inching forward... (pm.04.apr.15)>

Saturday's stats:

Low temp: 50.2F (10.1C)
High temp: 55.2F (12.9C)
Rainfall: 0.03" (1mm)

We have mostly cloudy skies at sunset this evening, and it remains very cool for early April.  Take a look at the temperature stats above, and you'll see that the thermometer didn't move much at all today, despite the few short periods of sunshine this morning and again early this evening.  Most of the day was dry, though there was a brief period of thundershowers between about 4:00 and 4:30pm.  All in all, yet another sub-par day for this time of year.

A general trough of low pressure in the upper atmosphere lingers across northern India, with a pool of very cold air aloft setting the stage for some relatively impressive instability once we get just the slightest bit of heating in the surface layers.  Our brief periods of sun only served to provide the warmth necessary to lift our moisture-laden airmass and condense it into clouds and patchy fog -- not to mention those random thundershowers.  As we've been discussing, the improvement in our weather scenario is going to be a painfully slow one as we progress through the next five days or so.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, and I am hopeful that we'll see an uptick in the amount of sunshine, but I am also fairly sure that there will be more of this isolated to widely scattered shower/thunder action in our general vicinity... especially during the mid-afternoon into the evening hours.  On Monday and Tuesday there is a mentionable chance of a few showers and thundershowers as well, with at least a chance that we could dry out completely sometime during the latter half of the week.  Even though a warming trend should finally begin to kick in shortly, it's going to take until Friday to get anywhere close to normal for the season.

THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK has the details.

long road out... (am.04.apr.15)>

For the first time this week, we've had a rain-free night -- at least at my location on Tushita Road below the mountaineering center.  My overnight low has been 50.2F (10.1C).  There is a good amount of high cloudiness across the area early this morning, but only a few patches of lower clouds to the south and east.  It does look like there will be at least some dim sunshine appearing shortly.  

The atmosphere across the entire western Himalayan region is trying to calm down and stabilize, but it still looks like it's not going to be a quick process.  There are still a couple of large pools of unseasonably cold air stuck in the mid- and upper atmosphere which will make our air mass prone to periods of instability all the way through Tuesday.  That means that although we're going to see a better chance of coming up with some periods of sunshine along the way, there is also a pretty good risk of more scattered shower and thundershower development on occasion... especially during the afternoon, evening and perhaps the overnight hours.  It's not a clean bill of health, but overall, the scenario should be trending toward something less miserable than what we've recently been dealing with.

The average high temperature for this stage of April is about 72ºF/22ºC, but it's going to take until Thursday/Friday of next week before we can reach that -- and by that time the average high will have warmed up another couple of degrees, so we're in for a challenging chase.  But the extended range data is showing postive signs in terms of drying out and warming up, so let's hope it materializes...

Get THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK and other info on tabs above.

glimmers of hope... (pm.03.apr.15)>

Friday's stats:

Low temp: 48.2F (9.0C)
High temp: 55.2F (12.9C)
Rainfall since 7:00am: 0.73" (1.9cm)
24 hour rainfall: 1.11" (2.8cm)

It's still mostly cloudy at sunset this evening, though it does seem like the clouds are trying to break up a bit.  Today has been the rainiest and coldest day of this entire nearly week-long stretch of nasty weather, with frequent spells of rain and thunder -- the heaviest of which occurred between roughly 2:15 and 4:30pm.  Our temps today were more than 15ºF/8ºC colder than normal for early April.

Since last Sunday three strong upper-level disturbances have swept across northern India, with a couple of less intense ones rippling through in between.  This active weather pattern has produced more than 3" (7.6cm) of rain in the past six days -- making our transition from March into April less than lovely, to say the least.  We've also had five days in a row of temperatures remaining below 60ºF/16ºC.  We may be able to breathe a sigh of relief, however, as it looks like we are near the end of this long period of unseasonably cold and wet weather -- though it is going to take several days for us to climb out of it.

Our atmosphere is going to make an attempt at stabilization starting tomorrow, which should allow us to see a few periods of sunshine as temperatures begin a moderate rebound.  Unfortunately, lingering colder air in the mid- and upper-levels is going to lead to a good chance of some fairly major cloud development by mid-day into the afternoon hours, and then some isolated to scattered thundershower development as well.  That could happen not only tomorrow (Sat) and Easter Sunday, but all the way through the middle of next week as well.  But we'll have to take what we can get, and look forward to our temps struggling back toward 70ºF/21ºC by Thursday or Friday.

Of course you can check tabs above for THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK and other information...

more unneeded rain... (am.03.apr.15)>

It's a very gloomy, damp and chilly Good Friday morning out there, with cloudy skies and some periodic light rain.  There have been off-and-on light to moderate rain showers (and a bit of thunder/lightning) happening since about 7:40pm -- amounting to 0.38" (1.0cm) in my rain gauge since last evening's report.  The low temperature here at my location in the upper part of town has been 48.4ºF (9.1ºC), though it is just above 51ºF (11ºC) at this moment.

This is now the sixth day in a row of measurable rainfall, and I think it's not a big presumption to say that most of us are getting pretty sick and tired of it.  I will stand tall and put my hand in the air and say that I definitely am.  Rainfall since the beginning of February has been more than triple the normal/average amount, so I think we all have every right to say that enough is enough. 

The last in this agonizingly long series of upper-level disturbances is moving across the western Himalayan region right now, producing a widespread area of thick cloudiness and mainly light to moderate rain and thundershowers.  It's probably going to take most of the day and even into this evening before this system starts to loosen its grip on us, so expect more occasional rain shower action, with the risk of some thunder as well.  Temperatures will remain in the range of 'way cooler than normal' for early April.

A very slow and gradual shift in the overall weather pattern will begin to get underway tomorrow, but it may take until the middle of next week before we get much substantial benefit from it.  We should start to see a bit more sunshine returning over the weekend, but the risk of some isolated to widely scattered showers/thunder will still exist, especially during the late afternoon into the nighttime hours both Saturday and Easter Sunday, and possibly beyond.  I do think our temps will moderate significantly by Wednesday or Thursday, but that's still a long way off...

THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK and other info is available on tabs above.