Saturday, March 29, 2014

some nice days... (pm.29.mar.14)>

Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 51.6F (10.9C)
High temp: 63.9F (17.7C)
Rainfall: none

There are some patches of clouds gradually dissipating along the mountains this evening, otherwise we have mostly clear skies as sunset approaches.  It's been a very agreeable Saturday -- with plenty of sunshine and pleasant temperatures.  We did have a variety of cloudiness at times, ranging from some patches of high, thin cirrus clouds to a fairly impressive build-up of cumulus over the mountains that looked a bit threatening for a while during the mid-afternoon.  But none of it really obscured the sun for long, and my temp in the upper part of town ended up being a couple of degrees (F) above expectations.

Satellite pics this evening show some isolated showers/thunder over some of the higher elevations along the Himalayan chains -- from Kashmir into Uttarakhand -- and that's evidence that the air mass over northern India is not totally stable.  Warmer air pushing in at the lower levels combined with significantly colder air aloft may keep that risk of isolated PM thunder development over the higher mountains to our north and east, despite the great weather expected here on the southwest side of the mountains.  High pressure, though weak, will be the primary weather feature through early Wednesday, and that should provide us with a good amount of sunshine along with temperatures trying desperately to approach norms for the March/April transition.

The next upper-level disturbance will bring us a period of scattered showers and/or thundershowers between Wednesday evening and Thursday evening, but at least at this point, it doesn't look like a very strong system.  Then, there are now more and more hints of a significant warm-up by next weekend which could finally take us above 70F (21C) for the first time this season.  We shall watch...

CURRENT FORECAST info can be found on the tab above.