Tuesday, November 17, 2015

stability reigns... (pm.17.nov.15)>

Tuesday's stats:

Low temp: 52.0F (11.1C)
High temp: 60.2F (15.7C)
Rainfall: none

Nothing but stars and a waxing quarter moon overhead early tonight -- not a cloud to be seen.  Today has been one of the very sunniest days of this autumn season, and perhaps of the last several months or more.  Full sunshine this morning only gave way to minor traces of cumulus cloud development over the immediate Dhauladhar peaks this afternoon, and all of that fizzled out well before sunset.  In spite of the bright sun, temps today were actually a couple of degrees (ºF) cooler than yesterday, thanks to a central Asian air mass which continues to flirt with us.

A huge ridge of high pressure in the upper-atmosphere is starting to build in from the southwest at this moment, which will bring some dramatic warming in the middle and upper levels during the coming 48 hours.  If that warming aloft outpaces the warming at the surface, then we may be dealing with an inversion during this mid-week period.  That means the potential for trapped haze and smog in the lower layers of the atmosphere.  Our air mass is very dry, but we have to watch how this evolves nonetheless.

The general trend of temperatures should be upward between tomorrow and Friday or Saturday -- barring inversion issues -- taking us well above normal for the latter half of November.  Models are in extreme disagreement about a developing storm system to our west by early next week, so we'll have to keep an eye on some rain shower potential on Monday into Tuesday.

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