By Mike Godsey



by Mike Godsey:  
Baja daily human forecast   Questions about the forecast:   Mail me mgodseywf@gmail.com

La Ventana often has nice sunsets but several times each season it has the most amazing sunrises you can imagine. My photo web site has lots of examples of these sunrises.

Regular old sunrises are very simple. There are clouds near the surface and just before the sun rises its light hits those clouds and because of the angle of the suns light through the atmosphere the clouds have a reddish tinge.

But sunrises like the one above that occurred yesterday are more complex.

Yesterday we had part of the  subtropical jet over Baja. These fast moving clouds are a heavy mass from 18,000 feet upwards to 30,000 feet and were streaming in waves from the SW towards eastern USA.

Since these clouds were so high the sun’s light hit them well before sunrise and the angle is such that clouds far from the horizon area also illuminated even though the sun is below the horizon from our perspective.

All this means that: 1. The clouds are illuminated for a much longer time than a regular sunrise. 2. The extent of the sun kissed clouds covers much of the sky. 3. And often these clouds  have interesting textures and the pattern of the sunrise changes rapidly as the clouds stream through the sunlight.

So anytime you see mention of the subtropical jetstream clouds be ready for a great sunrise and probably low wind quality since the same clouds will often block heating in the valleys. And we need  that heat to create low pressure to coax the winds to the beaches.

Yesterday my forecast hinged on the hole you see in those clouds allowing our inland valleys to  heat. That never happened so we barely reached the tupper teens forecast even outside.