The Central Coast will start to see a cooling trend as onshore flow returns for the weekend.
Already some coastal areas saw low clouds this morning and more low clouds are anticipated overnight and in the mornings through the weekend and into early next week.
Variable high clouds will stream over the area. Weak northerly winds are forecast tonight over the Santa Barbara Southwest Coast and foothills, with gusts of 25 to 30 mph. These northerly winds are likely to increase from the evening into the overnight hours Friday and Saturday, potentially reaching advisory-level speeds, especially on Saturday.
A large ridge of high pressure, centered near the 4-corners area, is responsible for the warm weather we saw this week.
Onshore flow will increase over the next several days, with southwest flow aloft contributing to the cooling trend as high pressure weakens. Most of the Central Coast should only see slight cooling on Friday (in fact some places could warm a little still since Thursday was somewhat cool in places like SLO), with more pronounced cooling on Saturday, with highs down an average of 5 to 10 degrees.
More extensive low cloud coverage is anticipated from Friday night into Saturday morning, with a chance of further deepening (and cooling for the coast and coastal valleys) into Sunday.
The medium-range model forecasts show fairly good agreement on cooler conditions persisting through much of next week. Deep marine clouds at times could produce areas of mist/drizzle/light showers as a series of upper lows look to linger in the region. That's the toughest part of the forecast at this point.
