Friday, October 11, 2013

lots going on... (pm.11.oct.13)>

Friday's stats:

Low temp: 57.7F (14.3C) -- at 4:30pm during rain
High temp: 67.6F (19.8C)
Rainfall: 1.00" (2.5cm) -- updated at 7:30pm

We have a thick deck of mid- and high-level clouds blanketing the area at sunset this evening, but for the first time in quite a while, there is no fog present at this hour.  The main event of the day has been an extended period of showers and thundershowers which got going around 1:15pm, and continued until nearly 5:00pm, with a couple of breaks in between.  Today's rainfall brings my October total just above 3" (7.6cm), which is now above the average for the entire month.  The low temperature today, during the rain, was the coolest I've recorded in almost one week.

After a generally stagnant weather pattern both at the surface and aloft for most of October, there are fundamental changes now taking shape.  Temperatures in the upper-atmosphere are dropping considerably, and that is what has created the instability responsible for the more significant thundershower development today.  With all this moisture just lying around here at the surface, it only takes a few degrees of cooling aloft, along with a bit of morning sunshine to get things cranking.  We weren't the only ones who got wet today -- thundershowers were fairly widespread from Uttarakhand northwestward through Himachal into Kashmir and even extreme northeastern Pakistan.

The next pattern shift is right around the corner, and is going to feature a healthy push of drier air from the west in the mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere.  This evening's upper-air profiles and computer model data is STILL showing a sharp reduction in the moisture content of the air here in northern India between Sunday and Tuesday.  This should lead to diminishing rain chances as we move through the first half of next week, much lower average daily humidity, and more sunshine than we've seen since the third week of September.  Could it really be true??  I'll do my best to keep you up to speed.

CURRENT FORECAST details can be found on the tab at the top of the page.