The official tropical weather thread - 2013

[tr1ad]

getting darker now barataria

[tr1ad]

well that cleared up really quickly

[Morpheus]

Rain trolling over there or wha? Somewhat overcast in Aranjuez but nothin yet.

Yeah boy. It doing that a few days now yes. LoL.

[Hook]

Without warning?

Yeah boy no drizzle before or anything. Just BRAM!

........aaaand it stop less than 5 mins after. Birds achirping again. People resume their morning walks and gardening like it never happen

lemme show yuh a scene, and why you wouldn't get any "warning", and why it happened the way it did.

There's "rain" and then there's "showers". Two completely different types of precipitation, characterized by very specific sources and behaviour, although to the layman, they're one and the same - rain is rain, right? No.
Amongst weathermen, there's an old joke about the difference between "rain showers" and "showers of rain". They're not the same thing.

"Rain" or "showers of rain", comes from stratified cloud - stratocumulus, stratus fractus, nimbo stratus, alto stratus (although precipitation from alto stratus seldom reaches the ground, known as virga, but that's another discussion. There can be ice precipitation from cirro stratus clouds, but that's way higher than concerns you on the ground) etc. - pretty much any type of flat/stratified/layered cloud produces this type of precipitation.
"Drizzle" also falls from this type of cloud, but that particular type of precipitation isn't native to T&T. We can say "rain is drizzling" and be correct because of the intensity of the precipitation, but we can't call it "drizzle" because of the nature of it. I think I already discussed that earlier on in this thread.

Stratified cloud tend to form below a stable layer of atmosphere, where it is difficult for convective activity to penetrate. This is important to identify the possibility of formation of tall convective clouds (cumulonimbus) that can be dangerous if their precipitation is accompanied by lightning, downdrafts, microbursts, twisters.
Aside from identifying the source, it usually falls in one consistent intensity, long duration, smaller droplet size.

"Showers" or "Rain showers", are characterized by the behaviour you noted - sudden onset and cessation, a clearing of the sky afterwards, droplet size varies - mostly because of the dynamic within the convective clouds that produce showers (called collision and coalescence). Note, CONVECTIVE CLOUD.
Cumulus, cumulonimbus (lightning producing). Altocumulus can produce precipitation in rare cases, but more often than not, they're a herald for bad weather to come, and sometimes even form out of the middle layers of a cumulonimbus.

Sometimes it might be in your best interest to identify what's happening to know how to secure your property or plan your movements. Next thing you're thinking it's a small shower that'll clear up in a few minutes, when it's really continuous rain that'll last hours.

[Morpheus]

Okkkkk then.......

[Hook]

yuh read it? read it nuh ... shimps man

allyuh feel my wuk easy cuz I here all d time? I'se come here for the comic relief eh. My wuk plenty harder than most ppl think.

The reason I posted it, is for y'all to understand a little bit of what happens and why.

If you plan to take an interest in the weather, don't limit yourselves to posting IR pics, radar pics and satellite pics that you have absolutely no understanding about. You'll just sound silly.
Learn about how the different things that contribute to the weather, how it manifests itself and how it affects you.

[gunsmoke]

De fork

[Morpheus]

I start eh but it long bai. Geez.

Either one does wet yuh dong

Ok ok I going read the rest

[Hook]

hahaha...ah it eh dat long man...and ah try to keep d dialect to a minimum

[speedist]

mynd blowed. Forgot all that from secondary school.

[K74T]

Rainy down in Santa Flora..

[sbocus]

hook have ah real informative post dey......
i would have thought both was the same....

[streetbeastINC.]

Same trend now....

[~Vēġó~]

well yeah rain must fall.....just when I started making some good brushcuting progress and feeling good about the workout I getting....steups

[sMASH]

Hook tek meh back to geography days when I could watch he sky an tell you if rain gonna fall and long.

[MonsterPower]

:lol: yuh read it? read it nuh ... shimps man

allyuh feel my wuk easy cuz I here all d time? I'se come here for the comic relief eh. My wuk plenty harder than most ppl think.

The reason I posted it, is for y'all to understand a little bit of what happens and why.

If you plan to take an interest in the weather, don't limit yourselves to posting IR pics, radar pics and satellite pics that you have absolutely no understanding about. You'll just sound silly.
Learn about how the different things that contribute to the weather, how it manifests itself and how it affects you.

my daily quota of learnation is filled thank u hookinton ...
now question is fom some observation (without data eh ) but since we getting sudden downpours and not rain will the reservoir be filled back to capacity in time for next yr dry season ?

[Gem_in_i]

The reservoir was ever below capacity this year?

[Alexy]

Thats some cool stuff Hook! Thanks!

[Hook]

I can't comment about the reservoir levels because that data falls outside of the scope of my work.

I forgot to mention that rain and showers aren't mutually exclusive. They can happen simultaneously over the same area, if different clouds at different levels are producing precipitation.

[Morpheus]

*Remembers Hook.....

......it's raining in Arouca 8-)8-)8-)

[shake d livin wake d dead]

rainy this morning,but cleared,hopefully nice conditions during the day

[MadCrix]

Town a bit rainy hope it continues. Sun is de devil lol

[shake d livin wake d dead]

toco/ Manzan side looking gloomy

[joker]

Resevoir levels @90%Navet

[Morpheus]

Early blessings.......

[trouble]

heavy downpour in Pt. Lisas since around 12pm

[redman2k8]

Level rain in maraval at the moment... place dark too

[speedist]

Somewhat dark in Aranjuez but nothing serious yet.

[K74T]

Scorching hot sun down in Santa Flora.

[fred1266]

Now finished falling in Maraval