Friday, February 21, 2014

gearing up again... (am.21.feb.14)>

It is mostly clear just before sunrise this Friday morning, but there is some light haze and fog in the air.  My low temp of 43.9F (6.6C) occurred just a few minutes ago, and humidity is currently 55%.  There has been no precipitation overnight.

We've seen a whole lot of back-and-forth between clouds and sun since Tuesday afternoon, thanks to a nearly continuous stream of very weak upper-level disturbances which have been traversing across northern India from the west-southwest.  Up to this point, there hasn't been much moisture involved, so there has been little or no rain shower development in our area.  But it looks like that will change during the coming 12-18 hours or so.

The center of a new upper-level system is located over east-central Afghanistan early this morning, and will gradually move eastward and end up pretty much on top of Himachal Pradesh by mid-day Saturday.  Already some south-southeasterly winds in the low-levels of the atmosphere are beginning to transfer deeper moisture northward against the mountains ahead of this system, so as the upper level energy approaches tonight, we'll see an increasing chance of precipitation development here.  At least right now, this isn't looking nearly as ominous as last weekend's rain/snow maker -- but there is the potential for anything between about 1.5cm (0.60") and 4cm (1.6") of rain in our immediate area between tonight and early Sunday morning.

As I've been alluding to all week, the freezing level and snow line will likely remain above McLeod this time, but the further uphill you live, the better chance you have of receiving several inches of snow accumulations.  Best to be prepared.

Some clearing and warming is expected again early next week, but it probably won't last long before yet another batch of wet/colder weather moves in shortly thereafter.

CURRENT FORECAST details can be found on the tab at the top of the page.