Saturday, May 11, 2013

stormy spell... (pm.11.may.13)>

*Update @ 8:25pm... This power cut all over Mcleod Ganj is now getting close to 7.5 hours... my laptop battery is nearly fried.  There have been only a few random light showers this evening, but we could get hit again with something more significant overnight.  Currently: 61.7F (16.5C), humidity: 50%.

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Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 49.6F (9.8C) -- 1:15pm
High temp: 70.9F (21.6C) -- 9:40am
Rainfall: 1.32" (3.4cm) -- 24 hours ending at 6pm

We have partly cloudy skies just before sunset this evening, after a very active and interesting day.  Temperatures have been all over the place, in response to glimpses of sun vs. downpours of rain, but were way cooler than we've seen during the past several days.  In fact, that low temp (above) which occurred in the midst of heavy rain and hail just after 1:00pm is one of the coldest May temperatures I can remember.  It's a little late to be getting a healthy new dose of snow up on the Dhauladhars, but that's exactly what happened this afternoon.

Today's rainfall -- the vast majority of which happened between 12:30pm and 4:00pm -- was the most I've recorded in a single event since way back on the 24th of March, and takes us more than half-way to the normal amount for the entire month of May.

The center of the upper-level disturbance responsible for this wet and stormy weather is still lingering over east-central Pakistan, very close to Lahore.  It has already over-performed in terms of rain production, but it looks like there will be more to come.  The latest satellite pics show new thunderstorm development to our south and west over Punjab during the past couple of hours, which will be moving in our direction.  Occasional showers and thunderstorms will remain in the forecast tomorrow (Sun) as well, with chances gradually diminishing starting on Monday, as this system finally flattens out and moves off to the east.

Dramatic improvement should kick in by Tuesday, with a steady trend toward warmer and drier weather lasting though next weekend.  Currently, it's looking dry and hot in Dharamsala for the IPL cricket matches on Thursday and Saturday.

The CURRENT FORECAST specifics can be found on the tab above.