Wednesday, May 13, 2015

more fluctuations... (pm.13.may.15)>

Wednesday's stats:

Low temp: 55.0F (12.8C)
High temp: 75.2F (24.0C)
Rainfall since 7am: trace
24 hour rainfall: 0.53" (1.3cm)

There are some clear patches out there at sunset this evening, but we could call it mostly cloudy.  It's been a day of highly variable weather conditions -- with several hours of sunshine, but also a couple of periods of cloudiness, gusty winds, thunder, and a few very light showers of rain this evening.  The sunshine was more abundant than anticipated though, which gave us a high temperature a few degrees above expectations.  Even so, we remain cooler than normal for the middle of May.

A large but weak upper-level circulation continues to spin across the western Himalayan region, with a pool of unseasonably cool air in the upper-atmosphere hovering over us.  This, along with a lingering batch of moisture, has kept us in a favorable position for scattered showers and thundershowers -- and will continue to keep us there for another 24 hours or so.  At the same time, there are already signs of some warming in the mid- and upper-levels just starting to appear, so our air mass will trend toward greater stability as we approach the end of the week.  That means we have another day or two of fluctuations between sun, clouds and possible thundershowers ahead of us.

A new ridge of summertime high pressure will build in from the west over the weekend, with a rapid and dramatic warm-up expected by Sunday into Monday.  We could shoot up to our highest temperatures of the season and the year by then, with a return to hazy, dusty sunshine.  A fast-moving disturbance could bring us a wave of thunderstorms on Tuesday, but it should stay very warm through perhaps the middle of next week or beyond.

Forecast details can be found on THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK tab above.