Friday, January 17, 2014

on the fringe... (am.17.jan.14)>

It is partly cloudy and hazy just before sunrise, with a humidity reading of 59%.  The overnight low at my location on Tushita Road below the mountaineering center was 41.4F (5.2C) -- which occurred within the last hour.  There has been no precipitation since last report.

An upper-level circulation center is now located over the southern half of Pakistan, and will be making its way into Rajasthan later today, and then to Uttarakhand by Saturday afternoon.  There is already a good batch of cloudiness in association with it, along with a return of some colder air in the mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere.  We'll see a very dramatic surge of moisture-laden air across central India during the next 12 hours or so, which is going to fuel widespread shower and thundershower development -- mainly to our southeast.  Each and every run of new computer model data is keeping us just to the northwest of the major outbreak of precipitation, with no tangible evidence that we're going to get more than a few scattered rain and/or snow showers in our neighborhood as this system passes by.  Still -- it's a close enough call that we'll have to watch how the upper-level circulation interacts with the surging moist air at the surface later today, and see if that might put us in a better position to pick up some more significant precipitation between tonight and Saturday evening.

By Sunday, a brand new ridge of high pressure builds across northern India, and should stick around until mid-day Tuesday when the next disturbance approaches from the west.  Temperatures should rise well above normal for the later half of January during the early part of next week, before potential wet weather cools us down again by Tuesday night and Wednesday.

CURRENT FORECAST details can be found on the tab above.