A great immediate sign yesterday of the later cloudscape, if you were outside and not working in a room with no windows, was the early Cumulus rising off Ms. Lemmon. Some places got half inch to an inch, but only a trace fell here amid hours of thunder. Here’s the day:
9:29 AM. It would have been good for you to have pointed out the early riser, then told your neighbor, maybe breaking out in song, “I think its going to rain today”, by Randy Newman; “Broken windows and empty hallways, pale dead moon in a sky streaked with gray.” Well, pf course, you know this song. Well, if you’re friend hasn’t shot himself after you’ve finished that sad song, you might also have added, “there could be a lotta thunder with that rain, too.” Well, there’s always a lot of thunder here in the summer, but it sounds prophetic to add that.11:18 AM. First thunder on The Lemmon! Was pretty pumped as anvil overhang overspread me and The Heights. Was thinking “rain moving off the mountain this time!” And little itty bitty spritzes did, over and over again all day and thunder crashed and boomed around for hours. The result was one of the heaviest traces of rain ever I think to Sutherland Heights. Public service message: Overhangs like this can spit out a spark down to the ground, WAY out ahead of the rain area, visible on the top of Ms. Lemmon. Its not good to be out under it standing on a knob, pretty much the highest point around, taking pictures like this. I went out as soon as I heard thunder; would never just go out without knowing where it was in the charging cycle. Still, you probably shouldn’t even do that since that charging cycle can rev up, too. Silly me.11:50 AM. Anvil overhang from The Lemmon with new Cumulus piling up north of Saddlebrooke, as they often do. This indicated storms were going to also form before long over the lower terrain. Sometimes, as you know, they can’t. When they do this, it means we have a chance to get a core, as does everyone out in the hotter lower elevations.1:26 PM. A real beauty north of the Gap. The darkening blue sky that goes with autumn really brings out the contrast between these immaculate white tops of a…..Cumulonimbus calvus (“bald”) on its way to the fibrous “capilatus” stage (when the ice phase up there is clearly evident). It may have been this one or the next one that dumped a half an inch around Oracle town.3:07 PM. If you look carefully around this TEP Co power pole, you can see that heavy rains, indeed, got out into the lowlands. I hope I have made my point about poles and wires. They have no business being above ground in the 21st Century.3:12 PM. A little mammatus showed up, too, maybe from a collapsing, “overshooting” top upwind.6:47 PM. Overhead wires and just a trace of rain are forgotten about as this luscious sunset unfolded down below where i had to walk to avoid the overhead wires being in the photo.6:46 PM. Expanded shot of same scene, so fabulous, one of the best!
Looks like a similar day today, just eye-balling the maps and stuff, clouds piling up on The Lemmon, drifting NW over Sutherland Heights and Catalina, chance of thunder, some sprinkles or light showers. However, drier air is filtering in from the east as I type, meaning cloud bases will likely be higher than yesterday, and we probably won’t see such an early start to Cumulus forming on Ms. Lemmon as we did yesterday. And not as much cloud cover.
Supposed to dry out tomorrow and Friday further but then moisten up again on football viewing days, Saturday and Sunday as a tropical storm/depression works it way up the Baja coast. Could be a great weekend.
Below, a remarkable storm report from yesterday from around the Prescott area, brought to my attention by climate folk hero, Mark Albright at the U of WA:
