Like Monday, Tuesday is offering more showers and wind. The forecast gets progressively more interesting later tonight into Wednesday morning. It is not a powerful storm in terms of the ability to create epic rain. Max rainfall for this system looks to be in the .25-.75” for most of the Central Coast but area mountains could see 1-2” of rain.
Snow is again possible at low levels. A few inches down to about 2000ft is likely but under 2000ft it is more of a question. I think we could see some scattered snow again on the Cuesta Grade overnight but I don’t think accumulation is likely. However, the north coast hills of SLO county and the deeper interior hills separating SLO and Kern County could see several inches of snow. A winter weather advisory has been issued for these areas.
At higher elevations, above 3500ft to around 4000ft I think we see 4-8”. That’s the kind of snow the Grapevine could see.
Above 4000ft, 6-12”, and above 5000ft we could see up to 20” of snow. Most of that kind of elevation is in Southern California but helps to know the regional outlook in case you plan to travel.
As a result, there is a winter storm warning out for all those areas, which does include the Santa Barbara County Mountains.
Winds are also picking up and a wind advisory is in place from 10p Tuesday night into 4 pm Wednesday for west winds of 20-30mph with gusts to 45mph possible.
Those kinds of winds will also continue to put ample energy into the ocean water and a high surf advisory is in place until 8a Thursday for 10-13 foot breakers with dangerous rip likely.
Yes, we finally get a break in the rain from later Wednesday thru Saturday. Then an interesting feature is possible: The GFS model spins up a weak system that tries to get a few showers going. I currently don’t have the rain icon in the shows but might have to add it if the later pm run still shows it. This feature, if it joins the forecast, could deliver light showers or sprinkles Sunday thru Tuesday. Otherwise, the 9th thru the 11th are still looking rather wet. This outlook has been in a number of my forecast stretching back to last week. Suffice it to say the pattern still looks active and generally cool.
