All good things must come to end at some point I suppose, and looks like the North American Monsoon season is all wrapped up. However, it went out with a BANG! Cold upper trough camped out across southern California the past 5 days now-which has allowed rich monsoon moisture to interact with some dynamic forcing from the low. The result being pretty vigorous thunderstorm activity. On Sept 12, Flagstaff had one of the biggest hailstorms in recent memory blowing in at 6am of all times, the past several days also witnessed numerous tornado warned supercells with impressive wind velocity structures evident on radar, not the typical weak monsoon storms we are used to seeing. And finally, today, as the low kicked out across the state, cold temperatures aloft, a little wind shear, and some dynamics resulted in a few rotating supercells producing large hail.
Given the end is so near, I took to my afternoon to get one more storm chase in before the dry fall air set in. Storms took off to the southwest of Flagstaff and moved quickly northeast. The initial storm had a strongly rotating though broad cloud lowering, which eventually blew outward into an impressive low hanging gust front. Check out the pic below.
Some small hail followed but the storm weakened rapidly as the gust front blew overhead. Meanwhile, another strong storm blew up to the southwest taking a similar trajectory. This storm intensified very quickly while it approached. I pulled off on Fox Ranch Road and took some pictures. An interesting cloud feature of some kind developed over the freeway as the storm moved just to my north. Very low, rising clouds, not visibly rotating but moving upwards and eastwards very quickly formed in a mater of 60 seconds. Not exactly sure what it signals, cloud be a gust front, low level mesocyclone, both, but in any case...a pretty dramatic storm. There was also some incredible lightning!
I drove back up the freeway where the storm core had just blown through. I found a 3 or 4 mile from north to south swath of hail extending up to the south edge of Munds Park (Again). Most of the hail was dime to nickel size, with a smattering of Quarter and larger stones. Lots of hard, clear ice stones....so I'm glad I didn't get caught in it with the new Kia, might have ended up with some good dings.
As you can see above, the hail shreded a lot of leaves off the trees and there was a lot of little debris in Munds Park. There may still be a stray storm or two left before winter sets in across the high country, but with dry weather returning next week and the sun angle getting lower by the day...it's becoming less and less likely unless some big storm system comes through to help us out. So I thoroughly enjoyed what the past 5 days brought, and got some great footage as well. If you haven't, check out my lightning video, pretty cool!
Pretty cool weather pattern Northern Arizona finds itself in this week with a cool upper trough nearby and some residual monsoon moisture around. The result-STORMS! Yesterday we had some very impressive storms in Bellemont and Flag with pretty good organizational structure unlike what we normally see. And today as well!
Around 12pm storms began to erupt across the I-40 corridor, and I was interested to see if a stronger more organized cell could develop. One cell deviated in motion a little to the right of the mean flow, and moved towards Munds Park. I jetted down I-17 to try and catch it, it was still kinda weak at that point and not the most promising storm I've ever seen, but I figured why not, its my day off. Little did I know it would really take off as I approached it. Below is the radar image of the storm as its moved towards me, I'm basically where the pink is, indicating probable hail. It even has a bit of a supercell structure to it, but that's just speculation without a high res velocity image, which I lack when I am not working.
When I got to Munds Park, a nice shelf cloud was moving in from the west, rather quickly, with nearly constant cloud to ground lightning strokes. I pulled into a gas station parking lot and took some pics, managed to catch a lightning strike even!
I drove further south of Munds Park a few minutes later to catch a better view of the shelf cloud, but if your travel too far south you fall of the edge of the Mogollon Rim into the desert, and I wanted to stay on the higher terrain. The clouds were very agitated in appearance, with a slight tinge in color which was rather ominous.
So then I moved back towards Munds Park, when it really let loose. I pulled into the Chevron Parking lot and saw a lightning strike no more than 300 feet away right behind the building, I don't know if I've even been so close while looking the right direction. It was AWESOME! It really started to hail so I decided to travel south to try and avoid hail damage on my brand new car, but the hail ended up getting bigger (Sometimes I wish I had mobile internet to know these things), so I pulled off about 2 miles south where the hail had begun to rapidly accumulate.
As the hail let up, I took some pictures of the hail and motorists hiding under overpasses from the hail. The hail was 3-4 inches deep at some places on I-17 southbound. Pretty cool stuff! Most of the hail was between nickel and quarters, so nearly 1 inch hail. Wouldn't be surprised at all if a few stones out there approached 1.5" or so. I did hear a couple very loud bangs on my Kia, but no damage fortunately.
Headed back to Flag around 230pm and took some pics of nice hail fog on the way back. With the weather pattern not changing a whole lot in the next few days, I'm hoping to catch some more cool storms on my 3 day weekend! Finally, I'll attach a video of the hail storm at its peak when I pulled off on Schnebly hill Road and waited for the hail to subside, pretty intense!
Ok, so following up to my last post. I still can't say I have it totally figured out, BUT, seriously, why am I in such a rush to move on? I mean, I have a kickass schedule, travel a ton, and I see all my friends plenty anyways. If I move, I risk giving up all of those things. Granted, I can't keep things the way they are forever, I need to promote myself eventually, but I might as well live it up while I can. Also, Flagstaff is an awesome place. Its beautiful, four seasons, plenty of severe weather to entertain me, nice location, I love my job, and my management has been so good to me, why run away from all that??? So my plan is more or less, stick it out in Flagstaff, and only consider applying for jobs in highly desirable locations. In the mean time, I'll continue to build up my resume to be top notch, so I'll be as competitive as possible when time comes to apply for something else.
