Wednesday, October 8, 2014

a changing scenario... (pm.08.oct.14)>

Wednesday's stats:

Low temp: 49.5F (9.7C)
High temp: 66.6F (19.2C)
24 hour rainfall: 1.24" (3.1cm)

We have a broken layer of high clouds across the area just as the sky goes dark this evening -- but it's been another day of sudden and radical swings between sun, clouds and fog.  There was actually a very good amount of sun until the early afternoon, but then some thick clouds and fog developed, along with some brief light rain showers during the late afternoon.  Then the sun popped out again for awhile as it was heading for the western horizon.  Nearly all of our measurable rainfall during the past 24 hours occurred during the nasty thunderstorm episode in the middle of the night.

The dramatic changes occurring in our upper-level pattern have translated into lots of instability in the mid- and lower-levels of the atmosphere.  Circulations way up there above 15,000ft contain by far the coldest air of this new fall/winter season, and as they've tracked across the western Himalayan region and over the lingering moisture which has been stuck here for so long, we've seen a few waves of showers and thunderstorms.  You may have noticed the new snow on the Dhauladhars this morning -- the first of the season.

Tomorrow will be an important day.  Because -- in the wake of these recent disturbances and large-scale pattern shift, we're going to see if the stubborn leftover tropical moisture of recent weeks has been displaced.  Or not.  Computer models show a much drier air mass in place starting tomorrow, and continuing through the weekend into the early part of next week.  We'll see if we can actually come up with a significantly greater amount of daily sunshine... and a significantly LESS amount of afternoon/evening clouds and fog.