What a day! Abundant sunshine, warm temperatures, and continuing offshore winds have shaped up a wonderful day on the central coast. Some isolated communities reached above 90 degrees today and even the beaches reached into the upper 70s and even into the 80s. Clear blue-bird skies alongside warm temperatures and calming surf have made Thursday the perfect beach day.
All this wonderful weather has been the product of strong offshore winds keeping marine influence at bay. That will break down tomorrow as the offshore winds begin to shift back onshore and bring back in the cooler and cloudier conditions along the coast. That being said Friday won’t be all cool and cloudy, the morning will still see mild conditions with highs occurring in beach communities before noon.
Once the westerly component of the winds brings back marine influence it won’t be long before the marine layer seeps back into coastal valleys.
As the winds shift onshore once again there is even a chance of mist and drizzle early in the morning for Saturday, with many beaches staying cloudy early in the weekend. With a chance, some beaches won’t clear fully even through the weekend.
As we move into the new work week cooler temperatures will stick around with a slight chance for light rain on Monday night as well as another shower chance moving in on Wednesday. Looking even farther forward the second full week of November could prove to be more active with precipitation chances. We will keep a close eye on that moving forward.
Thursday we update the weekly lake levels and drought status. A few lakes went up about a tenth of a percent week-to-week. This is not uncommon for first rains to see incomplete water capture. Most experts say it would take 5 to 7 more atmospheric river events to wipe out drought conditions in California.
There was some improvement in the statewide drought picture in terms of the depth of the drought in NorCal but 100% of the state is still in some type of drought. Locally there was no improvement with the Central Coast in an extreme drought and the nearby San Joaquin Valley is still in exceptional drought, which is the highest category.
