Slow Warming Trend

High pressure will continue to build in from the east which will warm inland areas, but it’ll be “more of the same” on the coast for the next couple of days. While inland areas warm up and the high approaches, the pressure gradient will increase, pulling on the cool, dense marine layer and basically turning up the air conditioning on the coast. This will counter the warming trend for coastal cities for the time being. Things begin to change on Friday as a wave riding around the ridge accompanied by monsoon/tropical moisture moves into California. This will do many things. First, the moisture coming through will bring mid to high level clouds and perhaps more—there is some potential for high-based convection which could lead to dry lightning. Secondly, we’ll likely see some disruption of the marine layer which should warm coastal temperatures.

AIR QUALITY: Good

Overnight: Low clouds for the coast and nearby valleys with patchy fog & drizzle. Lows in the 50s for most areas.

Wednesday: Widespread low cloudcover early, becoming partly cloudy on the coast and mostly sunny inland (a few high clouds) during the afternoon. Coastal highs in the mid 60s to upper 70s—warmest on the north side of the bay--and warming a bit inland with upper 70s to around 101ºF. Breezy onshore winds becoming windy up valleys late in the day.

Thursday: Widespread low cloudcover early, becoming partly cloudy on the coast and mostly sunny inland (a few high clouds) during the afternoon. Coastal highs in the mid 60s to upper 70s—warmest on the north side of the bay--and upper 70s to around 101ºF inland. Breezy onshore winds becoming windy up valleys late in the day.

Extended: High clouds increase on Friday as tropical/monsoon moisture moves through. We’re watching for a slight chance of dry thunderstorms, but they haven’t been officially added to the forecast as of yet. We’ll be back to the usual on Saturday, though temperatures will be above normal both on the coast and inland and we’ll likely stay that way into next week.  *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

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This week's normal temperatures:
--COASTAL CITIES--
LOW: 55ºF
HIGH: 70ºF

--INLAND CITIES--
LOW: 53ºF
HIGH: 85ºF
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-The outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for August 7^th – 13^th calls for the likelihood of ABOVE normal temperatures and ABOVE normal* precipitation.
*Note: little to no precipitation typically falls this time of year

- ENSO (El Niño/La Niña) STATUS: La Niña Watch
- ENSO Forecast: Transition to La Niña by late summer.
- Area drought status: Currently drought-free
- Monterey Bay Sea Surface Temperature* as of July 31^st: 59.9ºF
(Historic June AVG: 58.4ºF) -- *average of six buoys