Dear Stephen, Thank you for prompting me to respond to this inquiry. I was having some trouble getting the image to behave on my computer, and so was reluctant to wade in.
Indeed, just as nature abhors vacuums, she abhors straight lines, and so any line as straight as this one requires a special explanation. To me, that the line points southwestward toward the radar site NW of ABQ suggests a radar artifact, perhaps the shadow or some distant hill. As we watched the animated radar image, we could see a persistent weakness in the radar echo along that line, even as the clouds crossed it. Speaking of abhorrent straight lines, during our conversation with Frank, we spent quite a lot of time discussing another line, a berm of sand that runs across the Galisteo Basin in roughly the same orientation, perhaps 50' high?. I had noticed this feature on topo maps and always assumed it was an old railway embankment. Frank, who knows the area well, thought that idea was absurd. So, we were left with the puzzle of a highly linear geological formation several miles long. Could it be that this geological straight line accounts for the straight line cloud formation that Mr. Kadlubek sees? As the dry line breaks down in anticipation of the SW Monsoon, moist air does indeed move northward, following the river valleys up from TX. AT some point, it will be raised enough that its moisture is condensed leading to the release of latent heat and the further development of clouds. If the structure that raises it is a straight line, then the clouds themselves will be arranged in a straight line. We can see this effect often along linear coast lines as a sea breeze front topped by (usually) fair weather cumulus. However, given all the dramatic topography in the area, it's hard for me to imagine that this low lying feature would be determining very often. I, too, live for the weather. I don't live for Face Book, however. So if you have any way to put in touch with Mr. Kadlubek, he and I could perhaps have coffee when I get back to Santa Fe in the fall. Yours faithfully, Nick Thompson "Behavioral Meteorologist" On Wed, Jun 19, 2024 at 7:06 PM Stephen Guerin <stephen.gue...@simtable.com> wrote: > Nick, > > It's your time to shine! Respond to Vince. > > In the comments, local knowledge refers to it as the "prison line" as > weather is different on either side of the prison on 14. > > >
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