Its been a beautiful fishing opener, with light breezes over the lower elevations and bright sunny days.  Temps on Sunday topped out in the low 60s while at Crowley Lake, it hit 70 degrees on Sunday. The upper ridge off shore will actually build into California late Tuesday into Wednesday, then shifts east into Nevada Thursday. Because along the western periphery of the upper ridge, we have southerly flow, we get one more day of warming Thursday.  Highs will be close to 70 in the Town of Mammoth.  However, like during the summer, once the upper ridge shifts east, our air mass becomes more unstable with the beginnings of cooling aloft. Towering cumulus just like during the Summer in the afternoon will develop with the possibility of diurnal afternoon and evening showers.  Remember, the first week of May is like early to mid August with the high angle of the Sun.

Following the upper ridges passage, is an upper trough. This trof is progressive and will move to the west coast by this Friday morning. Strong gusty southerly winds will increase over the upper elevations as the rear right entry region of the upper jet approaches. This will destabilize the atmosphere even more continuing the chance of showers. It will be cooler Friday through the weekend with the chance of showers each day and evening. Note: The showers look mostly convective and thus diurnal in nature.

More on next weekends storm:

The upper ridge is forecasted to sharpen up as it slowly progresses east to Eastern Colorado this Saturday, then stalls out. This forces the upper stream trof over California to become Cut-Off from the westerlies. So this is our first cut off low of the Spring the weekend of the 6th.  Cut off lows are very unpredictable and at this time, it is not uncertain where the cut off will develop. For what it is worth, all the forecast models today Sunday afternoon, are trending more toward a stall out along the coast of California as the cut off tracks very slowly SSE. This low may be with us between the upcoming Saturday through the following Wednesday and possibly beyond. This will prolong the possibility of showers and thunderstorms each and every afternoon and evening until it exits.

More later this week…..

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs………………………:-)