Monday, January 13, 2014

rollercoaster of temps... (pm.13.jan.14)>

Monday's stats:

Low temp: 44.4F (6.9C)
High temp: 56.1F (13.4C)
Precipitation: trace

It's cloudy at sunset this evening, and there have been a few sprinkles of rain since about 5:00pm.  The temperature ride today has been unusual and a bit on the bizarre side.  Our high temp of 56.1F (13.4C) actually occurred during the late morning as a bubble of unseasonably mild air paid us a brief visit.  Then, temps dropped dramatically again by about 2:00pm, keeping us around 47F/ 8C for the remainder of the afternoon into the early evening.  We did have some sunny breaks in the midst of the clouds this morning into the early afternoon, but it has been very cloudy and gloomy ever since... along with those few rain drops.

This weather pattern is producing conditions that appear to be threatening, but there's really nothing tangible that would lend itself to anything more than some scattered light rain showers here in our immediate area.  There is some heavier precipitation occurring in the higher elevations to our north and northeast as moisture in the mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere gets pushed up against the mountains -- but that dynamic has been leaving us largely out of the equation.  As this latest disturbance wobbles through here tonight into Tuesday, there will continue to be the risk of some showers in the neighborhood, but anything of much significance still looks unlikely.

Yet another upper-level system is on the way for Friday into early Saturday, but at this stage, it also looks like it won't produce much rain/snow for us.  However, the jet stream pattern is so active and changeable that there have been some notable fluctuations in the computer model data from day to day -- so it is certainly possible that things could change as we look 4-5 days into the future.

Our air mass is not all that cold for this time of year, so with any help from the sun we'll have temps averaging a bit above normal for the season.

The CURRENT FORECAST for the next five days can be found on the tab above.