It appears that April will end with a record breaking heat wave for the Sierra. A flat ridge of high pressure aloft gets pumped up over the Golden State with today’s 12z GFS 500mb heights progging a peak of 588 dm by 06z Wednesday, while 500mb-1000mb Thicknesses peak at 572DM Tuesday night and 571DM again Wednesday early PM.  So the warmest day will likely be Wednesday.  Temperatures records for Bishop for the next few days for April are; 27th-90 in 1949; 28th-92, in 2013; 29th -91, in 2013.  It appears that this Wednesday’s Bishop record in is Jeopardy.

 

Highs in Mammoth will likely reach between 70 and 72 degrees.

For the High Country, as the upper ridge shifts into Nevada Wednesday, strong Zephyr winds 30 to 35 MPH will develop that afternoon into the evening hours. Thursday will begin a cool down in the high country that will extend into Sunday. Thursday afternoons winds will be even stronger with gusts to 40+ mph locally. The Upper Jet is expected to sag south into North Central CA by Sunday Morning. This raises the possibility of some light showers for Mammoth Sunday morning.  More over….the prospects for additional cooling is expected Sunday where high temps are expected to cool to the mid 50s. It will be breezy all weekend…Nighttime temperature’s may return to the upper 20s by Monday AM.

BTW, seasonal highs in Mammoth this week are in the upper 50s,  So as of late, although the highs will reach the low 70s tomorrow and Wednesday, temps will be returning to more seasonal levels which may feel much cooler than what you are going to get used to the next few days.

Longer term:

The trend of temperatures will see-saw next week as heights RAPIDLY increase again over CA by Cinco de Mayo. IT WILL WARM QUICKLY MIDWEEK!   The upper jet retreats north, while the longer range GFS and ECMWF ensembles show the long wave trof retrograding with long wave ridge position holding firm over the far west.  Additionally there are two moderately strong short waves that will be deflected up into the pacific NW both Thursday and Saturday. So the warmth will be accompanied by periods of wind between migrating short waves.

 

Sensibly, high temps will return above normal next week with highs well into the 60s by mid week and possibly 70 by Sunday the 10th of May.

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs…………………………:-)