Good morning Central Coast!
To kick off the day we are still precariously placed between a monsoon low pressure and the rapidly weakening Tropical Storm Frank, this is bringing more himidity into the region and continuing to keep very slight rain chances in the forecast.
For the morning commute visibility is good, except n the Santa Barbara southcoast where some fog is building in from the LA basin.
Now diving into the forecast the first thing to say is: no, we are not going to get hit with a tropical storm. There is a tropical storm named Frank in the Pacific and drifting a little further north and east than your average eastern Pacific storm.
There are already high clouds streaming into the area from Frank, and some showers are possible according to modeling. Also, parts of southern California could see elevated surf from the storm, there are advisories for surf but none locally.
The shower threat is what I like to call "a non-zero chance". That means we could see some showers, but chances are low enough not to put in a rain icon as it is not the dominant weather feature of the day. Any shower would also likely miss more people than actually produce rain. Now, this forecast could change to something more significant but right now I think the track of Frank is too far west for much more than glancing weather issues. We've already had some showers, but most people are not reporting any accumulation.
As of Tuesday morning there is not active storms on the radar.
The mugginess is also rather tame as "muggy" air goes. In a Central Coast-sense folks often comment about muggy air when the dew points are higher than 55. Right now the highest dew point I could find was 60. Monday evening some in the LA basin did jump towards 70, adding some more earnest mugginess.
This is what most meteorologists categorize as muggy enough to notice. But real muggy air starts in the 60+ range, most of Florida sits in the 70+ range. Dew point matters because if you get hot and dew points are high it slows evaporation. Evaporation of sweat is how the body cools itself, so warm and really muggy is a dangerous combination. This combination will allow the "feels like" temperature to soar Wednesday in the interior valleys. Highs upward of 100 will feel that hot with the added humidity. Here is what those heat index (think feels like) values look like for Wednesday.
The values for 8am and 10am are not shown because the feels like temperature is low enough to not be dangerous.
In terms of the pattern: it is complicated. You have Frank to the west which is moving north off the coast. You have the summer monsoon east of us also pushing moisture thru the region. You have some low clouds, partially interrupted by the mid and high clouds.
So, what is the forecast?
Filtered sunshine everywhere, mostly by high clouds but also by some early and late low clouds at the coast. Muggier than average for the next couple of days. Also, warmer Wednesday before temps ease back a little to close the week and likely warming again over the coming weekend.
Have a great day Central Coast.
