Tuesday, February 17, 2015

atmosphere in flux... (pm.17.feb.15)>

Tuesday's stats: 

Low temp: 44.2F (6.8C)
High temp: 57.7F (14.3C)
Precipitation: 0.49" (1.2cm)

We have hazy skies just past sunset this evening, and it's partly to mostly cloudy.  The sun exerted itself more than was expected today, though we did have a lot of cloudiness and haze hanging around as well.  The day's total precipitation occurred before 7:00am, and there was never any redevelopment thereafter.

This is how it's going to be during the coming 7-8 days or so -- battles between clouds and sun in between periods of rain and possible thundershowers.  We've found ourselves in a lull today, but it looks like the next bit of "spin" in the upper-levels of the atmosphere will move across our moisture-laden air mass very late tonight and Wednesday, so there's a good chance that the next round of wet weather isn't too far away.  The next disturbance is being projected by computer models to arrive by mid-day Thursday (first day of Losar), lasting into mid-day Friday, and that will increase the risk of rain once again.  Then it's starting to seem as if we may have a reprieve that will last for the majority of the weekend, before another and even stronger system sweeps across the area between Monday and Wednesday of next week.

Significant warming of the atmosphere to our south combined with an upper-level pattern that still looks like the middle of winter is responsible for this extended period of unsettled and unstable weather -- something quite common during the month of February, actually.  Check out the LATE WINTER TO SPRING tab at the top of the page if you haven't already.