Monday, February 3, 2014

the damp and the cold... (pm.03.feb.14)>

Monday's stats:

Low temp: 42.1F (5.6C) -- around 2:30pm
High temp: 51.0F (10.6C) -- just after midnight
Precipitation: 0.26" (7mm) -- as of 8:20pm

It is mostly cloudy after sunset this evening but there is no rain happening -- at least for the moment.  Although it's been an active weather day, I don't really have all that much in the rain gauge to show for it.  There have been periods of sprinkles, drizzle, light rain, a couple of very brief periods of moderate rain (and even some thunder just after 5pm) off and on throughout the day, but at least at my location in the upper part of town there has been no impressive rainfall total to report.  The warmest temperature of the day occurred shortly after midnight and the coolest during the middle of the afternoon.

Our atmosphere has been undergoing a complete overhaul during the past 18 hours or so, as much colder air and a good burst of dynamic energy have arrived in the upper atmosphere, in conjunction with some moisture creeping northeastward from the Arabian Sea.  As suspected, it seems that the more significant amounts of precipitation are happening in the higher elevations to our north and northeast -- mainly in the form of snow.  The computer models have had a lot of trouble resolving precip amounts here along the southwest-facing slopes of the mountains this season.

Still... we have a week full of potential for inclemency ahead of us, as a west-southwesterly flow at the jet stream level funnels disturbance after disturbance across northern India.  At the same time, we're going to find ourselves right on the dividing line between much colder air to the north, and mild, moisture-laden air just to our south.  This set-up will put us in line for several waves of rain and/or snow at 12-24 hour intervals all the way into early Saturday.  Best to be prepared for this wet and colder weather to stick around for a while...

CURRENT FORECAST details for the coming five days can be found on the tab above.