Daily update- Friday, February 19, 2016

NWPAC outlook, 19 FEB

A slightly cooler air mass is settling in across the north region, while the central region gets warmer and wetter. The south is really cooking today as the intense sunshine bears down through cloudless skies, and the tropics are relatively calm and quiet. 

NORTH

A push of cooler air is making its way through portions of the north region today, helping lower temperatures and humidity levels just a bit. Temperatures will warm up considerably in japan, as warmer air is pulled up ahead of a developing low pressure area along the leading southeastern edge of this air mass. This low will form into a fairly significant storm system, affecting eastern China and Korea today, and Japan over the weekend. Most other locations across the north region will see just a few scattered clouds in the sky as we wrap up the work week.

CENTRAL

Hints of a stronger and cooler air mass building to the northwest are starting to show up in portions of western China, as clouds and wind increase and the temperatures start to drop. This building system will press through much of the eastern Asian continent by month’s end, bringing perhaps the last significant winter surge of the season. For today, most of the central region is warming up, with southeastern China and Taiwan seeing showers and rainfall thanks to a developing low pressure area off the east coast of China. This developing system will also pull in some moisture from the Indian Ocean over portions of southern China and northern Indochina, with plenty of cloudiness to show for it.

 SOUTH

Temperatures across portions of Indochina are dangerously hot today, as the afternoon sun shines down through relatively cloudless skies. Eastern seaboards of the Philippines and Vietnam will continue to see the seasonal northeast monsoon pull in moisture from the ocean, but it’s a shallow layer of moisture, so showers and clouds will be short-lived as they move inland. Most locales in the south region will see lots of sunshine with a few scattered clouds, with some thunderstorms firing up near Singapore in the warm afternoon sunshine.

TROPICS 

Much of the weak energy flowing through the tropics is very loosely-defined, with no organization taking place anywhere. General weak convergent energy is rather persistent along the I.T.C.Z. (Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone), south of 5 degrees north latitude, stretching from central Micronesia east to the Marshall Islands. Scattered clouds and occasional showers can be expected in these areas, while the northern zones of the region will see more energy slide through thanks to waves of continental energy, which continue to ripple into the southerly latitudes.

Have a fabulous Friday!

Courtesy: CIMSS, HKO, Tropical Tidbits, Intellicast, Weather.com, MeteoEarth