Happy New Year, Central Coast!
Rain is not the most fun way to ring in the new year, but I hope everyone enjoys the little break today because lots more is on the way.
A system will push onshore late Monday afternoon, lasting into Tuesday morning. This will be not as intense as Saturdays storm but moving slowly allowing more rain to fall. Expect mainly around 0.5" to 1" but some high-elevation slopes will pick up more. Throughout Tuesday we can all enjoy another brief break from the rain.
A second stronger storm will push into the region from the pacific and bring more significant rain and lots of strong winds. With this system we could see rain as early as Tuesday night but the bulk of the heavy rain will show up on Thursday. That being said we could still see some impressive rainfall throughout Wednesday.
Will likely see at least strong advisory level winds developing Wednesday across SLO and Santa Barbara Counties and certainly strong winds across adjacent the coastal waters.
As for rain totals during he Wednesday/Thursday storm, amounts with this storm should surpass the Saturday night storm by at least an inch and likely more in the upslope areas.
Once that passes we have another break in the rain, Friday looks dry. Further out on the horizon models are showing the possibility of more rain into the next week. Details are still fuzzy on that one though, since it is still so far out but we will keep an eye on it and update as it approaches.
