Wednesday, October 16, 2013

increasingly tolerable... (pm.16.oct.13)>

Wednesday's stats: 

Low temp: 58.3F (14.6C)
High temp: 67.1F (19.5C)
Rainfall: trace

It's been a rather eerie evening -- with glimpses of the setting sun and the rising moon in the midst of some patches of fog which have developed here along the front slopes of the mountains.  We're wrapping up one of the nicest days we've had this month.  Clouds started developing an hour or two later than on recent days, allowing us to enjoy a lot of sunshine until noon, and then occasional peeks thereafter.  I did hear one brief rumble of thunder around 3:20pm, and there were just a few sprinkles in the upper part of town around 3:45pm -- but that was the extent of it.

A very stable and quiet weather pattern has taken hold across most of the northwest half of India, with a west-northwesterly flow continuing to become established.  The only fly in the ointment is the lingering moisture along the front slopes of the mountains which is being lifted and condensed into clouds and very isolated showers during the afternoon hours.  The atmospheric moisture profiles show an increasingly dry air mass across the western Himalayas, but we've obviously yet to erase the stubborn traces of moisture that remain here.

This year's transition from the wet days of the monsoon into the bone-dry days of autumn have been painfully slow -- but we are certainly in much better shape than we were in just a week to 10 days ago.  Even though October has been wetter than normal so far, the 3"-plus amount I've received at my location on Tushita Road is equivalent to only about 2-3 days of rain during the middle of the monsoon season.!

CURRENT FORECAST details can be found on the tab above.