Monday, January 4, 2016

just a few raindrops... (pm.04.jan.16)>

Monday's stats:

Low temp: 49.5F (9.7C)
High temp: 54.4F (12.4C)
Precipitation: trace

It's overcast just after sunset this evening, but there is no rain at the moment.  We have had a few brief periods of very light showers since just before 1:00pm -- not amounting to much more than sprinkles, really, with not enough to measure in my rain gauge in the upper part of town.  Although there were some very brief glimpses of dim sunshine, it's been mostly cloudy all day.  Temperatures remain mild for the season, but my high temp was the second-coolest since the day after Christmas.

An upper-level disturbance is moving into northern Pakistan this evening, and has managed to draw a bit of moisture from the Arabian Sea northward ahead of it.  This has led to a lot of cloud development across the western Himalayan region today, and even some pockets of precipitation -- most concentrated in the higher elevations, as we've been expecting.  These brief light sprinkles/showers in McLeod have provided us with the first precipitation in more than three weeks, which we need.  Unfortunately, it's looking like our risk of any really substantial rainfall is slim, though there will be some decent snowfall up along the Dhauladhar range tonight into tomorrow (Tue) morning.

The shower risk will diminish considerably by mid-day on Tuesday, but our temps will be a few degrees cooler in the wake of this system.  It's still not looking very cold at all for early January (the middle of the winter season), but at least we'll be closer to normal.

This evening's data is suddenly looking very bland and lackluster for the weekend, whereas before, there had been strong suggestions of a potentially potent winter storm.  It is looking quite cold by Friday into Saturday, but the rain/snow outlook has diminished. Of course we'll have to watch each and every new set of data to see if there are anymore fluctuations in the model projections.

THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK is updated at least twice daily... you can find that on a tab at the top of the page.