What a Year!

This has been quite a year. Will have a more complete wrap-up with the evening blog. We have gone from record cold to record heat, some localized record flooding to widespread record drought, some record severe weather occurrences, and the list just seems to go on and on for the 2011 year. At least it is ending on a quiet note with the very mild temperatures of the last few days.

In fact, the only real issue today is the high fire danger which will be created by gusty S and SW winds of 15-25 or more which together with afternoon humidity levels dropping into the 20% range will make wildfires difficult to control. The SW wind component together with mostly sunny skies will also push daytime temperatures to near the 70 degree mark.

A cold front will be arriving this evening and will be completely through the state before the night is over. Gusty NW winds behind the front will cool us off for a few days, but only back to near normal for this time of year. Also, this system will be moisture starved so except for some clouds, there will be no moisture to work with. In fact, we expect to have mostly sunny skies as a general rule throughout the forecast period.

Sunday will still see daytime highs near 50, but the brisk northerly winds and the contrast to what we will have today will make it feel much cooler. Monday looks to be the coolest day of the coming week with morning lows in the 20s and daytime highs in the 40s….actually pretty close to normal.

Tuesday will start off clear and cold but a return to southerly winds during the day along with lots of sunshine will moderate temperatures nicely. After that, a warming trend looks to be the general rule through Friday before another cold front arrives in time for the coming weekend. Notice there is no mention of rain anytime soon.

Eventually this pattern will change and we continue to see some hints of that sometime during the second week of January, but nothing to get too excited about just yet.

In the meantime, stay tuned, check back for updates, and enjoy this nice weather while it lasts.

Dick Faurot