Tuesday, January 16, 2018

moisture-deprived... (pm.16.jan.18)>

Today's high temp (59.7F/15.4C) at my location just below the mountaineering center was the warmest of the month.

Since about the 20th of December, our weather pattern has been dominated by a 'zonal' flow in the mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere.  This is the most stable pattern during the winter season in our part of the world... and has kept us from receiving even a trace of precipitation in several weeks.  With embedded weak disturbances riding along that west-to-east flow we've seen a few waves of high cloudiness, and several moderate temperature fluctuations.  But for the most part, it has been a very quiet and boring stretch of weather... during the time of year when many of us are eagerly waiting for winter storms bringing significant amounts of rain and snowfall to Himalayan north India.

A deep upper-level low pressure circulation is now being forecast by computer models to swing from Afghanistan and southern Pakistan into west-northwestern India about one week from now... and that could be a pattern-changer for the latter part of the month.  No guarantees... but any hint of precipitation is something to carefully watch...