Unfortunately, the inversion overhead persisted and kept us cool and cloudy Monday. It was nearly noon before we broke out of the 30s and reached the low 40s, topping out at a chilly 43 degrees for the high temperature. Now if you went up to elevations say 1,500 feet or so, you would have enjoyed sunshine and temperatures in the 50s. A beautiful day on the mountain for many.
A weak weather system will crawl through our area today with a few scattered showers and hopefully mix the atmosphere enough to get rid of the fog and low clouds. The next chance of light showers is Thursday. Then weather charts show partly sunny weather Friday through Sunday. A third weekend without rain? The only caveat is we risk another bout of low clouds and fog if winds are too light to prevent an inversion.
An inversion is warmer air aloft and cooler air at the surface and with light winds, long hours of darkness and plenty of ground moisture, well you know what happens. This usually prompts the weather service to issue an air stagnation advisory. Hopefully we get slight offshore winds to keep the atmosphere mixed up and we enjoy some much-needed winter sunshine.
Last evening, the full wolf moon rose in our eastern skies and would have been visible if skies were clear in your location and at higher elevations. As I write this column at 5 p.m., Vancouver still had cloudy skies.
