Good Morning Central Coast! It has sure been an active string of days an while today will continue that trend a break is in sight.
Monday the remnants of a cold front pushed into the region and kicked off some heavy afternoon rain. Now that front is to our south but we are still very much feeling its impacts as more scattered showers push through.
Through the mid morning into the afternoon Tuesday another area of instability will push more storms into the region. This will bring the chance for 0.25-0.75" more rain to the region begore clearing takes over.
Advisories for this storm include a winter weather advisory for Santa Barbara County which turns into a winter storm warning Tuesday at 1pm and lasts until the system exits Wednesday.
The highest elevations of the Santa Barbara County Mountains could see 6-18” of snow but those kinds of totals are more likely near the Kern County border. I think we`ll also see some low-elevation snow across the region. Right now, snow levels are up at roughly 3500ft but it should drop to about 1500ft by Wednesday morning. No, or only light accumulations are likely at low elevations. Still, we could see it again near the Cuesta Ridge, the SLO County north coast hills, and the interior hills and mountains of SLO County but again much more likely in Santa Barbara County.
There is also a high wind advisory in place into Wednesday morning.
With the winds come the waves, there is a Surf Advisory in place from this morning to Thursday Morning 10-13ft. foot breakers are likely with dangerous rip as well.
Wednesday afternoon we will start a large shift in the forecast as a ridge of high pressure begins to build in to our west and banish storms form the region (at least for a little while). This means that aside from a few scattered showers later Wednesday we will get a several day break fromt he rain all the way through the weekend.
There is some model indication that mid to late next week the pattern will change once again and bring cold and wet conditions back into the region later next week.
However, mid to late next week the pattern looks cold and wet again with models currently favoring a significant system during that time frame.
Have a great day Central Coast!
