Locally strong winds in the Santa Barbara County Mountains have prompted an advisory into Friday morning but that same area has a high wind watch for Saturday afternoon into Sunday evening.
The advisory is for N winds 20-30 with gusts to 50mph but the high wind watch is for NW-N winds 20-30 with gusts to 60 to 70mph. This will likely become a warning when it hits that time frame.
The wave story for the Central Coast has changed a little bit. There is a high surf advisory in place into Monday. 12-16ft waves will have some maximum sets to 20ft. This is a little higher than the forecast for yesterday.
Those higher heights will coincide with a moderate tide this weekend and a coastal flood advisory is likely this weekend. Dangerous rip currents are the key concern but also activity near jetties. People should be aware of the elevated surf and avoid proximity to it. This will not be as bad as the surf event last week, but still, something to monitor closely.
Other than the winds and waves, the forecast looks quiet until we get into the weekend.
There is a trough of low pressure that swings through the region on Friday, but I don't think it does anything significant. A cold front passage later Saturday evening and overnight could produce a few showers but they are unlikely during the daytime hours on Saturday or Sunday so it wouldn't show up as an icon on a 7-day forecast.
Beyond that, a system around the midpoint of next week is still looking likely but it is beginning to look pretty dry. If it rains it wouldn’t be a strong event.
The big headline yesterday in the extended forecast is that models were predicting a major return of active weather around the middle of the month.
Today the models backed off significantly. At this point, there's a little bit of skepticism about the middle-of-the-month forecast.
