Thursday, January 30, 2014

changes down the road... (pm.30.jan.14)>

Thursday's stats:

Low temp: 44.8F (7.1C)
High temp: 55.0F (12.8C)
Precipitation: none

We have clear skies after sunset this evening, at the end of yet another fantastic mid-winter day.  Apart from just the slightest amount of cumulus development over the mountains this afternoon, the sunshine was fully in control -- providing us with yet another day of above average temperatures for the tail-end of January.  Humidity remained right around 40% for most of the day.

An area of high pressure in the upper-atmosphere is located over northwest India at the moment, and will remain our main weather feature for one more day.  It is keeping things calm and stable and nearly totally cloudless... in addition to allowing our temps to stay a few degrees above the norm.

The significant change in the weather pattern that I've been alluding to for several days is getting closer and closer, and it still looks like we'll have to be braced for some wet and colder conditions shortly after the arrival of February.  A strong wave of upper-level energy is being forecast by the computer models to be directly over the middle of the Caspian Sea by mid-day Saturday, and is still expected to move east-southeastward into Afghanistan and northern Pakistan by Monday into Monday evening.  There is an impressive batch of cold air which will be moving into central Asia in its wake, while a tongue of moisture gets drawn northward ahead of it.  Since this system is still at least three full days away from having much of an effect on us, plenty can change, but it definitely looks like an interesting scenario.

Although there could be some widely scattered showers beforehand, the best chance of significant precipitation should occur between late Sunday night and early Tuesday.  Computer models are projecting about 1.5" (3.5cm) of rain and/or melted snow in our area during that time frame, but of course that's a very preliminary estimate at this point.  It's way too early to say where the rain/snow line might be, but at this point it seems that it would be above McLeod.

The CURRENT FORECAST details for the next five days are on the tab at the top of the page.