The Central Coast experienced a generally cool week with some warming to close the week. Earlier this week we saw a few showers but most of the week was just cold. We tied a record low in Santa Barbara this week (32) and we were very close to records elsewhere. Low temperatures have moderated slightly but remained below average all week, but high temps did ultimately come around ending up just slightly under the average to close the work week.
The weekend will feature some mild daytime highs in the mid-60s and low 70s.
Those kinds of temperatures hold into Monday as well. Tuesday is a bit of a transition as surface high pressure weakens but still mostly 60s in the area. After that, the weather looks to take a significant turn. Wednesday highs likely only get into the 50s and some showery rain should begin late.
This unsettled weather continues thru the rest of the week and likely the weekend. Some models continue unsettled weather into early March. But this is where details matter and that is what models are all over the map on. There is very little model-to-model consistency or even run-to-run consistency inside the individual models or ensembles.
This leads to the conclusion that, yes it’ll be colder with some rain but rain isn’t a binary. It is helpful to know if that rain will be light or heavy and models flip flop on that. The key issue is the placement of the upper-level trough and surface low pressure.
Right now there are several outlooks that are taking the rain potential seriously (but that could change tomorrow based on today's and tomorrow morning's modeling).
Reservoirs are full in some cases and if heavy rain is possible some management might be required before systems arrive. It is likely the picture becomes more clear as we move thru the weekend when these potential storms aren’t at the end of model runs (which statistically are less likely to be accurate than the early side of model runs). The “stay tuned” phrase is often used in forecasts like this where 50-100 miles in a storm track could make a world of difference and we’ll ask you do that for now.
