Saturday, May 20, 2017

active and changeable... (pm.20.may.17)>

Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 59.4F (15.2C)
High temp: 82.6F (28.1C)
Rainfall: 0.17" (4mm)

It's partly cloudy and pleasantly warm this evening as the sun goes down, at the end of a Saturday which turned out fairly well.  I don't know about you, but I was rudely awakened by sharp cracks of thunder around 1:30am, and that thunder and lightning was accompanied by some fairly brief light to moderate rain showers.  Thunder was still rumbling at sunrise this morning, with a lot of cloudiness lingering until nearly 9:00am.  But after that... the skies cleared nicely, with a build-up of clouds over the mountains during the mid-day and a few minutes of light sprinkles of rain around 3:45pm.  We had a huge range in temperatures today -- the low occurring during those overnight thundershowers, and the high occurring late this afternoon during a strong blast of sunshine.

The disturbed upper-level pattern which has been dominant for the last twelve days is going to stay with us -- at least into the first part of the new week.  In fact, more dynamic energy aloft is scheduled to drop southeastward into our neighborhood later tonight, and hang around through Monday.  It should become more unstable during the coming 24 hours, as a batch of moisture gets pulled northward at the same time.  The model data has been pretty useless in predicting the specific development of shower and thundershower activity, but I'd say we stand about a 60% chance of getting some significant action before Monday evening rolls around.  Be on the lookout.  Clouds will also probably be more prevalent tomorrow (Sun) and Monday.

By Tuesday and Wednesday, the risk of thundershowers will be decreasing again, and it looks like we'll be poised for a fairly dramatic warm-up during the latter part of the week.