After a blistering week last week the weather pattern has already started to shift. At the beaches low clouds have hugged the coast to start the week. Coastal valleys saw early clouds then haze filtered sunshine. The net result has been mild temperatures. This pattern at the coast doesn't look to change much over the next several days.
In terms of smoke, it isn't enough for local air quality warnings. That said there is enough smoke in the Central Valley for advisories there. There are simply so many acres of fire in CA that even a pattern favorable to carry smoke here for a few hours will leave a haze over the area. The general conditions are favorable for some additional thinning with NW winds being the more predominant direction.
Inland heat will keep backing off over the next few days as the upper air ridge collapses. By Wednesday temps are near normal with below normal conditions likely by the end of the week.
The big question in the forecast is about rain. The upper level pattern carves out a trough into the upcoming weekend. No doubt it cools temps, but the surface feature modeling doesn't give me high confidence.
This morning models suggested up to .40" then this afternoon the same model suggests the cold front moving thru the area Friday afternoon just doesn't have enough moisture to work with. At this point seems reasonable to be skeptical until better alignment on key features arrives. I do like it cooler, and not ready to write off the rain chances entirely yet.
