the entire State of Arizona, vapor that could condense here and there into a real flood; the “juice” up there, will be “loosed.” Daily rain totals somewhere in the State may rival any in the country for a few days. I am sure most of you know all about this. Let’s hope we get some! Clouds are topping the Catalinas this AM, always a good sign.
Had 0.73 inches here in Sutherland Heights; fell in two episodes during the day and evening yesterday. NE corner of Saddlebrooke really got pounded yesterday late; 1.73 inches at Horsehoe Bend. You can find a roundup of precip here from Pima County, and later, more reports from rainlog. org and CoCoRahs. Another inch fell on top of Ms. Lemmon, too, and 2 inches down there in the Guijas Mountains, just SW of us. It was a good day!
A side bar about golf litter…
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Since we have recently learned that Saddlebrooke golfers seem to run off immediately when sudden downpours and lightning daggers strike at them, leaving golf ball litter right there on the course, look for golf ball-sized golf balls in the CDO wash today. There were dozens of golf balls in the wash right here in Catalina the last time a big cloudburst hit Saddlebrooke. An example of that kind of litter, remaining from that day a couple of weeks ago, is still in the wash:
End of golfing topic side bar
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As you likely know, with dewpoints returning into the 60s, a tropical river of moist air is developing around the giant upper level high, one that once squatted on top of us, but has now relocated to Oklahoma! You can see the welcome movement of this feature, one that produced June in August here for awhile, here from the U of WA or here in a more fluid view looking at the water vapor imagery. Below is a nice compact view of our current 500 millibar situation from San Francisco State’s Regional Weather Server:
On to clouds…a good early start, Cumulus clouds were streaming toward the W from Mt. Lemmon almost as soon as the sun came up.
You can review the day here, courtesy of the U of AZ. In this film you will see how small our raining clouds were yesterday morning!
Things quieted down for pretty much the remainder of the day until our late afternoon and evening “bloom”, something we’ve been experiencing over the past week or so. There was a sudden invigoration of Cumulus clouds that began around 4-4:30 PM, leading to some remarkable, large and dark Cumulus bases, ones that powered up into full blown Cumulonimbus clouds that propagated from the north and east. The middle and upper level winds were trying to carry them north, but that north wind that accompanied a heavy downpour toward Oracle caused an uplift and cloud invigoration over us here in Catalina.
