Friday, January 30, 2015

return of the sun... (am.30.jan.15)>

The sky is absolutely clear just before sunrise -- and I'm recording an overnight low of 33.3F (0.7C).  The temperature has been hovering just barely above freezing all night long.  Just checked the rain gauge again, and it looks like there's been a total of 0.19" (5mm) of precipitation during the past 24 hours -- most of that arrived in frozen form (but almost immediately melted) between yesterday mid-morning and last evening.

Although we're dealing with some cold temps, there should be plenty of sunshine on the way for today, which will minister healing to the bones.  The weather pattern is looking quiet at least for the first part of the weekend, and we could even see a respectable warm-up by tomorrow (Saturday).  Clouds may be on the increase again by then, however, as we start to gear up for another storm system -- and this one will probably be much more significant than the last two minor ones we've just experienced.

There's no evidence of it yet on any of the weather charts, but computer models are keeping an eye on an evolution of the upper-level pattern that will eventually lead to the development of a major system just to our west by Sunday.  In fact, we may start to see some scattered rain showers as early as the wee hours of Sunday morning, with some heavy precipitation likely in and around our area between Sunday and very early Wednesday morning.  At this point at least, it seems that significant snowfall would remain well above us -- but there could be 2-3 feet of new snow in the higher elevations if this storm evolves as projected.  Stay tuned.