Good Morning Central Coast!
As we kick off our Friday abundant sunshine will move in. This is wonderful news for our forecast and a welcome change from recent conditions.
The day will start off with sunshine across most of the region. A few of the interior valleys will see some light fog but that is expected to clear out quickly.
Check out this look at the sunrise captured this morning over Avila Beach from 805Webcams.
Thanks to the storm we saw yesterday and the cold front that kicked off that storm, temps will be a little on the chillier side. Highs today will be about 5 degrees cooler than yesterday. This will leave most in the 50s with some interior valley 40s possible.
High pressure is now strongly in place and will keep us in this pattern for quite a while. Many storms coming in off the Pacific will be diverted north and bring precipitation to Canada, leaving us nice and dry.
It will take a couple more days for the temperatures to recover to normal for this time of year. That will be a slow transition that will get us to the mid (even some upper) 60s by next week.
Now that we are back to sunshine the biggest news is the drought conditions that came out yesterday. As a note, the national drought monitor is released every Thursday afternoon and uses data collected on Tuesday. That means for us that some of the continued rain and runoff from late last week was still being "ingested" into the drought monitor.
The recent rains managed to wipe out the worst categories of drought through the state and locally there was also a dramatic impact. For the Central Coast, much of the area is now just considered abnormally dry according to the U.S. Drought monitor. Statewide, the "extreme" and "exceptional" drought is gone. In fact, California is not longer 100% in some stage of drought or dryness (granted, less than 1% is no longer in drought...at least it is something).
Local lake levels continue to see improving levels and a number are either at or near 100%.
While the last chance of rain for a while has left our region, we do have some high surf and some coastal flooding potential continuing.
Breaking waves of 8 to 10 feet are likely thru Friday for the west-facing Central Coast with the highest on the west to northwest-facing beaches. The high surf advisory in effect until 10 p.m. Thursday evening.
The Coastal Flood Advisory is in place until Friday at 10 p.m. The advisories will likely be extended through the weekend.
Have a great day Central Coast
