Tuesday, May 14, 2013

in transition... (am.14.may.13)>

*Update @ 3:45pm... Despite the drizzle, sprinkles, very light showers during the late morning, there wasn't enough to measure in the rain gauge.  The sun started poking through by noon, and it's been a nice afternoon.  Still, temps haven't warmed to what was expected... currently 71.2F (21.8C) here in the upper part of town.

*Update @ 9:03am... Clouds have thickened up since sunrise and the latest satellite images show a broken band of clouds and embedded showers from northern Pakistan into western Himachal.  Today's warm-up is in jeopardy if we don't get more than very limited sunshine.

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We have a mix of sun and some high clouds across the area early this morning.  My low temp here in the upper part of town was 60.3F (15.7C), and humidity is down a bit -- at 49%.

Current satellite pics are showing a large area of mainly high cloudiness moving in from northern Pakistan, in association with one last ripple of energy in the upper atmosphere which will be passing through.  This is why I've kept the slight chance of thundershowers in the forecast through today (Tues), since there may be enough moisture and lingering instability around to get something going.  It's hard to tell if there are any showers embedded in the area of cloudiness to our west, but we'll just have to keep an eye on it during the next several hours.

The most impressive ridge of summertime high pressure yet this season will build across Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India for the latter half of the week -- chasing away any lingering moisture and instability, and erasing rain chances almost completely.  Temperature profiles on computer model output are quite stunning for the coming weekend -- but then again, this is when we would expect to start experiencing the hottest weather of the entire year.  It looks like we'll be well in excess of 86F/30C here in McLeod, which means it's going to be scorching hot further down the hill...

The CURRENT FORECAST is available on the tab at the top of the page.