Drought has returned to California due to a significantly dry winter. The U.S. Drought Monitor's weekly report Thursday designates the central and southern Sierra Nevada and adjacent areas of the Central Valley as being in moderate drought.
California had been drought-free since the early December. The Drought Monitor also expanded a designation of "abnormally dry" into San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and parts of northeastern California. A week earlier the abnormally dry status applied to the Central Valley and a swath from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Sierra, as well as parts of the California-Oregon border.
This morning coastal clouds depressed temps today a little as expected.
We should see some coastal re-development again this evening, but the deck may not be completely solid so some beaches and near coastal valleys could escape coverage.
Regardless we'll see good clearing Friday, clear to partly cloudy skies are expected. Temps will return to the mid 60s for most of the Central and Southcoast, interior valleys of SLO county will also make a run at 70 even though we'll likely start out with temps near freezing there.
There are no advisories in place.
No big twists or turns in the forecast. The weekend should feature temps perhaps a few degrees warmer than Friday.
I could go into extended analysis about the weather pattern, but suffice to say the features coming in the next week or two don't look likely to produce rain. In fact the middle of next week could see a significant offshore event for Southern California.
