Saturday, April 25, 2015

sun-thunder-sun... (pm.25.apr.15)>

Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 54.1F (12.3C)
High temp: 78.0F (25.6C)
Rainfall: 0.48" (1.2cm)

The sun will be setting in just a few minutes, and we have mostly clear skies to accompany it.  Today's weather has swung from one extreme to the other -- with lots of sunshine this morning followed by a rapid build-up of clouds over the mountains around the noon hour, and then an impressive two-hour period of showers and thunder which also produced a couple of brief spells of small hail.  The low temp (see stats above) occurred shortly after 4:00pm in the middle of rain and hail -- a 24ºF/13ºC fall from the high temp of the day which occurred only two hours before.  Wow.

Isolated thundershowers have been popping up each and every afternoon during this past week or so along the Himalayan ranges, and today was obviously our day to cash in.  This evening's satellite pics show a couple of other dying clusters of thundershowers along the front slopes of the mountains to our southeast.  There are indications that a very quick push of warmer air aloft may stifle tomorrow afternoon's instability potential, but I think we still need to be on alert for the risk of a round of PM thundershowers.  It's just part and parcel of the warm season dynamics here along the Dhauladhars.  Otherwise there will likely be a good amount of sunshine again tomorrow, with temps close to the 80ºF mark yet again.

The weather pattern for much of next week is going to be a more active one, with several upper-level disturbances projected to swing across northern India, accompanied by increasingly cooler air in the higher levels of the atmosphere.  This is going to give us a good chance of occasional waves of showers and thunderstorms between Monday and at least Friday -- with temperatures dropping a few degrees as well.  The sun won't entirely disappear, however, making its presence known in between bouts of showers/thunder.

I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I am shocked and devastated by the news today from Nepal.  I've been there many times since 1997, and can hardly believe the pictures/videos and news reports that have been coming out today.  I'm joining our weathergeek readers in praying for all those affected.  It's a very sad day...