Sunday, July 13, 2014

an onslaught... (pm.13.jul.14)>

Sunday's stats:

Low temp: 64.8F (18.2C)
High temp: 73.2F (22.9C)
Rainfall since midnight: 5.81" (14.8cm)

There's been some sunshine in the midst of leftover clouds late this afternoon and evening, but we seem to be trending back toward mostly cloudy skies at the moment.  What a day it has been!  Hands down, we've had the heaviest rain of our young monsoon season, coming in several doses starting during the very early hours of the morning, and continuing until about 3:00pm or so.  My total in the upper part of McLeod (above) is impressive enough -- but what about 9.3" (23.6cm) reported from a very reliable source near Norbulingka?  These are some of the heaviest totals we ever get during a 24 hour period during the monsoon months, and it has certainly got us on track after a fairly lackluster performance this year up til now.

It is always very interesting to watch how the various computer models handle the ebbs and flows of deep monsoon moisture here along the front slopes of the mountains -- and I have to say, even the most aggressive model during the past few days greatly underestimated the amount of rainfall we've received since the wee hours of this morning.  There is just no amount of technology that can really grasp the kinds of dynamics we deal with here in our part of the world.

The headline for the coming week is: MONSOON IS ACTIVE.  We've got even deeper tropical moisture creeping into our area during the coming several days, and it's likely that we'll be dealing with a few more waves of prolonged moderate to heavy rains between now and the end of this week.  Humidity will average out much higher than it did last week, and I think the changes are going to be quite noticeable -- especially with regard to getting laundry to dry out.  Also, be aware of road conditions if you have travel plans... we can now start talking about potential landslides and road washouts, which are part of life this time of year.

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