About real clouds, weather, cloud seeding and science autobio life stories by WMO consolation prize-winning meteorologist, Art Rangno
Waterfall near the Gap; trace in the Heights
6:22 AM. Ridin’ tall on “Jake” yesterday morning with riding pal, Nora B, on “Dreamer.” It was a pretty dusty ride1 due to all the dust in the air, to be redundant. We set out around dawn. It was a ride amid the sad summer grasses and weeds we now have due to the “furnace” weather of late. Can they come back with a some decent rains? Hope so.
Now for some clouds, ones that spurted up awful fast yesterday. Movie here; still shots chronicling your cloud day below:
8:42 AM. First cloud shred forms over Ms. Mt. Lemmon. This early shred is a good sign for large buildups to develop early in the day.
10:06 AM. The vertical rise of this small cloud is another good sign that the atmosphere is “cocked” so to speak, to produce large storms. Got pretty excited and hopeful seeing this tower shoot up from The Lemmon.
11:04 AM. The top of this Cumulus congestus overhang began to show ice about this time and a few drops fell out here.
11:34 AM. First cloud to ground strike just about the time of this photo and came down from the overhang directly down in the center of the photo to that slanting ridge lline. Now here’s an example where the LTG strike is not where you might think it should be, perhaps closer to the lower cloud base to the right. Sometimes when the tops lean over as much as they did yesterday (see prior photo), it has seemed like you can get some rogue strikes way out away from the rain areas upwind. And so great caution is required when you see our tops streak out away from the main body of the rain and lower cloud; you might think you’re safer than you really are under that non-precipitating overhang.
2:01 PM. Cumulus congestus top with ice top tip just behind it, and an converting-to-ice Cumulonimbus calvus (“bald”) top in the upper center. Can you pick them out? Next photo has writing on it for clarity.2:01 PM. Same photo as above but with writing on it.
3:43 PM. Scene of the day, the “waterfall” near the Charouleau Gap. Lightning was extremely frequent, and thunder continuous.
3:52 PM. A similar dump hit Marana Avra Valley with one gauge reporting 1.97 inches!
Today?
U of AZ mod run from last night, surprisingly, has showers around today, but nothing near Catalina. Hmmmm. Can that be right? Hope not. In fact, I am going to wish that it is totally wrong! Don’t forget to check out what Bob says, too. He’s our resident expert on storms, and a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, a huge honor.
Tomorrow will be better, the model sez.
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1“Dusty Ride”? Hmmmm. Once again, another great name for a western singer–I can’t believe how many I have come up with! “Dusty” this, “Dusty” that! The creativity just goes on and on.
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.
