The Art Of Zen And Marine Layer Maintenance
There is a light at the end of the tunnel!
In this particular metaphor, the tunnel is the marine layer clouds and the light is a switch to northwest flow next week. In the meantime, expect at least another day of mostly cloudy skies on the coast Friday. The marine layer will deepen overnight in response to an area of low pressure approaching from the southwest. The deepening of the layer will help produce drizzle—not that the layer has had any struggles producing drizzle over the past few nights—but still. With the extra deep marine layer into the weekend, vertical mixing within the layer will be encouraged. This usually results in a less stable cloud layer (more sunshine!) and warmer temperatures in the lower elevations. Inland areas will see the reverse trend and have cooler weather. While afternoon sun will increase, the nighttime cloud mass will increase deeper inland. By Sunday, northwest flow begins to kick in. Find out more on the effects in the extended section below.
AIR QUALITY: Good
Overnight: Widespread low clouds for the coast and most inland areas outside of the higher elevations. Fog possible in the hills. Drizzle possible really anywhere near the coast, but especially on the east side of the bay and up into the coastal hills. Lows in the 50s for most areas with a few inland areas dipping into the 40s.
Friday: Low clouds retreat close to the coast during the afternoon, but may remain over coastal cities. Continued cool with coastal highs in the upper 50s to mid 60s with mid 60s to low 80s inland. Breezy southwesterly onshore and then up-valley winds in the afternoon.
Saturday: Low clouds with patchy drizzle in the morning, becoming partly cloudy on the coast and mostly sunny inland in the afternoon. Expect coastal highs from 60ºF to upper 60s and upper 60s to around 80ºF inland. Southwesterly onshore and then up-valley winds in the afternoon & evening.
Extended: By Sunday, the low begins to move out, but overall troughing over the Western U.S. will set us into a northwest flow regime for most of next week. It’s harder to get a stable marine layer in northwest flow, so while I do expect low clouds on the coast all week next week, afternoon coverage will be much lower than this week, especially on the north side of the bay! Santa Cruz sun fans rejoice! As a result, coastal temperatures will warm slightly and hover close to normal on average with the warmest temps on the north side of the bay. Inland highs should be seasonable to slightly warm with the warmest day right now looking like Tuesday at about +5ºF.
*Note: Any alerts from the National Weather Service in Monterey will be noted in italics above. Alerts may be edited for brevity or local clarification (in parenthesis).
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This week's normal temperatures:
--COASTAL CITIES--
LOW: 50ºF
HIGH: 65ºF
--INLAND CITIES--
LOW: 46ºF
HIGH: 75ºF
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-The outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for May 24th - 30th calls for the likelihood of BELOW normal temperatures and near normal precipitation.
- ENSO (El Niño/La Niña) STATUS: El Niño Advisory, La Niña Watch
- ENSO Forecast: Transition from El Niño to neutral soon and then to La Niña by summer.
-Area drought status: Currently drought-free
