Tuesday, March 21, 2017

warmest since november... (pm.21.mar.17)>

Tuesday's stats:

Low temp: 54.0F (12.2C)
High temp: 65.7F (18.7C)
Precipitation: none

November 9th, 2016 -- Results of the U.S. election were coming in, and word was spreading that our 500 and 1000 rupee notes were suddenly worthless.  Remember that day??  That was the last time temperatures here in McLeod Ganj were warmer than they were today... nearly four and a half months ago.  We did get those high clouds today, but the sunshine didn't really get challenged significantly until around noon, allowing temps to warm up almost exactly as expected.  Now we're only about 2ºF/1ºC cooler than normal for this stage of March, which is quite an achievement considering where we've been during the last couple of weeks.

The weather pattern has evolved absolutely according to plan the last several days, as the first genuinely warm/hot air mass of the season finally starts to take hold across the plains of north India to our south.  We're on the northern fringes of that significant warming, with the general temperature trend over the coming week or so expected to continue to be an upward one.

There are issues to watch, however.  Already there are a couple of minor upper-level disturbances trying to crash into this ridge of high pressure, drifting in from the west, and that's going to introduce the next chance of some scattered shower/thunder action during the coming 24 hours.  Rainfall shouldn't be long-lasting or widespread, but keep in mind the thundershower risk, mainly between Wednesday evening and late Thursday night.  Then... our atmosphere should stabilize again, with additional warming expected over the weekend into next week.