Thursday, April 21, 2016

atmospheric adjustments... (pm.21.apr.16)>

Thursday's stats:

Low temp: 63.3F (17.4C)
High temp: 80.6F (27.0C)
Rainfall: none

A very pleasant evening is underway, with partly cloudy skies and comfortable temperatures.  We saw sun and scattered clouds pretty much all day long, but the sunshine seemed to dominate, allowing my high temp to surpass the 80ºF mark for just the third time this season.

Some significant dynamic changes are occurring in the upper atmosphere at this very moment, however, and that's got us looking at a different kind of weather scenario during the coming 24 to 36 hours.  A rather strong upper-level circulation is forming over eastern portions of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, containing some unseasonably cool air up above 13,000ft (4000m) or so -- and this weather feature is already starting to drop southeastward in our direction.  With relatively warmer air in the lower levels of the atmosphere, it's going to become more and more unstable later tonight and Friday, possibly igniting a few areas of rather strong thunderstorms somewhere in our vicinity.  Models have backed off a bit during the last 12 hours, but I'm not sure if we can trust that or not.  If that rain and thunder does develop, then we'll probably have some hail as well, very gusty winds, and temporarily plunging temperatures as some of that colder air aloft gets brought down to our elevation.

It will remain unstable on Saturday as well, so we can't rule out a couple of random showers or thundershowers in the area, but starting on Sunday, we'll see a trend toward a stabilizing atmosphere.  Right now it looks like most of next week will be quiet and dry, apart from an isolated PM thundershower somewhere along the mountain slopes... with temperatures warming up yet again.

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