Northwest surface flow has returned and with it the slow push of cooler air inland is on. Additionally there is plenty of marine cloud cover at beaches and near coastal valleys. High clouds are also drifting overhead, all filtering the sunshine (and if you want to count some smoke haze as well you can).
The ridge of high pressure has collapsed and the upper air pattern is transitioning to a trough digging toward the West Coast by Friday or Saturday.
Models have struggled with the timing and details of a trough arrival and cold front passage through the area. Yesterday models backed off rain optimism, today some showers appear with the frontal passage but now it looks like that is Saturday, not Friday. This kind of run to run inconsistency leads to low confidence on the details and low to moderate confidence on maybe seeing a few showers.
Regardless it'll be cooler Friday though the weekend.
I think the biggest impact from the frontal passage will be the subsequent winds that develop Sunday.
Strong 15-30mph northwesterly winds with gusts to 40mph look likely Sunday.
High pressure will rebuild next week for another rebound in temps but I doubt they get as high as we have seen last week and over the weekend.
