Good morning, Central Coast!
Grab that water bottle and sunscreen, it is hot out there today and will get even worse over the next few days.
Today the high pressure that we have been watching closely is regaining strength and I think it is fair to say the next round of the heat wave is here.
Highs are on the rise and the interiors will become dangerously hot once again. In anticipation of this concern there are several alerts in place.
There is an excessive heat watch in place for the interior valleys as well as the Santa Ynez valley through Saturday night. This is an "umbrella advisory" that is more general than other alerts.
A heat advisory covers Thursday morning into Friday morning, then an excessive heat watch takes over from Friday morning into Saturday evening. Temps ease to 100-103 early Sunday into early next week and thus far no advisories have been posted for that period.
There is also an heat advisory in place for the interior valleys and Santa Ynez Valley from 10 a.m. this morning through 10 a.m. Friday morning. This is advance of highs in the triple digits today.
Friday morning the advisory upgrades to a excessive heat warning and will stay in place through Sunday evening.
The reason for the excessive heat in the interior is the return of an upper-level ridge. Strong ridging in the upper atmosphere redevelops Thursday and the high amplitude ridge looks to remain in place much of next week. There may be some day-to-day variations in the strength of the ridge resulting in temperatures going up and down a little bit but generally, it will be hot in the interior cool at the beaches and warm in the middle.
In the interiors and particularly for those headed to the Mid State Fair it is going to be extremely hot.
Thankfully the extreme heat isn't everywhere, along the coasts there is enough cloud cover and fog to limit heating this morning as well as through the day.
Crucially the fog layer is only extending to about 1200 ft , this isn't enough to overcome the ridges across the region. For the marine layer to extend into the interior valleys the inversion must be deeper than our topography. For some reference it would take a marine layer extending past 1,500 ft to make its way over the Cuesta Grade into northern San Luis Obispo County.
Coastal valleys will range from the 70s to lower 80s as will the South Coast. Daytime highs at most beaches will remain in the 60s throughout the rest of the week and the coming weekend.
The Climate Prediction Center continued to think above-average temperatures are likely in their 8 to 14 day outlook.
Have a wonderful day Central Coast and stay cool!
