Thursday, May 11, 2017

poised for more warming... (pm.11.may.17)>

Thursday's stats:

Low temp: 57.6F (14.2C)
High temp: 77.9F (25.5C)
Rainfall: 0.76" (1.9cm)

This evening we have only a few lingering clouds along the mountains which are rapidly dissipating, and a very comfortable temperature close to 75ºF/24ºC.  We've seen quite a lot of fluctuations in weather conditions during the past 24 hours, which included an extended period of showers and thunderstorms during the wee hours of the morning that really didn't entirely finish until around sunrise.  Rainfall was fairly significant for this time of year, and definitely more than expected.  It took a few more hours, but the sunshine finally appeared in abundance somewhere around 11:00am, and stuck around for the remainder of the day.  But even with that strong May sunshine, our temps lagged behind, with my high temp the coolest I've recorded since exactly one week ago.

You can probably tell that humidity levels have been higher the last couple of days -- averaging 45-50% since early this morning.  There's been just a taste of tropical juice in the air, which in part aided that thunderstorm development during the overnight hours.  Most of the data is pointing to a period of stabilization during the next 48 to 72 hours, as a new surge of warmer air aloft replaces the cooler air in the higher levels that has kept things unstable since Tuesday.  I can't say that the chance of rain is ZERO, but I think we stand a chance of a couple of days of generally drier weather during the first part of the incoming weekend.  Temperatures should rebound rather dramatically tomorrow (Fri) and Saturday as well.

Gradually, shower and thunderstorm chances will increase again as early as Sunday... with at least a 20-30% chance of a period of thundershowers each and every day next week.  Temperatures will most likely stay on the sultry side, and should average pretty much normal or a bit above as we press into the middle and latter parts of May.