Cooler and a little breezy today – warm up and dry weather ahead

October 28, 2018 – Breezy off and on winds next week, with elevated fire weather concerns. Cooler tomorrow with light showers early far north. Warming and dry mid week into next weekend.

Discussion

A broad upper trough is tracking into the Pacific Northwest at this time pushing a cold front into NorCal. This is bringing light showers to far NW CA and SW OR. We will see these light showers push east during the morning hours pushing into our area. The best shower chances will be over Shasta County mainly in the higher elevations. Rain accumulation will remain very light less than .10″.

Breezy ridgetop winds can be expected in the Sierra today as the trough drops south. Afternoon highs will be cooler returning closer to average and about 4-8 degrees cooler than Saturday. A few light showers may linger in far NW Shasta County overnight as we see the trough axis swing through.

The upper level trough will continue to dig southeast on Monday and Tuesday pushing into the Great Basin. This will bring breezy north winds to the region. The highest winds gusts are expected in the western Sacramento Valley during the late morning and early afternoon with gusts up to 30 mph possible. T

he cooler air building into the Great Basin will also bring some down slope winds for the Sierra but they are not expected to be overly breezy. Down slope winds will bring dry conditions and combine this with the breezy winds we will see increased fire weather conditions on Tuesday. Upper level ridge will build in for the middle part of the week bringing less breezy winds and warmer temperatures.

Extended Discussion (Thursday through Sunday)

Upper ridge over the west coast will bring continued warm and dry conditions to the forecast area Thursday with daytime highs around 10 degrees above normal. Northerly winds will continue although not as strong as earlier in the week.

Only minor changes in overall airmass expected through Saturday with conditions remaining dry with relatively light northerly winds. Extended models show a shortwave disturbance dropping through the Pacific Northwest next Sunday. This will bring increasing cloud cover and a slight cool off and may even bring a slight threat of showers to the far northern CWA going into early next week.