———UPDATE 11 AM ———
———Update 9:40 AM———
——— Original Article ———
Good Morning Central Coast! We have a wonderful day in store for Wednesday and the first half of Thursday before a large atmospheric river pushes into the region.
Wednesday we can expect a sort of copy and paste from Tuesday. A little bit of sunshine but nothing too warm. Temps will stay in the 50's to low 60's the farther south you get.
An atmospheric river is headed our way and will arrive by Thursday afternoon, heading south slowly and bringing heavy rain through the night into Friday morning.
From there the pattern will break up a little but still significant rain will stick around into Saturday morning.
Models still need to do some fine tuning on the amount of rain we will get but they are leaning towards generous totals.
There is expected to be much higher rainfall in the Santa Lucias and broadly through NW San Luis Obispo County. This is where 6+inches of rain could fall. For reference the storm on January 9th that caused widespread flooding Cambria recorded 5.35" of rain. For the storm totals from that system check out this link.
Other locations in San Luis Obispo/Santa Barbara Counties will receive 2 to 4 inches of rain. The SB South Coast will see the least with closer to those lower bounds.
We are also expecting strong gusty southwest winds to accompany the storm with gusts to 40 to 45 mph. No advisories have been issued just yet but I would be shocked if they aren't issued soon.
On the topic of advisories there are already widespread flood watches in place across the state. This will also likely spread to our region soon.
Something to note for this latest system is that snow elevations will be very high. So even for most of our mountain communities the moisture that falls, will be rain.
This poses some dangerous flooding issues for snow on the ground which will be melting and contributing to the storm runoff that will already be a challenge.
Looking into the 7 day there is another storm system headed our way early next week with the potential for a couple more inches of rain. And into the extended forecast (into late march) there is indication that even more rain will move through. Keep those umbrellas handy and for up to date forecasts for your location download the KSBY microclimate weather app. Click here for more information.
Have a great day Central Coast!
