Zzzzzzzz, zzzzzzz….reprise of a soporific summer day

Though the the castellanus twins dropped by yesterday:

10:24 AM. After a hazy start, this pair showed up, two perfect examples of Altocumulus castellanus, side by side. Have never see this before.
10:24 AM. After a hazy start, this pair showed up;  two perfect examples of Altocumulus castellanus, side by side. Have never see this before. Castellanus indicate a layer of the atmosphere where the temperature declines more rapidly than in other moist layers, allowing little baby turrets to extrude from the base that bit.  Sometimes, though, they can reach high enough and get large enough to have virga.  But not yesterday.  You definitely should not have logged any virga from these clouds.

Altocumulus castellanus, that is.  Suggests atmo in this layer ripe for convection, but unless there’s some humidity below these clouds, it can be kind of an old saw that doesn’t work out a lot of times, unless they themselves get overly enthusiastic and begin to shower and thunder.  It happens.

While yesterday had these interesting clouds, and a couple of distant Cumulonimbus tops, the only real excitement was this dumpster NW of us shown below.  Did any one drive over there to get under it and measure the rain it put out?  I would dole out some extra credit if you did.  Otherwise, we’re going to have to rely on radar to estimate how much came down over there.

1:50 PM. Surprisingly dense rain shaft off the NW from a rogue Cumulonimbus. Nothing much else really all afternoon. Boring! Remember how we used to yell, BORING!!!!" in that movie when that guy was talking? You don't find people/whole audiences yelling at the movie screen anymore because something is going on they don't like and feel motivated to comment on. People are more reserved now days.
1:50 PM. Surprisingly dense rain shaft to the NW from a rogue Cumulonimbus. Nothing much else really all afternoon. Boring! Remember how we used to yell, BORING!!!!” in that movie when that guy was talking1? You don’t find people/whole audiences yelling at the movie screen anymore because something is going on they don’t like and feel motivated to erupt with a comment. People are more reserved now days and hold in feelings at movies, probably not the best thing.
4:46 PM. The Lemmon cloud factory was on strike most of the day, and here, that dark blue sky made you think of college football.
4:46 PM. The Lemmon cloud factory was “on strike” most of the day, and here, that dark blue sky made you think of college football.
6:15 PM. Evening clump of Stratocumulus trails a little snow from its bottom. Lately we've had "blooms" energized convection, growth of Cumulus, but yesterday was, well, BORING!!!!!
6:15 PM. Evening clump of Stratocumulus trails a little snow from its bottom. Lately we’ve had “blooms” energized convection, growth of Cumulus, but yesterday was, well, BORING!!!!!  Nice little flourish of Cirrus, though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The week in rain

Since most of Arizona is unpopulated, and  even when there are people, not everyone reports rain, so we have to rely on radar-derived rainfall amounts to “fill in the blanks”  Are you a “blank”?  Think about it.  Now looking back at this past 7-days, ending yesterday, and using radar for any sense of what happened all over the State here’s what we get, from WSI Intellicast.  We had an amazing 7 days of rainfall, rains that did so much to dent the NW AZ drought with many inches of rain.  Need more, of course, but here it is:

Radar-derived rainfall for the week ending August 27th, 2013.
Radar-derived rainfall for the week ending August 27th, 2013.  Look at those 4-8 inch totals W of Prescott!  And indications of over 8 inches a tad west of Needles!

The weather ahead

U of WA mod, and his one,  crunching last afternoon’s global data, have the size of clouds picking up today and over the next couple of days.  Yay.  Need more rain.

The End.

————–
1Furthermore, it was supposed to be a horror movie, and instead it had SINGING! Unbelievable. No wonder people were upset when they saw it!

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.