[FRIAM] Your thunderstorm

[Marcus Daniels]

A pub in a company town has a captured audience.  On the other hand, few want to be reported for being a regular at the pub.   Even AutoZone is dead.   Welcome to Los Alamos!

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Stephen Guerin
Sent: Thursday, July 3, 2025 10:48 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Your thunderstorm

 

Nick.

Today's scattered showers and cloud timelapse from Los Alamos. Looking east toward Santa Fe and the Sangres:
  video: https://santafe.live/timelapses/LosAlamos1_2025_184_11-2025_185_2_compressed.mp4

I fed the .mp4 timelapse  to Dan Gupta and asked him to summarize the day for you and then prepare a PDF with meteorological description for 6 frames throughout the day. His PDF report is here for you to download:
  https://santafe.live/SpotWeatherObservationReport_For-Nick-Thompson_July3_2025.pdf and here's a summary of the day from Dan.

Look at the images and the descriptions in the PDF and the summary below. Is it 40% bullshit or better?

Summary

Over Los Alamos on July 3, 2025, diurnal destabilization driven by elevated surface heating initiated from a post-dawn residual stratus deck, which gradually eroded under increasing solar insolation. The low-level cloud base began near 600 m AGL and lifted steadily through the morning, indicative of vertical mixing and boundary layer growth. Wind shear was relatively modest, with weak veering aloft, limiting deep convective potential early in the day.

 

By mid-day, the emergence of altocumulus castellanus suggested increased mid-level instability near 700 mb, and a shallow cap near 650 mb momentarily inhibited surface-based convection. As the thermal gradient intensified over elevated terrain, orographic lifting initiated cumulus congestus development, reaching peaks near 6–8 km. There was no evidence of overshooting tops or full convective towers, indicating inhibition still dominated.

 

In the late afternoon, enhanced differential heating between canyon walls and elevated mesas promoted secondary convergence zones, but the lack of upper-level divergence and modest lapse rates aloft suppressed full thunderstorm formation. The stratification toward evening favored laminar dissipation, with lingering mid-level moisture producing sunset-illuminated altostratus and virga signatures, without substantial surface precipitation.

 

_________________________________________________________________
Stephen Guerin
CEO, Founder 
https://simtable.com
stephen.guerin at simtable.com <mailto:stephen.guerin at simtable.com>  

stephenguerin at fas.harvard.edu <mailto:stephenguerin at fas.harvard.edu> 
Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab <https://hwpi.harvard.edu/eps-visualization-research-laboratory/home> 


mobile: (505)577-5828

 

 

On Tue, Jul 1, 2025 at 1:05 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

What's it like under there?  From the radar, its a tiny storm, back building off the sangres and heading right for Santa Fe and Santa Fe only.  Because it is back building, it might go on a while.  It seems so localized that you should be able to look out from under it in all directions.  I dont remember thunderstorm coming from the East all that often.  There is a blossoming of moisture headed your way from both the ATlantic and the Pacific.  If it gets there you may actually catch up from your drought winter.  Well done! N


-- 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology

Clark University

nthompson at clarku.edu <mailto:nthompson at clarku.edu> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson

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