Spring on the Central Coast often produces a lot of northwest wind and this week was no exception, in fact for part of the area the winds will pick up into the weekend. That area is the Santa Barbara county high country, passes and canyons, and the adjacent Southcoast.
A wind advisory which has been in place much of the week gets an upgrade to a high wind warning Thursday at 6pm into Saturday at 9am. The winds over that timeframe will be 25-40 with gust potential to 60mph.
Of course, the question that arises is: what about winds elsewhere. The west-facing Central Coast will see 15-25mph NW winds most afternoons and the SLO interior will see winds to 15-20mph, under advisory criteria.
Temperatures are largely unchanged over the next few days with inland locations working into the mid-70s, coastal valleys into the 70s with beaches generally in the 60s.
The latest updates are out concerning lake levels and the U.S. Drought Monitor. As expected the lakes continue to slowly drop but generally plenty of recreational water. The drought is a larger concern as the amount of severe drought grew 2% state-wide in only a week.
The prospects for new rain don't look great. Models have been wildly inconsistent about next week, occasionally indicating mid to late week activity. Today the American GFS model (which recently got a major upgrade) kicks any potential back to the 18th. With these kinds of outlooks, you have to say confidence is pretty low. To generalize the Climate Prediction Center outlooks are for below-average rainfall thru 18 days.
So what about next week. I think the spring-like weather continues with temperatures very similar to what we have seen this week but I expect night and morning low clouds at the coast with afternoon clearing and a breeze (which is the blanket spring forecast).
