Slightly Warmer Morning, A Touch Cooler This Afternoon

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

Temperatures will cool down for most areas as we approach the weekend. There will be a few exceptions, but this is the general trend. A huge ridge continues to dominate the weather out over the Pacific, but troughing in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies will continue to influence our weather by encouraging northwesterly flow. This flow has been disruptive to the marine layer during the afternoons which has led to at least partial clearing and sunshine. A stronger low within the trough will dig into Washington/Oregon into Wednesday and push south toward us before veering east. This will result in a cool-down especially for inland areas. Another lobe of low pressure will then rotate south into California as we head into the weekend, further cooling us and perhaps introducing some slight precip chances. Right now, it looks like drizzle. Could it end up being more? We’re watching. More on the rest of the Memorial Day Weekend forecast in the extended forecast below.

AIR QUALITY: Good to Moderate

Wednesday: Becoming partly cloudy on the coast with low clouds favoring the south side of the bay and the outer Monterey Coast with highs from 60ºF to the low 70s—warmest on the north side of the bay. Inland areas will see little to no cloudcover after the morning clouds mix out with highs in the low 70s to mid 80s. Gusty west-northwesterly onshore and up-valley winds late in the day and continuing in a reduced speed into the overnight.

Overnight: Expect some changes overnight.  Remaining low clouds at the coast look to clear after sunset. Partly cloudy conditions at the coast with a few lingering low clouds, while most interior areas including valleys, will remain mostly clear with a few high clouds passing through late. Hazy conditions possible come morning, along with areas of patchy fog. Lows in the upper 40s to low 50s at the coast, mostly 40s inland.

Thursday: Partly cloudy on the coast and mostly sunny inland. With clouds increasing late in the evening. Expect coastal highs in the low 60s to low 70s—warmest on the north side of the bay—and low 70s to mid 80s inland. Gusty northwesterly onshore and up-valley winds late in the day and continuing in a reduced speed into the overnight.

Extended: Clouds will be on the increase and temperatures on the decrease on Friday as a trough digs down the coast. There is a chance of coastal drizzle but perhaps a better chance late in the day and into Saturday morning. There is an outside chance the drizzle may be on the edge of light rain in some coastal areas, but that is not certain at the moment. Gusty northwesterly winds will continue but will ease a bit Sunday as high pressure builds in from the west. Temps will head back up into Memorial Day—perhaps even above normal through mid-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 (in parenthesis).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This week's normal temperatures:
--COASTAL CITIES--
LOW: 50ºF
HIGH: 66ºF

--INLAND CITIES--
LOW: 47ºF
HIGH: 76ºF
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-The outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for May 29^th -  June 4^th calls for the likelihood of near normal temperatures and near 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 21^st: 56.4ºF
(Historic May AVG: 55.8ºF)
*average of three buoys