Tuesday, May 16, 2017

may's heaviest showers... (pm.16.may.17)>

Tuesday's stats:

Low temp: 54.7F (12.6C) -- during heavy shower at 5:40pm
High temp: 76.4F (24.7C)
Rainfall: 0.69" (1.8cm) 
*stats updated @ 8:00pm

This evening we're in the midst of wave after wave of thundershowers developing just to our south-southwest and moving north-northeastward up against the Dhauladhars.  I haven't been able to check the rain gauge since late this afternoon, but I'm sure there will be a lot more in there than what is currently listed in the stats above, as some of the showers since 5:15pm have been quite heavy.  Otherwise, we did have a bit of sunshine early this morning, but all of that was over by about 10:00am, with the first showers/thunder materializing a few minutes before noon.  The lack of sunshine and the rain have of course held temps way down today.

The latest in a long series of upper-level disturbances has turned the winds up around 12 to 15,000ft to the absolute perfect trajectory for precipitation development here along the Dhauladhars today.  Those winds are pretty much perpendicular to the mountains, and that has been dragging warm and moisture-laden air northeastward, and right up against the higher mountain ranges here in our part of Himachal Pradesh.  This particular disturbance will depart very late tonight or early Wednesday, but the upper-level flow remains full of minor to moderate circulations, wiggles and ripples, all the way into the early part of next week.  I am confident that we'll still see plenty of hours of sunshine over the course of the coming week, but at least a moderate risk of shower and thunderstorm development will never be far away.  Friday and Saturday could be our best bets of getting away with dry weather, but it's far from a sure thing.

Temperatures today have been an anomaly, compared to what we've been dealing with during most of the past week to ten days -- but both highs and lows will remain totally dependent on the battles between sunshine, clouds, and showers...