Hi Steve- I have been in Arizona from 56-58 at Luke AFB. I moved back here
in 1960 and yes there has been quite a weather change. We always had the
moonsoons, but it was very rare to have any other measurable rain except
late December and January. In any year you could count on one hand the days
of total overcast sky. Now we seem to get a lot of stratiform clouds that
last for days. Back then when it did rain you could usually see some blue
sky someplace on the horizon. When the TV weather said a front was moving
thru, if you went outside and looked you might see a thin layer of cirrus
approaching. If there was cirrus, you could observe planets right thru it.
In fact sometimes I think some of the best seeing occurred thru high cirrus.
It was extremely unusual to have a rain storm in the other months. Nowdays,
we have June rainstorms in the mountains. The sky was very clear and at
Alpine you could extend your arm and cover the sun with the tip of your
little finger and see blue sky right up the the diffraction around your
finger. It is extremely unusual to have this happen now days. I think the
volcanic eruptions, emissions, forest service controlled burns, jet
contrails, etc all have changed this. When Evered and I used to do deep sky
photography from Alpine we could go quite deep with 103aE. After some of
those volcanic eruptions we figured that we lost about 1.5 mags on our
photos. Some of those sunrises were really intense with a dense area of red
about 3 degrees or so above the east horizon in an otherwise clear sky. Yes
from my standpoint it has really changed.
Regards
Keith Parizek
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Coe" <stevecoe@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 5:29 PM
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Weather in AZ
Well, it would seem that we won't be chatting about using telescopes for =
the
next several days...so, I would like to start a weather discussion, =
because
I think it deserves it.
I have lived in Arizona for 31 years now and have been paying attention =
to
the weather for all that time. =20
I have never seen such a consistent squall line of dark clouds, rain,
drizzle, snow in the high country and generally "Seattle-like" =
conditions as
the past ten days to two weeks. It is utterly fascinating to get up and =
see
dark clouds overhead AGAIN. Or, wake up in the middle of the night and =
hear
the rain on my roof. If I had only known, I would have turned off the
sprinkler system.
I do hope that it stops in time to allow us to observe, Saturday night. =
It
needs to quit by Thursday so that a couple of sunny days can dry out the
ground and stop the dew from forming at 8 PM. We shall see.
It would be nice to get another set of photos of Comet Holmes.
Here's hoping, clear skies to us all;
Steve Coe
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