Tuesday, May 17, 2016

temps high, humidity low... (pm.17.may.16)>

Tuesday's stats:

Low temp: 66.9F (19.4C)
High temp: 88.0F (31.1C)
Rainfall: none

The fragments of flat cumulus clouds that hovered along the mountain slopes for much of the afternoon have now dissipated, leaving us with totally clear skies across the area this evening.  Our mid-May sunshine delivered another very warm day -- the third-warmest of the season and the year -- with humidity remaining very low.  Even with these very warm temps, humidity just barely hitting 20% keeps it from feeling too uncomfortable.

Our atmosphere is the very picture of stability lately, thanks to a near-perfect balance of temperatures from the surface up through the mid- and high levels.  There's also an absence of moisture to work with.  Although there continue to be some weak ripples aloft, riding southeastward on the upper-level flow, there's just not enough 'juice' to kick up any shower action.  A lot of things have to fall in line to create this kind of stability, and at least for now, we've got it.  By Thursday night or Friday we may see a little better risk of a random thundershower somewhere around the area, but it looks like we may have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week to get a more respectable probability of some rain.

Temperatures are running above normal, and are closer to what we would expect during the first week of June.  But actually, it looks like we could be reaching 90ºF/32ºC sometime between tomorrow and the weekend, which is close to the hottest it ever gets at my recording spot in the upper part of town.  Thankfully, the humidity should stay rather low, otherwise it would be feeling really nasty...

Check out THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK, MAY DAILY STATS, and other tabs above for more info.