Cloudier, Cooler Friday

Your forecast for Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito, and southern Santa Clara Counties…

The cool-down will continue as we approach the weekend. The big hot ridge that brought the warmest days of the year so far for many areas across the Central Coast has moved to the east. In its wake, weak troughing has taken over on the West Coast, allowing for the marine layer to deepen and cooler air to prevail. Temperatures aloft will bottom out this weekend before slowly rising into early next week.

AIR QUALITY: Good to Moderate
 
Friday: Partly cloudy on the coast with low clouds lingering in some areas throughout the day. Cooler yet with coastal highs in the upper 50s to mid 60s and upper 60s to low 90s inland. Breezy westerly onshore winds becoming windy up the valleys late in the day.

Overnight: Low clouds will thicken and fill the bay and major valleys, becoming mostly cloudy at the coast, partly to mostly cloudy inland. Areas of patchy fog possible through the evening and night. Temperatures will be near seasonable with widespread low 50s, with far interior locations dropping into the upper 40s. Patchy drizzle likely for coastal and near coastal cities.

Saturday: Widespread clouds with patchy drizzle in the morning, then mostly cloudy on the coast and partly cloudy inland. Highs in the upper 50s to mid 60s on the coast and mid 60s to upper 80s inland. Breezy northwesterly onshore winds becoming windy up the valleys late in the day.

Extended: We’ll have another seasonably cool day on Sunday under partly cloudy skies with slight warming Monday and Tuesday. A cut-off low forecast to be to our south early next week could mean for an uncertain forecast, however.

*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).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This week's normal temperatures:
--COASTAL CITIES--
LOW: 51ºF
HIGH: 67ºF

--INLAND CITIES--
LOW: 48ºF
HIGH: 79ºF
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-The outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for June 14^th – 20^th calls for the likelihood of near 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
- Monterey Bay Sea Surface Temperature* as of June 7^th : 55.9ºF
(Historic June AVG: 56.7ºF)
*average of three buoys