A high pressure ridge is starting to nose into The West. The tough call tonight is on marine cloud cover, conditions are there for some re-formation however there is also a bit of offshore flow which sometimes keeps formation at bay. Regardless looks like plenty of sunshine is on the way for the weekend.
This morning there was some locally dense fog in the southern Salinas River Valley, that's possible again tonight.
Weak offshore early winds on Saturday turn around out of the NW in the afternoon and pick up to 10-15mph. Highs Saturday look to push into the upper 60s and lower 70s for most of the area, even the beaches should be in the mid-60s or better.
The ridge of high pressure remains over the region through Sunday where conditions will be much of the same but perhaps a few more degrees of warming with less marine cloud cover early.
Sunday night into Monday we'll see winds picking up over the Santa Ynez range where winds could gust up to 45-55 mph. Temperatures over the mountains and interior valleys will likely cool a few degrees while the northerly flow will help the coastal sections warm a few degrees.
Next week on Tuesday, we could see a weak to moderate NE Santa Ana wind event from Tuesday through possibly Friday.
Winds will peak Tuesday night hrough Wednesday, then weaken some Thursday and Friday. There will be some offshore winds from the San Lucia foothills to the Central Coast as well during the same time period. A few degrees of warming is likely across coast and coastal valleys Tuesday through Friday, while mountains and interior valleys cool by several degrees. The offshore flow should keep skies clear through the period.
The far extended forecast is showing some signs of a re-alignment of the jet pattern just before the end of the month, too early to talk about specifics but there are signals to watch and see if they are repeated.
We badly need an active March since Feb. looks like a bust outside of rain potential at the very end of the month.
