A steep trough to our east is allowing plenty of cold air into the West. With mostly clear skies tonight another round of frosty temps is expected. The air mass is dry, so inland temps will drop into the 20s and even most coastal locations have another opportunity for a frost or a freeze.
A Freeze Warning is in effect from midnight until 9 a.m. on Thursday for San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. A Freeze Warning means temperatures between 29 and 32 degrees for two or more consecutive hours are imminent. A hard freeze can damage sensitive vegetation and crops and harm outdoor pets.
The next rain system is expected Friday PM. It does look weak but capable of producing up to .50″ of rain. It is another cold system and will have lower snow levels as a result but only .5-2″ where snow occurs. I’d peg the snow level around 3500ft. This is more an issue for SB than SLO county.
We’ll see a brief break Saturday before another system Sunday afternoon into Sunday night. More results similar to Friday’s system. More breezy and cool weather develops for the beginning of next week. Then we need to dig into the models for the deeper extended. Later next week there are suggestions of more activity but what is really intriguing is what models are suggesting for around the 20th, another potentially very wet time frame. It is too early to overreact to these outlooks but suffices to say, in a year with above-average rain for most locations, the trend doesn’t appear to be ending.
