Happy Tuesday evening, Central Coast!
Today started off a little cloudy, but offshore winds brought sunshine and mild temps to the region. Here is what we saw for high temperatures today!
This evening will be a windy one with sundowner winds gusting up to 45 mph along our south coast. Additionally, a moderate Santa Ana wind event is on the way to our south, bringing more strong winds.
Because of those winds, there is a high wind advisory in place for much of Santa Barbara County (and more to our south) through 4 a.m. on Thursday, December 18th.
For your Wednesday, we are looking at a slight cooldown from today's highs. That being said temps will still be above normal with some morning fog and evening gusts.
Conditions will stay quite consistent from Wednesday into the weekend. Each day will start with some fog, but sunshine will be the main component each day.
Into the last days of the month, rain chances move into the region (you can see the start of this change at the end of my 7-day forecast above)
Starting off with a quick disclaimer, this storm is a long way out, but because it involves Christmas, I am keeping an extra close eye on it. This forecast will shift around over the coming days, and I will bring you more details as they become available.
The change starts with a cold front barreling down the coast on Saturday morning. That will bring us cloud cover into the weekend and create a slight dip in temperatures. This first system will not bring us much, if any rain, but it will also open the door for a much larger system to reach us.
At this point, the larger system looks like a large atmospheric river reaching the West Coast in the time period between the 23rd and 26th of December.
Like any AR system, just a few miles can make a big difference. At this point, the bulk of the rain is expected to fall to our north, but we may still see significant rain on and right around the holiday.
I really like this info-graphic from the National Weather Service that shows the likely scenarios.
There is a ton of uncertainty within that forecast. Here it is all distilled down to your forecast at a glance.
Have a wonderful evening and a great remainder of the week, Central Coast!
-Vivian
