The Central Coast saw showers begin yesterday. On-and-off shower activity is in the forecast into Sunday morning before the system moves on.
Rainfall amounts so far are widely varied. Rocky Butte has seen nearly 4” of rain but elsewhere much lower amounts are common.
Another half inch to 1” is possible for most locations (mountain locations could again get enhanced rainfall). Rainfall rates are generally less than .25”/hour so flooding has not been a concern.
Winds are up and will increase later tonight through Saturday. Some gusts 45-50mph are possible and an advisory has been issued for locations where that is possible.
The only other advisory for the weekend is for high surf. The Central Coast could see 10-18ft waves while the Santa Barbara County Southcoast should see 4-7 foot waves into early Monday.
All this is coming from a strong upper-level trough over the PacNW extending into California. Around this trough pieces of instability rotate through our area.
This means on-and-off showers will continue until this feature moves on which appears to be later Sunday morning.
This is a major snow-maker for parts of The Sierra where some places could see more than 6ft. of snow.
Later Sunday the system moves on and we should enter a quiet phase of the forecast. Initially, it looked like more rain was coming Tuesday and Wednesday but now that disturbance is looking like a miss. However the extended outlook has low confidence at this point, right now I am going with a dry week ahead but that forecast could change.
