Saturday, March 1, 2014

nasty march arrival... (pm.01.mar.14)>

Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 37.8F (3.2C)
High temp: 42.8F (6.0C)
Precipitation since 7am: 1.13" (2.9cm) -- also traces of snow/sleet
Total storm precip (since Thursday afternoon): 2.30" (5.8cm)

It's cloudy this evening at twilight, and there is still some light rain falling.  You can see from the above stats that it's been quite a day, and quite a 48 hour period since our initial thunder/snow/hail event on Thursday afternoon that heralded the arrival of this latest storm system.  Apart from a short break of an hour or two during the mid-afternoon, it has been raining pretty much all day long, with even a bit of sleet and a few snow flakes mixed in at times.  Temperatures have been truly winter-like, and not much fun on the first day of March.  We've even had to deal with widespread power outages across the area today -- my electricity has just come back on in the past 15 minutes after being out since the mid-morning.

I haven't received specific snowfall reports yet, but it's easy to tell that there has been a lot of new accumulation in the higher elevations -- perhaps on the order of 1-2 feet above Galu Temple, up to Magic View and Triund.

The center of an upper-level circulation and extremely cold pool of air aloft is now very near the junction of Punjab, Pakistan, and Kashmir -- just to our west.  It has moved little all day, keeping us on the side of the circulation that is funneling moisture northward right into the Dhauladhars and other Himalayan front ranges of Himachal Pradesh.  This system is in the weakening stages now, and upper-air charts show it losing most of its punch during the next 12 to 18 hours or so.  Still, there are going to be some occasional showers overnight, with a risk of some scattered shower development tomorrow (1st day of Tibetan Losar) as well.  I am almost certain that tomorrow will be much nicer than today has been -- but be aware of the shower risk nonetheless.

Attempts at stabilization late Sunday through Monday will be short-lived, as another couple of weak disturbances track across northern India next week.  We're not yet seeing the kind of dramatic turn to a more springtime weather pattern that we'd like to see by this time of year -- so expect temperatures to remain below average for the season, along with a few more bouts of potentially wet weather.

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