Friday, June 17, 2016

weekend concerns... (pm.17.jun.16)>

Friday's stats:

Low temp: 63.0F (17.2C)
High temp: 78.8F (26.0C) -- updated
Rainfall: trace

A broken layer of clouds is hanging very low along the mountain slopes this evening, as we move within a few days of the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year.  There's also some hazy sunshine happening, as has been the case since morning, in the midst of the patchy/occasional clouds.  As far as I'm aware, there was nothing more than a few brief sprinkles of rain this afternoon in the immediate McLeod area.

Today's humidity level fluctuated between 59% and 72% at my location in the upper part of town -- far from saturation, but there's obviously enough moisture in the air to make it feel quite muggy, in spite of the relatively mild temperatures.  A warming air mass aloft, coupled with the slight decrease in the overall moisture content of this air mass has delivered a bit of rare stability for us today.  Areas of showers and/or thundershowers could still develop/erupt at any time of the day or night... but the data is still pointing to a smaller risk of rain over the weekend.  Temperatures will probably climb a couple of degrees both Saturday and Sunday, so it's going to feel quite steamy and sultry during episodes of sunshine.

There's a brand new surge of deeper tropical moisture scheduled to begin pushing into our area from the south-southeast by Sunday night, and right now it looks like it will stay with us for most of next week.  We can look forward to rising humidity once again, along with a higher risk of some spells of moderate to heavy rainfall next week... which is pretty much exactly what should be happening as we pass the summer solstice and move into the latter days of June.

Follow the monsoon's progress across the Indian sub-continent on SUMMER INTO MONSOON -- located on a tab above.