Clearer But Slightly Cooler

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

Expect one more seasonable and sunny day before the weather takes a turn for the weekend. Dry air in the northwest flow will help reduce cloudcover on the coast. A trough then begins to dig down the coast into Friday, which will deepen and moisten onshore flow. This will lead to an increase in low clouds that may stay throughout the day with the addition of some patchy drizzle. Drizzle could even border on light rain in the deepening marine layer into Saturday morning. Expect wet roads to start the day. The trough passes by on Saturday which should fully mix out the marine layer in the afternoon.

AIR QUALITY: Good to Moderate

Thursday: Mostly sunny with a few low clouds on the coast and a few high clouds drifting in late. Slightly warmer on the coast with highs between 60ºF and 70ºF—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 lasting into the overnight for the major valleys.

Overnight: Low clouds will slowly return to the southern and eastern portion of the bay heading into sunset. Increasing clouds overnight, becoming mostly cloudy for coastal areas, partly cloudy for interior locations. Drizzle likely into sunrise especially near the coast. Lows around the coast will be in the upper 40s to low 50s, inland mostly 40s with a few sheltered valleys in the upper 30s.

Friday: Widespread low clouds on the coast and inland valleys in the morning, becoming partly cloudy inland but remaining mostly cloudy on the coast with periods of drizzle possible. Cooler, with coastal highs in the upper 50s to mid 60s and 60s to mid 70s inland. Gusty westerly onshore and up-valley winds late in the day. Drizzle picks up again in the evening.

Extended: Expecting a wet start on Saturday for many around the bay as drizzle may border on light rain. However, skies scatter to partly cloudy in the afternoon with warmer temperatures expected. Inland highs will warm through the remainder of the holiday weekend as high pressure builds back in, but it will also likely stabilize the marine layer which should cap coastal temps close to normal and keep some low clouds in the forecast.

*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: 50ºF
HIGH: 66ºF

--INLAND CITIES--
LOW: 47ºF
HIGH: 76ºF
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-The outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for May 30^th -  June 5^th calls for the likelihood of ABOVE 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 22^nd: 55.8ºF
(Historic May AVG: 55.8ºF)
*average of three buoys