Monday, October 26, 2015

an eventful day... (pm.26.oct.15)>

Monday's stats:

Low temp: 46.2F (7.9C)
High temp: 62.0F (16.7C)
Rainfall: 0.85" (2.2cm)

This afternoon's earthquake in northern Afghanistan won the buzz this afternoon, with at least a minute or so of unnerving tremors here in McLeod and vicinity.  BUT - we also had some exciting weather to talk about, which occurred in the form of thunder, a period of moderate to briefly heavy rainfall, and some very gusty winds between about 2:00 and 6:00am.  There was even a coating of snow that was visible almost down to Triund, though it melted quickly this morning, leaving the most noticeble fresh snow all along the Dhauladhar range.  Clouds cleared out rapidly early this morning, but we did have a moderate build-up of cumulus in the vicinity of the mountains again by mid-day.  Even so, we escaped without any additional shower/thunder development.  Now at dusk, it's clear, with a bright, nearly-full moon rising in the eastern sky.

Coincidentally, the upper-level low pressure center responsible for our pre-dawn wet and stormy weather is located over northern Afghanistan this evening -- not far from where the epicenter of that quake was.  However, in spite of that dynamic energy aloft hanging very far to our west, most of the moisture in the low and middle layers of the atmosphere has already been shunted off to the east.  That means ingredients are now out of sync for significant redevelopment of showers and thunderstorms in association with this system.  We still have to have one eye open for an isolated shower or thundershower either tonight or Tuesday, but a drying air mass is already trying to establish itself.  That upper-level circulation will drop southeastward into Punjab and northern Rajasthan by Wednesday morning, then shift eastward, allowing a big ridge of high pressure to build into northwest India for the latter part of the week.

Temperatures will remain cool for the next couple of days, but it looks like we'll see a gradual warming trend heading into the weekend.  Mostly sunny skies and low humidity will accompany those comfortable temps.

Check out THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK, along with other local weather info on tabs above.