Our generally mild weather will continue through Thursday but a looming storm system will arrive at the Central Coast Friday through Saturday for rain.
That next storm system is an "atmospheric river" style system. The main impact of the AR system will be in northern CA where 3-8" of rain is possible. Locally, the system will have a glancing blow with .25-1" of rain between Friday and Saturday. Amounts should actually fall off north-south meaning the burn areas of Santa Barbara County will likely not see heavy rain or heavy rain rates.
These AR storm systems are driven by subtropical moisture meaning the snow levels will be very very high. It also means even though rain will fall the temps will not actually become cool during the storm.
To me, it looks like the next series of cold fronts all hit north of the Central Coast through the following week so after this storm, I think we could see a largely quiet period in the forecast into mid-month or later.
