For people who like late-year sunshine, this forecast has not disappointed however there are reasons we should be concerned. The offshore winds are quite dry and without a significant rain so far this season we are short on rain and the area is dangerously dry. Across Southern California fire weather watches are already in place for more significantly strong offshore winds and dry air, the only reason the Central Coast is not included thus far is that the pace of the offshore flow locally is not that strong but the air is dry and the landscape a bit parched. Last week the U.S. Drought Monitor places the Central Coast in the abnormally dry designation which is a predecessor to moderate drought.
The offshore winds locally will continue to drive temps in the 60s and 70s for highs and cool overnight lows, coldest in the interior valleys where more overnight freezes are likely thru the upcoming weekend.
There is a weak system passing thru the region on Wednesday which will crank up NW winds temporarily before turning them offshore. I think some marine layer rebound is possible late Wednesday and early Thursday but again the larger impact will be that high pressure builds in the wake and drives even stronger offshore winds to close the week, especially in Southern California.
Models flip-flopped today. Yesterday they were following a recent trend of showing some mid-month pattern change. Today, however, the GFS and EURO (mid-range models) and model ensembles (blended models) all indicated that pattern shift may not develop. That said this is all in the rather speculative end of model runs and this could quickly change back to a wetter solution but this is something I am watching carefully considering the current dry weather situation.
You might wonder how such drastic change is possible in just one day in outlooks, well if you have ever played the "telephone game" you understand how small bits of change of data get amplified with time. Long-range forecasts always have this potential due to the way chaos theory works in weather prediction. Generally over time consensus usually happens both in run-to-run outlooks and across different model suites. This is a LaNina set-up and leaning into dry solutions is something we might see more often this year.
