Temperatures Thursday did what was expected: soared into much above average territory for most areas. You could see this coming, the marine layer what whittled down to next to nothing and offshore morning winds combined with surface high pressure and a large arching ridge across the entire West did the trick.
Inland areas have been hot for days, yesterday some coastal valleys like SLO got in the action but other coastal valleys like Santa Maria still hung on to reasonable temperatures. Today there was far less morning marine layer and high pressure squished and pushed out what was left and even some beach towns crested 100.
When does this heat break? Well, some cooling is expected Friday but honestly not a lot. The upper level ridge starts to weaken but winds will still be offshore and models are not big on marine cloud redevelopment.
However over the course of several days temps do drop, Sunday into early next week coastal areas will cool. A larger realignment of the upper air pattern to a trough won't take place til late next week and that pattern is conducive to much cooler temperatures.
A heat advisory remains in place into Friday at 8pm, and all this E-NE wind has also transported terrible air quality from the San Joaquin Valley into the Central Coast. The San Joaquin valley with it's large mountains on either side of it creates a large bowl where fire smoke from a number of fires simply sits. Generally our winds are W-NW and we have limited exposure to the bad air but this week the air pattern is different under the ridge. Sunday more NW flow should improve air conditions.
