Good afternoon, Central Coast! Boy, do I have a forecast for you!
The end to the weekend was nice, even a couple degrees warmer than Saturday but all of that is about to change.
Monday will be a copy and paste from Sunday but Tuesday we say goodbye to sun and hello to freezing temperatures as a cold upper low drops
south out of Canada.
Tuesday afternoon into early Wednesday, very strong west to northwest winds will develop, especially for the coastal waters and the adjacent
beaches so any boating activities out there are strongly discouraged.
Gusty winds will develop during the afternoon Tuesday and peak during the overnight hours into Wednesday morning.
Across southern Santa Barbara County and the northern mountains winds could reach warning level. Advisories will be issued within 24 hours.
Other than wind, rapidly dropping temperatures are the next concern. The system is tracking mainly over land meaning there is not a ton of moisture within it but there could be some light showers as early as Wednesday for areas north of point conception.
Snow levels could see a shocking drop Tuesday night to 1,000-1,500 ft. meaning light snow (with minimal if any accumulations) could fall across
the interior portion of SLO County, the Cuyama Valley, and even across the higher portions of the Central Coast, including the Santa Lucias.
If this forecast stays accurate, a winter storm watch may also need to be issued due to the combination of snow and wind.
Wednesday will be moderately sunny but temperatures will be 10-20 degrees below average struggling o hold on to the low 50's.
For the end of the week, models have shifted now favoring higher rain accumulation. A new model run is showing the system tracking farther west which means it could pick up some additional moisture over the pacific. If this holds true, storm totals will increase to between 2 and
5 inches through the weekend and snow levels could also dip to 1,500 ft. like Tuesday evening.
Confidence is not particularly high with this model run, so the original outlook would keep rain at around a half inch or less and drying out by Saturday.
