Saturday, April 1, 2017

a happy start to april... (pm.01.apr.17)>

Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 64.4F (18.0C)
High temp: 77.5F (25.3C)
Rainfall: none

Apart from a few periods of cloudiness, today has been a fantastic start to the month of April.  There was still a good amount of sunshine, and temperatures remained well above normal for the March/April transition period... very much in the same zone we've enjoyed all of this past week.  Some isolated shower/thunder development occurred north, east and southeast of us, but we were again left high and dry.

For the last few days we've been talking about at least a slight chance of some thundershower development in our area, as this air mass becomes a bit more unstable.  However, other than a rumble of thunder and a few sprinkles on Wednesday afternoon, those instability-induced thundershowers have failed to materialize here in McLeod itself.  We'll be in a slow and gradual transition during the next three days, as our big high pressure ridge continues to weaken and break down, so just be aware that we could get a random shower with thunder at some point, mainly during the PM hours.  

A major storm system is still being advertised by all the computer models for the middle of the coming week.  Right now the upper-level low pressure system that will drive the whole thing is way back over the Middle East.  But by Thursday, it will be parked over northern Pakistan, containing much colder air, and the dynamic ingredients necessary for a two or three day stretch of heavy thunderstorms and very gusty winds.  The timing appears to be a bit slower, according to the latest data... with the best rain chances coming into the picture Tuesday evening.  Improvement should begin sometime Friday and continue through the weekend.