Wednesday, May 20, 2015

a zone of warmth... (am.20.may.15)>

It is totally clear just as the sun rises this morning.  The low temperature since midnight has occurred within the past hour -- 64.2F (17.9C) -- though the temp did drop to 60.6F (15.9C) just before 8:00pm last evening, during our thundershower.  My rain gauge shows 0.11" (3mm) during that episode of thundershowers between about 7:15 and 8:40pm.  There's been no additional rainfall since then.

Yesterday was the warmest day of the season and the year... will temperatures keep climbing today?  A big bubble of hot summertime high pressure stretches across most of central into northern India, and we remain on the northern fringes.  Occasional weak upper-level disturbances in combination with our local mountain effects will cause very warm air to continue lapping up against the Dhauladhars for the next several days, but also provide us with at least a slight risk of some isolated thunder development from late afternoon into the early evening hours.  It looks to me like we may end up a degree or two cooler today than yesterday, but we're still talking about summertime temperatures which will be in the range of normal to slightly above for this time of year.

As we saw last evening, a round of thundershowers will temporarily cool down the atmosphere -- a welcome relief -- but there's really not enough moisture available in this current air mass to give us more than small doses of rain.

Check out THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK for details.