Tuesday, September 17, 2013

simply fantastic... (pm.17.sep.13)>

Tuesday's stats:

Low temp: 60.8F (16.0C)
High temp: 73.6F (23.1C)
Rainfall: none

There are just a few scraggly cumulus clouds dissipating over the mountain peaks at sunset this evening, leaving us with clear skies.  Today has been nothing short of stunningly gorgeous, and by far the most beautiful day we've been able to experience in more than three months.  There was a minor build-up of clouds over the Dhauladhars starting just before noon, but it didn't look like there was any shower development up there -- making this the second totally dry day in a row.  With the unlimited sunshine, today's high temperature was the warmest of the entire month of September thus far.

Apart from the obvious -- full sunshine and not the slightest trace of fog -- the humidity readings tell the story of what has been happening around here during the past 48 hours.  That huge blast of thunderstorms with hail that blew through on Sunday evening was followed by very strong north-northwest winds which ushered in much drier air straight out of central Asia.  The humidity dropped down to 55% after the storm on Sunday night, and has continued to fluctuate in the 40-55% range ever since.  That means we are nowhere near the saturation point, keeping the fog and low clouds from having any chance at all of redeveloping.  Even the mountain thunder machine has been starved for moisture, which is actually kind of surprising.

All of the atmospheric profiles say that this air mass is going to continue to dry out, with the average moisture content from the surface into the upper-levels decreasing steadily as we head toward the end of the week.  Simultaneously, there should be some warming occurring as well, which spells out a very pleasant stretch of weather ahead.  Years of observation and experience have taught me to be wary of surprise thundershower development over the mountains during the afternoon hours -- so that's the caveat to this whole discussion...

Monsoon info, along with CURRENT FORECAST details are available on the tabs above.