Thursday, June 18, 2015

interesting times... (pm.18.jun.15)>

Thursday's stats:

Low temp: 68.2F (20.1C)
High temp: 84.5F (29.2C)
Rainfall: none

It's partly cloudy and very warm this evening just as the sun sets... and the rise in humidity is becoming more noticeable.  We started off with hazy sunshine this morning, but cloud development over the mountains got going well before noon, leading to a period of partly to mostly cloudy skies which lasted for much of the afternoon.  Those clouds kept our temperatures a couple of degrees cooler than expected, but the uptick in humidity seemed to make up for that.  There was no shower/thunder development in the area today, in spite of the clouds.

A broad area of very warm air in the middle and upper levels of the atmosphere extends from the Persian Gulf into northwest India -- taking the form of a sprawling ridge of high pressure.  Though we're still getting the mid-day and afternoon cloud development along the mountains, this air mass is too stable to allow the warmth and moisture near the surface to rise high enough to explode into thundershowers.  It looks like that general stability will remain with us tomorrow, with another day of mixed sunshine and clouds... along with temperatures pushing into the range of the warmest of the season and the year.

As the weekend arrives, so will some changes.  The most moisture-packed air mass of this pre-monsoon season will be creeping northwestward along the Himalayas -- and already that increase in humidity is becoming apparent.  At the same time, we'll start to see some gradual cooling aloft.  This combination will produce a much better chance of some significant rain shower and thunderstorm development over the weekend, though we may have to wait until Saturday night or Sunday for things to really come together.  It's then looking like we're going to be experiencing borderline monsoon conditions during much of next week.  And actually, that would be pretty much on schedule.  We are on the brink.

Explore the rest of the blog for lots more info........