Wednesday's stats:
Low temp: 65.8F (18.8C)
High temp: 81.5F (27.5C)
Rainfall: none
It's partly cloudy at sunset this evening, here at the end of the final day of April, which has also turned out to be the new warmest day of the season and the year. The temperature finally surged above 80F (27C) at my house in the very upper part of town -- making this the warmest day since last JULY, when we had a couple of sunny breaks in the midst of the monsoon season. There was more cumulus cloud development over the mountains this afternoon than we've seen recently, with some high clouds coming in late this afternoon/evening as well. Still, the sunshine did its job.
The big high pressure ridge which has been our main weather feature during the past several days is showing signs of weakening a bit as we head toward the weekend. With a very warm air mass in place here in the lower levels of the atmosphere, even slight cooling in the higher levels (mainly above 15,000ft) is going to create some instability for us here along the mountains, and that is the scenario we're going to have to watch carefully through at least the early part of next week. It looks like the potential for some thundershower development will increase by Friday into Saturday -- but questions remain as to whether that activity will remain in the mountains further to our north and east, or affect us further downhill.
One thing seems fairly certain, and that's that the steady warm-up of the last seven or eight days will be peaking very shortly, with the expected increase in clouds and scattered showers in the area. Even so, our temps should remain near or even slightly above normal as we progress through the first few days of May.
CURRENT FORECAST info can be found on the tab above.
Low temp: 65.8F (18.8C)
High temp: 81.5F (27.5C)
Rainfall: none
It's partly cloudy at sunset this evening, here at the end of the final day of April, which has also turned out to be the new warmest day of the season and the year. The temperature finally surged above 80F (27C) at my house in the very upper part of town -- making this the warmest day since last JULY, when we had a couple of sunny breaks in the midst of the monsoon season. There was more cumulus cloud development over the mountains this afternoon than we've seen recently, with some high clouds coming in late this afternoon/evening as well. Still, the sunshine did its job.
The big high pressure ridge which has been our main weather feature during the past several days is showing signs of weakening a bit as we head toward the weekend. With a very warm air mass in place here in the lower levels of the atmosphere, even slight cooling in the higher levels (mainly above 15,000ft) is going to create some instability for us here along the mountains, and that is the scenario we're going to have to watch carefully through at least the early part of next week. It looks like the potential for some thundershower development will increase by Friday into Saturday -- but questions remain as to whether that activity will remain in the mountains further to our north and east, or affect us further downhill.
One thing seems fairly certain, and that's that the steady warm-up of the last seven or eight days will be peaking very shortly, with the expected increase in clouds and scattered showers in the area. Even so, our temps should remain near or even slightly above normal as we progress through the first few days of May.
CURRENT FORECAST info can be found on the tab above.
