Saturday, January 18, 2014

the coldest day... (pm.18.jan.14)>

Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 39.6F (4.2C)
High temp: 44.2F (6.8C) -- just after midnight
Precipitation: 0.02" (less than 1mm)

There is thick fog just below us in Dharamsala shortly after sunset this evening, but the clouds have broken up nicely here in McLeod during the past hour or so.  Today's high (above) occurred during the middle of the night -- but our high temp during the daytime hours was just 42.2F (5.7C), making it the coldest of this winter season thus far.  We had thick clouds and some periods of fog all day, with occasional drizzle and very light rain showers as well.  Unfortunately, that precipitation barely registered in the rain gauge, leaving us languishing way below normal for the month of January.  Even above us on the higher hills/mountains, the precip was too light to leave much fresh snow.

The meagre remains of our upper-level system is not far from Dehradun at the moment, and a quickly building ridge of high pressure aloft is already nudging into the northwestern border of India.  This is going to cause some very rapid warming in the mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere during the coming 24 hours or so -- but shallow cold air trapped in the lower levels below that warming aloft means there will be a pronounced inversion layer (already evidenced by the fog below) that may keep us from enjoying full sunshine during the next couple of days, despite a quiet/fair weather pattern.  Any sun we do get will lead to a nice bump in temps, however, taking us back above normal for this time of year -- especially by Monday.

Toward late Tuesday it will be time for the next in our never-ending parade of upper-level disturbances to start moving in.  But if you're still waiting for a significant winter storm (like me), I am sorry to say that this one isn't looking like it will be able to deliver the goods either.  For such a cloudy and semi-dreary month, we've not been able to capitalize and come up with much significant rain and/or snow to show for it.  Thirteen days to go...

The CURRENT FORECAST specs for the coming five days can be found on the tab above.