We are experiencing a major pattern shift, and right now it is just setting up. The last of a series of atmospheric river events will push thru the Bay Area later Wednesday. The front continues to slide south into the Central Coast bt early Thursday but this far south the atmospheric river is very weak and so are the frontal dynamics. While a shower is not out of the question most modeling either shows dry or hundredths at best early with clearing clouds throughout the day.
The pattern shift to mostly dry is interesting. In this case, the axis of the ridge of high pressure is off the coast.
This puts the Central Coast in an odd spot. We will be close to a series of inside slider systems (which Thursday's frontal passage is actually an example of). Inside sliders are troughs and associated low pressure where the track is inside the U.S. land mass rather than over the ocean trajectory. These systems tend to be windy, cold, and generally (but not always) dry.
This is evident in the extended forecast where high temps struggle to in the 50s to about 60 and the lows will be in the 20s and 30s inland and 30s and 40s at the coast.
The 6-10 day outlook from the Climate Prediction Center is for below-average rainfall (though the 8-14 is back to an average expectation of precipitation). Models thru 10 days don't see anything significant locally but do show a number of sliders running to our east. We likely need this time to dry out.