My greatest fear would be moving somewhere less desirable, with a less flexible schedule, and crappy management. Then I would really be upset, so, I might as well be picky, may mean I'll be here longer, but hopefully I'll end up where I really want to be long term. It's still weird being the kid who always had a plan, and not having one now, but I guess that just keeps things interesting!
So this is kinda of a personal rant I really don't expect anyone to read. Just words on paper mostly. So I'm at a weird point in my life where I seriously have no idea where it's going. This really bothers me, seeing as how I've always had a plan. I applied for a job back home, but unfortunately didn't get it. All good, but I have a feeling the odds of getting back to the Rogue Valley are pretty slim for the next few years. So plan B??? I have no idea.
I love the Pacific Northwest, and would love to get back to it, but getting into Portland/Seattle/Spokane won't be easy, and competition is fierce. I'm not sure that's a plan worth waiting on, seeing as how there is no guarantees anyways, even if I did wait for openings. I would love to get back to the Front Range region where I have a large of network of friends, though I wouldn't want to live there forever, and friends scatter over time.
Then there's the midwest. If you had asked me 5 or 10 years ago, that would be exactly where I'd want to go. Tornado Alley! But anymore, I'm not sure that alone would make me content living somewhere. Ideally I'd end up a place where I know people already. But, if I stuck to that rule exclusively, that'd be like 5 offices. I don't want to be tooo picky and risk never getting promoted to forecaster. Argh. It's so complicated. Why can't I just pick a place to transfer to and that could be it! I really wish it was that easy.
And finally, how eager am I to get out of Flagstaff? To be honest, I kinda love Flagstaff. I hated it when I first moved here, mostly because I felt so isolated. But things have improved and I've learned how to manage my time to still keep in touch with people. Flagstaff is fantastic, 4 seasons, college town, good location, storms, lots of snow, what's not to love?!?! I also have wonderful management and a killer schedule which is very forgiving in terms of time off, I can not complain at all. So wherever I go, I would want to trade up, as I'm I'd be giving up some pretty awesome stuff here. So I don't know what to do.
That is all, my little rant about my career path. I love my job, I just wish I had a little more power to dictate where I end up. I guess that's the real world for ya.
On a brighter note, I'm really loving this song right now. Later.
When most people think Arizona, they think of a dry, hot, desert landscape, something along the lines of Phoenix and Tucson. In fact, whenever I tell people I live in Arizona, their first inclination is, “Wow, how do you put up with that heat!” However, having lived in Arizona almost two years now, I can tell you, the reality is that this is a very diverse state with many different climate zones and landscapes. In some ways, it reminds me a lot of Colorado; yes we have a lot of desert, but we also have thick Ponderosa Pine forests, snow covered peaks, spectacular mesas and canyons, we even have a fair amount of agriculture.
The climate here is just as dramatic, and elevation accounts for some tremendous changes in weather. Phoenix, being located at nearly 1,000 feet above sea level experiences stifling heat, with temperatures exceeding 115F on occasion. Phoenix is also very dry, with approximately 7 inches of annual precipitation, and it virtually never snows. Flagstaff, where I live however, is the complete opposite of Phoenix, despite being located only 110 miles north. In Flag, the temperature has never exceeded 97F in our history of record keeping, and most residences do not have air conditioning. Nearly 23 inches of precipitation falls each year, more than 3 times what Phoenix receives (And more rain than Medford, OR for my valley friends), and with over 100 inches of annual snowfall, Flagstaff is one of the snowiest cities in the country. The reason for this dramatic climate difference: Flag’s 7,000 foot elevation. (For reference, the summit of Mount Ashland is 7,532 ft.)
While the lower Arizona deserts experience extreme heat annually, mountainous northern Arizona experiences extreme cold. Just this past winter, January 1st awoke to a bitter cold -30F at Bellemont where the weather office is located, about 10 miles west of Flagstaff. One of our observing sites near Parks, about 20 miles west of Flagstaff registered -40F. Bet you didn’t think Arizona got that cold! It was so cold, we took a video of what boiling water does when it is thrown into -30F air, check it out!
Finally, I attached a graphic depicting the wildly differing elevations of Northern Arizona, and some numbers corresponding to graphics that follow the image. As you can see, the landscape differs dramatically in just short distances, which is part of what makes Arizona such a beautiful state!
1.Flagstaff Arizona - Elevation: 6910 ft. Heavily forested, cool and occasionally snowy, flagstaff defies the reputation of hot and dry Arizona.
2.San Francisco Peaks -Highest Peak Elevation:12,663 ft. Home of Arizona’s tallest peak and largest ski resort, the Arizona Snowbowl.
3. Sedona- Elevation: 4,326 ft. incredible red rocks, cliffs and canyons, and only a short 45 minute drive from Flagstaff.
4.Grand Canyon- Elevation 2,000 ft. at the Colorado River canyon floor, over 9,000 feet at the top of the North Rim.
5.Meteor Crater- Elevation 5,400 ft. Located in the high desert of northeast Arizona, being 40 minutes east of flagstaff the weather becomes very dry and arid, preserving the crater landscape for thousands of years.
6.Far East Arizona- Elevation 5,000- 7000 ft. This desolate region is semi-arid featuring numerous mesas and plateaus as you approach the New Mexico border.
7.Black Canyon city- Elevation 2,000 ft. Less than an hour from downtown Phoenix, this area transisitions sharply from the high desert to the lower desert with Saguaro cactus first appearing in this region.
8.Lake Havasu City- Elevation 735 ft. One of the hottest cities in Arizona, located along the shores of Lake Havasu, the temperature has reached 128F!
9. Phoenix, AZ- Located near 1,000 feet above sea level, Phoenix has a reputation for hot temperatures and recently, for major dust storms called "Haboobs". Check out the spectacular dust storm which occurred earlier this month in Phoenix.
