Cooldown Starts Today

Cooler air and a deeper marine layer for this week. High pressure will weaken which will allow the marine layer to slowly deepen early in the work week which will encourage cooling and increased coastal clouds. Inland valleys will cool as well, but will remain warm for this time of year through Monday. A trough will slowly dig down the coast through mid-week allowing the marine layer to keep deepening and also probably get the drizzle machine going. A (dry) cold front will then move through on Wednesday which will help mix out the marine layer but may also encourage another round of drizzle into Thursday AM, mainly in west-northwesterly-facing upslope areas. The front will also bring gusty northwesterly winds which could reach 30-40mph.

AIR QUALITY: Good to Moderate

Today:  Few more clouds at the coast with partly cloudy skies during the afternoon with clouds favoring the south half of the bay and outer coast. Cooler, with coastal highs in the low 60s to mid-70s—warmest on the north side of the bay—and upper 70s to around 102ºF inland. Windy up valleys late in the day.

Overnight: Low clouds with patchy fog/drizzle at the coast spreading farther inland to adjacent valleys with lows in the 50s and clear inland with milder temps.

Tuesday: Remaining mostly cloudy on the coast with highs mainly in the 60s. Inland areas will remain mostly sunny and slightly cool with highs mainly in the 70s-80s. Breezy westerly winds picking up late in the day on the coast becoming windy for the valleys.

Extended: Winds get gusty Wednesday, though the clouds will begin to break up a bit. Temps head back up a bit through Thursday with deep mixing in the marine layer. More seasonable weather can be expected into the weekend—perhaps slightly cool on the coast.

*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: 71ºF

--INLAND CITIES--
LOW: 52ºF
HIGH: 86ºF
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-The outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for September 16^th – 22^nd calls for the likelihood of BELOW normal temperatures and ABOVE normal precipitation.

- ENSO (El Niño/La Niña) STATUS: La Niña Watch
- ENSO Forecast: Transition to La Niña into the fall.
- Area drought status: Currently drought-free
- Monterey Bay Sea Surface Temperature* as of September 8^th: 60.7ºF
(Historic Sep AVG near Monterey: 59.6ºF) -- *average of six buoys