Back To An Active Weather Pattern
It looks like we’ll squeeze in one more warm day before the pattern change. A warm air mass related to a strong ridge of high pressure will remain in place on Thursday. Light offshore flow early will allow for significant heating all the way to the coast. A stronger sea breeze will kick in late and carry over into Friday when the first of several weather systems arrives. This cut off low pressure area will move into Southern California and may throw a few showers our way Friday into early Saturday morning. There may also be enough instability for thunderstorm or two.
Air Quality: Good to Moderate
Overnight: Clear to start with high clouds approaching from the west. Seasonable, with coastal lows in the 40s to around 50ºF and 30s-40s for inland valleys.
Thursday: Scattered high clouds at times. Light offshore flow early will allow for warming all the way to the beaches before a stronger sea breeze develops late. Expect highs in the upper 60s to upper 70s on the coast and upper 70s to low 80s inland. Breezy southerly winds for valleys late.
Friday: Partly to mostly cloudy with onshore winds. Cooler, with coastal highs in the upper 50s to 60s and 60s to low 70s inland. Showers possible, especially in the south. Slight chance for a thunderstorm.
Extended: We’ll get a bit of a break in between systems on Saturday, though there may be some carry over precipitation early in the morning or perhaps late at night! The next system arrives early Sunday and will linger through Monday. This area of low pressure will dig down the coast and move into northern California. Showers will begin early Sunday with a chance of embedded thunderstorms later in the day. Showers will then linger into Monday as the system departs. The weather pattern is likely to remain active next week as well.
*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: 44ºF
HIGH: 62ºF
--INLAND CITIES--
LOW: 40ºF
HIGH: 64ºF
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-The outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for March 6th – 12th calls for the likelihood of BELOW normal temperatures and ABOVE normal precipitation.
- ENSO (El Niño/La Niña) STATUS: La Niña Advisory
- ENSO Forecast: La Niña persists into spring, then transitions to neutral by summer.
- Area drought status: Moderate drought for eastern San Benito County and far southeastern Monterey County. Abnormally dry for the remainder of the viewing area.
Monterey Bay Sea Surface Temperature as of February 26th 54.9ºF (avg of 7 buoys)
[February Avg. SST: 54.9ºF]
