Cloud On, Cloud Off

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

A trough passing to our north Tuesday will level inland temperatures, but will subtly increase northwest flow and subtly destabilize the marine layer Tuesday, so it should be slightly sunnier and slightly warmer at the coast. High pressure then builds in behind the trough, but the positioning will help maintain the northwest flow and help us avoid May Gray days. In fact, both coastal and inland areas will steadily warm up through Thursday with highs reaching above normal levels. The next trough will pass by into the weekend, which will cool us back down again and initially push low clouds back in on the coast, only for the pattern to repeat into next week!

AIR QUALITY: Good

Overnight: Low clouds fill the coast and inland valleys. Patchy drizzle on the south/east sides of the bay and patchy fog in the hills and inland valleys. Lows in the upper 40s to low 50s on the coast and mainly 40s inland.

Tuesday: Low clouds begin to clear by late morning, first inland, then on the north side of the bay. By late afternoon, we should be mostly sunny even on the coast. Slightly warmer for coastal areas with highs in the upper 50s to upper 60s and slightly cool inland with highs in the upper 60s to mid 80s. Breezy northwesterly onshore winds becoming gusty up-valley late in the day.

Wednesday: Low clouds early, then becoming mostly sunny with a few low clouds on the coast and a few passing high clouds. Warmer, with gusty northwesterly onshore and up-valley winds at times. Highs in the 60s to low 70s on the coast and 70s to upper 80s inland.

Extended: Temperatures will peak on Thursday roughly 3-6ºF above normal for most areas with mostly sunny skies. Temps will begin to cool on Friday and we may see more low clouds on the coast—a trend that will continue into Saturday. Some warming then expected out of the weekend.

*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: 51ºF
HIGH: 67ºF

--INLAND CITIES--
LOW: 48ºF
HIGH: 78ºF
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-The outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for June 4^th – 10^th calls for the likelihood of ABOVE normal temperatures and ABOVE 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 May 27^th: 56.0ºF
(Historic May AVG: 55.8ºF)
*average of three buoys