Saturday, January 25, 2014

mid-winter pleasantness... (pm.25.jan.14)>

Saturday's stats: 

Low temp: 43.9F (6.6C)
High temp: 52.9F (11.6C)
Precipitation: none

It's very close to perfection for a January evening.  We have just a few streaks of high clouds here and there at sunset, with the temperature settling back into the upper 40s(F) -- just below 10C -- after another day that was on the plus side of normal for the season.  Although we had a consistent period of high clouds until the early afternoon which limited the sunshine's influence, those clouds broke up/moved out quickly around 2pm, leaving us with a very bright and sunny remainder of the day.  Humidity ranged from about 40 to 65%.

A weak disturbance in the upper-level flow stirred up that high cloudiness earlier today, and we'll have another one of those drifting through here later tonight and Sunday.  Some mainly high clouds will probably be the only effect once again, since there's not enough moisture in this air mass to combine with the weak energy aloft to produce any precipitation in our area.  A few scattered rain and snow showers will be possible in the higher elevations north of us, however.

Our weather pattern looks quiet, dry and uneventful for most of the coming week, despite another very weak disturbance or two stirring up some high clouds from time to time to compete with the winter sun.  We should have temperatures running above average for the final week of January, so it will be very pleasant compared to what we could be experiencing this time of year.

It's extremely hard to bank on computer model output for anything beyond a few days, but the latest data runs are showing an interesting-looking storm developing over the western Himalayas and northern India during the first week of February.  That's the next event to focus on.

Specifics for the next five days can be found on the CURRENT FORECAST tab above.