Thursday, November 5, 2015

general improvements... (pm.05.nov.15)>

Thursday's stats:

Low temp: 45.1F (7.3C)
High temp: 59.1F (15.1C)
Rainfall since 7am: trace
Rainfall since midnight: 0.35" (9mm)

We've got a partly to mostly cloudy sky this evening during the hour after sunset, and there have been some random sprinkles and brief light drizzle in the air recently.  The main weather event of the past 24 hours was a round of rigorous thunderstorms which swept through the area between roughly 2:30 and 4:00am, bringing lots of thunder and lightning, a couple of periods of light to moderate rain, and some gusty winds.  There was also a brief but sharp drop in temps, as you can see from the stats report -- that temp was the coldest of our new fall/winter season.  The rain was over way before sunrise, and our clouds and thick haze gradually gave way to a good amount of sunshine during the mid-morning through early afternoon hours.  But then clouds thickened up again, with a couple of rumbles of thunder and random rain drops during the late afternoon and early evening hours.

A rather difuse upper-level disturbance is moving across Jammu & Kashmir this evening, with only the most isolated and very light shower activity still occurring across Himalayan north India.  This system has behaved fairly close to expectations -- with the only significant rainfall occurring during the overnight hours.  There may yet be a surprise shower sometime before midnight, but I will be shocked if there is enough rainfall to register a measurement.  Stabilizing influences are already building in, and the moisture supply is pretty pathetic, really.

Things seem to be setting up for a quiet and dry weekend, though there are plenty of question marks with regard to what the sunshine vs cloud ratio is going to be.  Our air mass will dry out and humidity will drop a bit, but the mountain lift issues will keep us concerned about cloud development.  By Monday, a new disturbance will glide our way, giving us our next chance of some scattered shower or thundershower action through Tuesday.  Temps will fluctuate up and down in response to daytime sunshine, but should average close to seasonal norms overall during the next seven days.

THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK (tab above) contains the forecast details.