Friday, April 18, 2014

things to deal with... (am.18.apr.14)>

There's a fairly thick cloud cover early this morning, with an occasional breeze blowing as well.  It looks like there was no rainfall overnight, or maybe just a trace at the most, and I'm recording a low temp of 55.4F (13.0C).  Humidity is currently 40%.

The nearly constant changes and fluctuations in conditions have been hard to keep track of the last couple of days -- a result of the series of minor disturbances in the upper atmosphere which has been moving through.  We've had wild swings between clouds and sun and then back again, gusty winds at times, random showers, and temperatures which have been constantly fluctuating.  There's plenty more to come as we head into Easter weekend, with the most potent-looking disturbance of them all now knocking on the door.

A wave of upper-level energy is now moving into Afghanistan, and will shift eastward during the coming 36 hours or so... winding up right over Kashmir and Himachal by tomorrow evening.  There seems to be more alignment of ingredients taking shape, which could lead to some fairly substantial shower and thunderstorm development in our area later today through Saturday night.  Right now the data is favoring the period from this evening into tomorrow evening for the best potential for some significant rainfall.  Some computer models are hinting at amounts of 1-1.5" (3-4cm) -- so it will be interesting to see if we get anything like that in the rain gauge.

The pattern will shift in a more favorable direction starting on Easter Sunday, setting us up for a few nice days during the first part of next week.  Depending on the ever-mysterious battle between sun and clouds here along the Dhauladhars, there is a chance that we could see new highs (temperature-wise) for 2014.

Keep track of CURRENT FORECAST details on the tab at the top of the page.