Tuesday, February 25, 2014

small glimpse of spring... (am.25.feb.14)>

*Update @ 2:58pm... Our sunshine which was pretty much unrestricted until the early afternoon has been very rapidly replaced by clouds during the past hour.  This is all mountain-induced, due to the strong daytime heating... but will probably remain with us until sunset.  That's the end of today's nice warm-up!

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Our skies are absolutely clear just before sunrise this morning, after a calm and peaceful night with a low temp of 46.6F (8.1C) and no precipitation.  The humidity this morning is low -- at 38%.

It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day, and most likely one of the mildest since way back in mid- December.  We'll have to be on guard for a bit of cloud development by mid-day into the afternoon hours, but if the sun can manage to hold on, it might even begin to feel a little like springtime.  A weak high pressure ridge aloft along with decreasing amounts of moisture here in the lower levels are the factors on our side today.  But I'll remind you, despite the improvement, it's still going to be a couple of degrees (F) cooler than normal for the end of February.

Unfortunately, this pleasantness isn't going to last.  The upper-level pattern is going to revert to a more disturbed scenario starting tomorrow (Wed), and as a fresh batch of moisture begins to creep northward, we're going to see conditions deteriorate during the latter part of the week.  Although the chance of some rain showers will increase on Thursday, it's now looking like the best chances of rain and thunder will be on Friday into Friday night... with some showers lingering into Saturday as well.  Temperatures will drop back into a zone that is far too cold for the Feb/March transition, with some accumulating snow likely on the hills above.

Check the CURRENT FORECAST details on the tab at the top of the page.