Sunday's stats:
Low temp: 59.9F (15.5C) -- at 2:15pm
High temp: 86.3F (30.2C)
Rainfall: 0.69" (1.8cm)
It's been another one of those days that could be split into two completely different halves. We had nearly 100% sunshine and rapidly warming temps all the way until the noon hour, but explosive cumulus development occurred along the mountains in a very short period of time, with thunder already rumbling by about 1:20pm or so. By 1:40pm, it was raining moderately in the upper part of town, with some impressively large hail stones mixed in as well. It looked several times as if things were trying to calm down and clear out a bit, but thundershowers continued to redevelop overhead along the mountains throughout the afternoon, and even now into the early evening. As I type, it is still mostly cloudy, with scattered showers mainly to the south-southwest.
Our morning low temp of 70.3F (21.3C) was close to the warmest overnight low of the season and the year, but the rapid thundershower development caused my temp to plunge right around 2:00pm, giving us a new low temp for the day, only about an hour after the day's high. Definitely a dramatic roller-coaster early this afternoon.
Satellite pics this afternoon and early evening have shown numerous clusters of thunderstorms all up and down the outer Himalayan ranges -- from Kashmir to the Uttarakhand/Nepal border. The extreme heat lurking just to our south combined with relatively colder upper-level temps along the mountains created a fierce battle zone over a wide area today -- something largely ignored by most of the computer models, which always have trouble resolving the micro-scale features along the extreme elevation gradients of the front slopes of the mountains. BUT -- the same features were in place yesterday as well, and we didn't see such extensive thunderstorm development. We all know well that there are deep mysteries with regard to cloud/thunder triggers in our part of the world. I guess (?) that's what makes it so challenging and fun and maddening.
As we've been reiterating over and over, thunderstorm development can occur on any given afternoon this time of year, here along the battle zone between heatwave conditions to our south, and relatively cooler mountain air just to our north. By the same token, we should also continue to take part in periods of strong summer sunshine and very warm temps, which can still push toward the highest of the season and the year as this new week unfolds.
Keep up with this year's monsoon advance on SUMMER INTO MONSOON on a tab above, as well as JUNE DAILY STATS and the THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK .
Low temp: 59.9F (15.5C) -- at 2:15pm
High temp: 86.3F (30.2C)
Rainfall: 0.69" (1.8cm)
It's been another one of those days that could be split into two completely different halves. We had nearly 100% sunshine and rapidly warming temps all the way until the noon hour, but explosive cumulus development occurred along the mountains in a very short period of time, with thunder already rumbling by about 1:20pm or so. By 1:40pm, it was raining moderately in the upper part of town, with some impressively large hail stones mixed in as well. It looked several times as if things were trying to calm down and clear out a bit, but thundershowers continued to redevelop overhead along the mountains throughout the afternoon, and even now into the early evening. As I type, it is still mostly cloudy, with scattered showers mainly to the south-southwest.
Our morning low temp of 70.3F (21.3C) was close to the warmest overnight low of the season and the year, but the rapid thundershower development caused my temp to plunge right around 2:00pm, giving us a new low temp for the day, only about an hour after the day's high. Definitely a dramatic roller-coaster early this afternoon.
Satellite pics this afternoon and early evening have shown numerous clusters of thunderstorms all up and down the outer Himalayan ranges -- from Kashmir to the Uttarakhand/Nepal border. The extreme heat lurking just to our south combined with relatively colder upper-level temps along the mountains created a fierce battle zone over a wide area today -- something largely ignored by most of the computer models, which always have trouble resolving the micro-scale features along the extreme elevation gradients of the front slopes of the mountains. BUT -- the same features were in place yesterday as well, and we didn't see such extensive thunderstorm development. We all know well that there are deep mysteries with regard to cloud/thunder triggers in our part of the world. I guess (?) that's what makes it so challenging and fun and maddening.
As we've been reiterating over and over, thunderstorm development can occur on any given afternoon this time of year, here along the battle zone between heatwave conditions to our south, and relatively cooler mountain air just to our north. By the same token, we should also continue to take part in periods of strong summer sunshine and very warm temps, which can still push toward the highest of the season and the year as this new week unfolds.
Keep up with this year's monsoon advance on SUMMER INTO MONSOON on a tab above, as well as JUNE DAILY STATS and the THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK .
