Good Morning Central Coast!
I hope everyone was able to stay cool Wednesday when our temperatures skyrocketed across the Central Coast. The warmest spot ended up being San Luis Obispo where the brunt of the offshore winds collided with compressional heating to bring near triple digit heat to the SLO area.
To explain what I just said a little more the driving force of the heat event Wednesday was not only offshore flow (which keeps the influence of cool ocean waters minimalized) but also compressional heating. The latter is when high pressure and/or the airflow pattern is for sinking air. Sinking air compresses it and that increases the temperature of the air.
The National Weather Service observation sight at the SLO Airport recorded a sweltering 100 degrees at 2:30 PM Wednesday. That crushed the previous record of 93 set back in 2018.
To kick off our Thursday there is very clear conditions at the surface with no fog to be seen, although there are some mid level clouds that will obstruct any stargazing in the early hours and may make for a stunning sunrise over the Central Coast.
Today looks warm, verging on hot in our coastal valleys. This is because some of the same elements are still around that drove Wednesday's heat event, but they are not the same. To me, it looks like the winds should make a turn back onshore sooner Thursday. Along with more high clouds and the ridge of high pressure in a process of weakening, these are all factors that suggest the forecast should still be warm but not AS warm as Wednesday.
Later Thursday into Friday onshore winds will be much more dominant. The weekend features a trough over The West and cooler and breezy to windy weather is likely. Temperatures will be dramatically cooler, lower than average in fact with a lot of 60s near the coast with inland areas also cooling into the 70s. Temps early next week should come up from the weekend cooler high by about 5 degrees.
The longer extended forecast still looks generally mild to cool to close the month and begin November. There looks to be a series of cold fronts passing thru California but they look mostly dry to me, maybe a sprinkle or light shower but nothing meaningful at this point. In fast this weekend we'll see the first of that series of fronts, but after an offshore and dry event like today, the weekend front looks mostly dry if not entirely.
Have a great day Central Coast!
