Weather

Actions

Offshore winds fuel temps in the 70s for the next few days

Posted at 4:52 PM, Feb 07, 2023
and last updated 2023-02-07 22:55:28-05

Our recent splash and dash storm system gave us light to moderate rain and very few related problems. When that system departed a stronger ridge of high pressure was poised to move in, and that is precisely what happened. The wind is generated along pressure gradients between high and low pressure. Those are often strongest at night when the land mass is cool (since warm air rises, some low pressure is created during the day as sunshine warms the land). So you have two things working together, the normal diurnal pattern along with the larger building ridge pattern to create the locally breezy to windy offshore winds. I think the offshore wind will remain most of the day Wednesday which should fuel temps in the 70s, even some mid-70s are likely. I don’t see much change Thursday either.

Friday is a day where an approaching trough should weaken the ridge a bit, and temps likely drop a little (but not a lot).

The question of the forecast yesterday was: would the weekend trough be deep enough to produce showers for the Central Coast? Models were roughly split yesterday, but today there is general consensus that the trough is deep enough to bring a rain chance to the area. That said, this is a smaller rain event from Saturday afternoon into the night. Total rainfall should stay under .25”

This will also knock Saturday’s high temps back into the upper 50s and lower 60s for most. But already by Sunday, some mid-60s return to the forecast. Monday also looks mild but Tuesday's temps could make a cooler turn.

The interesting thing that is popping up in models is the struggle to figure out what the weekend of the 18th-19th could look like. Some models show a weak tumbling system pushing thru California but there is also some modeling showing a much stronger environment is possible. The current wave pattern of the jet stream makes some of this longer view forecasting a real challenge. It is a time period to begin to watch carefully.