Friday, August 2, 2013

full power... (am.02.aug.13)>

*Update @ 8:48am... Still raining, though it's more on the light to moderate side right now.  I've got another 0.38" (9mm) since last report (below).  I expect this area of rain to gradually weaken during the next several hours... but we may not see much significant clearing today.  Word from near Norbulingka is that they got hit hard again -- 8" (20cm+) down there since last evening.

------------------------------------------------------------------
How quickly things can change... and it only took the turning of the page on the calendar, apparently.  We're back in the "sweet spot" here along the front slopes of the Dhauladhars where many variables and ingredients come together to produce our classic widespread, very heavy monsoon rains.

I've recorded a fresh 2.50" (6.4cm) of rain overnight, which brings the 24 hour total up to 4.49" (11.4cm).  That's the heaviest 24 hour amount I have observed at my location since I returned, back on the 15th of July.  Add to that the 0.94" (2.4cm) from very early yesterday morning, and that gives us 5.43" (13.8cm) already during this very young month of August.

It's still raining at the time of this writing, humidity is 100%, and the temperature is hovering around 66F (18.9C).

Well it turns out that the Tuesday through Friday window for heavy rain that we had been keeping our eyes on since late last week finally did turn out to be a good one, even though the first big downpours didn't appear until Wednesday night.  There are now indications that we could see things calm down a bit as the weekend arrives, as the atmosphere tries to stabilize temporarily before the next strong surge of tropical moisture slides up against the mountains again starting on Monday.  Computer models are going crazy with heavy rain totals for next Tuesday and Wednesday -- but there's plenty of time to see how that may or may not pan out.

Get your updated CURRENT FORECAST on the tab at the top of the page.