Saturday, April 12, 2014

anticipating some rain... (pm.12.apr.14)>

*Update @ 9:03pm... There has been an impressive amount of shower/thundershower development occurring to our west over northern Pakistan during the past couple of hours.  Upper-level steering currents should bring this activity into our area later tonight.

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Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 56.5F (13.6C)
High temp: 69.7F (20.9C)
Rainfall: trace

It's partly cloudy this evening as sunset approaches, here at the end of the second-warmest day of 2014 -- at least according to my thermometer in the upper part of town.  As expected, there was a lot more cloudiness across the area today, but not enough to completely shut down the sun's warming effect.  There were some brief sprinkles of rain just after 2:30pm, otherwise we've managed to escape any significant wetness thus far.

There is no tangible 'storm system' on the weather charts, but we do have a scenario developing that is going to create a fairly unstable atmosphere across northern India between tonight and late Sunday night.  The mildest air mass of the season is encamped in the lower levels, while a weak upper-level disturbance drifting in from the west-northwest brings some slightly cooler air into the higher layers of the atmosphere.  In combination with a modest surge of moisture from the south, this is going to give us a better chance of scattered showers and thundershowers during the coming 24-36 hours.  This evening's computer model data seems to be in good agreement that rainfall amounts will stay below about 0.80" (2cm), and of course I could be wrong (!), but I think it could be much less than that in most areas.

Monday and Tuesday are both looking pretty good at the moment, but then yet another disturbance and associated pool of colder air aloft will trek across Himalayan north India -- increasing shower/thunderstorm chances again as we move into the latter half of the week.  There is still no sign of a radical surge in temperatures until perhaps next weekend.

CURRENT FORECAST details are on the tab above.