Sunday, January 5, 2014

on par for jan... (am.05.jan.14)>

The sky is mostly clear just before sunrise, and I'm recording an early morning low temp of 40.6F (4.8C) and a humidity reading of 50%.  There is 0.10" (3mm) of rain in my gauge -- most of that from light showers last night between about 8:30pm and midnight.  There's also a dusting of fresh snow on the hills above.

We still have an upper-level circulation and associated pool of very cold air aloft which is hanging back just to our northwest.  As temperatures continue to cool in the mid- and upper-levels there could be more pockets of instability developing today -- which could lead to some cloud development, and even a couple of stray/random rain and/or snow showers around the area.  However, the tongue of moisture which was pulled up against the mountains yesterday has now been shunted off to the southeast, so we may not have the moisture fuel we need today to get those showers going.  At any rate, anything that develops should be light and short-lived.

Temperatures have obviously cooled off substantially, compared to what we were enjoying  on Thursday and Friday.  We're now back in the normal range for early January, and should stay there as this week unfolds.  The main event of this new week will be the developing winter storm system which will begin to affect us by Wednesday, and could linger all the way into Friday and Saturday.  Computer models are showing moderate precipitation amounts during that period, along with a temperature profile that would favor at least a rain/snow mixture at our elevation.  There's still a long time to wait for all this to come together, but stay tuned for updates on the progress.

CURRENT FORECAST details can be found on the tab above.