Tuesday, May 20, 2014

dry streak abruptly ends... (pm.20.may.14)>

Tuesday's stats:

Low temp: 53.8F (12.1C) -- at 6:15pm during tshwr
High temp: 74.0F (23.3C)
Rainfall: 0.37" (9mm) -- updated @ 8:20pm

The western sky is trying to brighten up a bit this evening, but we still have some light showers and rumbles of thunder occurring as I type.  We had a few sprinkles and brief light showers of rain as early as 1:00-1:30pm, but the main event has been thundershower development overhead just after 5:00pm, which has brought very dark skies, thunder/lightning, gusty winds, and some moderate rain showers during the past hour or so.  Otherwise we've seen a mixture of clouds and sun today, with pleasant temperatures which remain several degrees below normal for May.

Well I guess it was a crazy fantasy to think we could go beyond six full days in a row of dry weather -- considering the kind of year it has been.  We've been on guard for some PM shower/thunder development nearly every day, and it seems that today it was our turn to get hit.  The marginal instability we've been dealing with recently has to release its energy sooner or later.  Apart from the risk of another random episode of thundershowers, we should see relatively calm and quiet weather for the most part as we head through tomorrow and Thursday -- with alternating sunshine and clouds, along with temperatures which could still moderate a few degrees.

By Friday, we've got a disturbance in the upper atmosphere which is going to pivot in from the northwest -- encountering a rather warm and unstable air mass in place over north India.  This will set us up for likely chances of scattered showers and thunderstorms between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening.  Rainfall for the month of May is already significantly above normal, and it certainly looks like we'll be adding to that.

Get the CURRENT FORECAST details on the tab at the top of the page.