Thursday, October 10, 2013

transitioning again... (pm.10.oct.13)>

Thursday's stats:

Low temp: 62.4F (16.9C)

High temp: 68.4F (20.2C)
Rainfall: none

There were scattered thundershowers this afternoon from extreme northern Pakistan into the mountains of north India, but apart from a few minutes of thunder between 3:30 and 4:00pm, there were few effects here in the immediate McLeod area.  We did have some peeks of sunshine off and on throughout the morning, and even into the early afternoon hours, but once again, the clouds and fog were the dominant features of the day.  Humidity in the upper part of town dipped only as low as 83%.

It's not hard to see that a lot of moisture remains in place here along front slopes of the mountains -- it's still looking much more like mid-September than mid-October.  Computer models keep showing a significant amount of shower and thundershower development pretty much right on top of us, but there's actually been very little rain right here (McLeod) during the past couple of days -- which is surprising.  Instability is expected to increase a bit more during the next 24-36 hours or so, which means that we have to keep the mention of some shower or thunderstorm development in the forecast.  Things could still change quickly, so be aware of that.

I am very pleased to report that there has been nice consistency in the model projections of a significant drying trend as we move through the weekend into early next week.  The low-level moisture should be decreasing dramatically by Sunday and Monday -- maybe bringing us our lowest humidity readings since the third week of September when we had our official monsoon withdrawal declaration.  I'm not sure that there won't still be enough lingering moisture to keep us battling with at least a couple of hours of late PM clouds and fog, but right now it appears that our proportion of sunshine will be on the increase.

Get the latest CURRENT FORECAST info on the tab at the top of the page.