Evolving Dry Lightning Threat

Monsoon moisture will move into our area on Friday, bringing the threat of dry lightning. An “easterly wave” moving around the monsoonal ridge and rotating north into California will pass by our area and help generate showers & thunderstorms across the region. We’ll be on the western edge of this flow and mountain ranges to the south will help block low level moisture transport. As a result, the low to mid levels remain very dry in our local area, so any showers or thunderstorms that form will not have much if any rain reaching the ground. This leaves a dry lightning threat. The highest chances for any action will be on the eastern edge of the KION coverage area, but there is a chance across the entire area. Ultimately, it is mostly likely that we’ll see a few high based showers move through with the chance of a couple of lightning strikes possible. Dryer air moves in for the weekend.

AIR QUALITY: Good

Overnight: Patchy low clouds on the coast with scattered high clouds moving through. Lows in the 50s on the coast and 50s to 60s inland.

Friday: A few low clouds near the coast, otherwise partly cloudy with mid-level clouds and a chance of high based (mostly dry) thunderstorms. Expect coastal highs in the upper 60s to around 80ºF with upper 70s to around 104ºF inland. Breezy onshore winds becoming windy up valleys late in the day.

Saturday: A few low clouds on the coast and a few mid level clouds lingering early, then clearing. Cooler on the coast with highs in the mid 60s to mid 70s but slightly warmer inland with highs in the 80s to around 106ºF. Breezy onshore winds becoming windy up valleys late in the day.

Extended: High pressure will remain in control over the weather in the Western U.S. into next week. On the coast, expect another seasonable day on Sunday with scattered low clouds then warm days Monday/Tuesday as the ridge strengthens over our area and squashes the marine layer. Cooler, deeper onshore flow returns past mid-week. Inland areas will continue to warm, peaking at 10-15ºF above normal by Tuesday, then cooling into next weekend. We’ll see some occasional high cloudcover move in from the south for most of the 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 9^th – 15^th calls for the likelihood of near 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 August 1^st: 61.2ºF
(Historic June AVG: 59.6ºF) -- *average of six buoys