Wednesday, October 8, 2014

landmark events... (am.08.oct.14)>

Those thundershowers in northern Pakistan that I said would die overnight obviously DIDN'T.!  In fact, they intensified into a large area of very strong thunderstorms and swept across parts of J&K and northern Himachal -- driven by the strongest jet stream winds we've yet seen this autumn.  Those brisk jet stream winds were carried down to the surface, in part, delivering very high wind gusts on the back side of the area of thunderstorms.  I have 1.24" (3.1cm) in my rain gauge here in the upper part of town -- and I recorded a low temp of 49.5F (9.7C) during the storms, which is the coolest temperature since last spring.  Humidity this morning has dropped to 59%.

All of that was a rude awakening, giving us a heads-up that our atmosphere is indeed radically shifting gears.  The upper-level disturbances currently sliding in from the west-northwest contain a taste of fall/winter dynamic energy -- and as they encounter this stubborn leftover tropical moisture in the low-levels of the atmosphere, it has created some fireworks.  But as we've been anticipating for a few days now -- the other side of the equation is the fact that the driest batch of air in more than four months will be settling across north India in the wake of these disturbances.

It's possible that another round or two of showers and thunderstorms could develop later today into tonight, but then it looks like things will calm down and dry out dramatically as we progress through the latter half of the week.  Right now, the weekend is looking fantastic...