Saturday, April 18, 2015

a new high for 2015... (pm.18.apr.15)>

Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 57.6F (14.2C)
High temp: 75.7F (24.3C)
Rainfall: none

There are some patches of mainly high clouds around the area before sunset this evening, but it's gorgeous out there nonetheless.  As expected, we did have to deal with some periods of cloudiness -- especially between the late morning and mid-afternoon hours -- but there was plenty of sunshine to go around as well.  Our warming trend over the course of the past 48 hours has been remarkable, and today I registered my highest temperature of 2015 -- just eclipsing the previous high of 75.5F (24.2C) back on the 28th of March.

Yes, the warmest air mass of the year has become established across much of the Indian subcontinent, and temperatures are pushing 100ºF/38ºF on the plains to our south.  It's getting to be summertime in India.  But here in the Himalayas, we're far enough north to still be catching the fluctuating jet stream flow which can bring in the occasional upper-level disturbances even during the generally dry season before the monsoon kicks in by late June.  We've got one of those disturbances moving across northeastern Iran right now, and it is going to bring us an increasing risk of a few periods of showers and thunderstorms between Sunday and Tuesday.  Right now, it appears that the best chance of that happening would be between Sunday night and late Monday night.

People keep talking about how cool it's been this season so far... but did you know that last year the first 70º/21ºC temp didn't occur until around the 20th of April?  This year we've already had eleven 70ºF+ days, the first of which occurred on the 23rd of March.  I've learned that when it comes to weather, people have very short memories.  And perhaps that memory deficiency applies to lots of other things as well.