The sun is up... but it's battling a lot of haze this morning, with a few patches of high cirrus clouds in the area as well. It was partly cloudy overnight, with no rainfall, and a low temp of 68.5F (20.3C) here at my location in the upper part of town.
The rain gauge is dry and dusty, as there's been no measurable precipitation at all during the month of May thus far. Our last rainfall event of note occurred on the 30th of April, when evening thundershowers delivered 0.32" (8mm). As far as temperatures are concerned, it was very near normal/average for the first couple of days of the month, but we've been considerably warmer than normal thereafter. Yes, genuine summertime conditions have dominated May up til now.
As we've been discussing the last couple of days, there are some subtle, slow and gradual changes occurring, however, which will lead to a better chance of a few showers and thunderstorms, along with a decline in temperatures over the course of the coming several days. Our strong high pressure ridge is already being challenged by some weak upper-level energy rippling in from the west, as a large batch of deeper moisture pushes in from the Arabian Sea. On top of that, there's going to be some cooling aloft by Monday, which will lead to some widespread destabilization of the atmosphere. All that to say... there's a better risk of some mainly PM thundershower development in random spots this weekend, then a good chance of scattered shower/thunder action between Monday and Wednesday. But we'll still see plenty of hazy sun in the midst of it all, until we can get a good period of rain to cleanse away all the dirt and dust trapped in the air.
Temperatures will be trending gradually downward by Tuesday and Wednesday -- perhaps dipping below normal by a couple of degrees until we start to rebound yet again by the latter part of next week.
Get the specifics by checking THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK tab above.
