textproduct: Eureka

SYNOPSIS

Temperatures will continue to warm and Monday is expected to be the hottest day. Clouds are expected to scatter out at the coast this afternoon. Slightly cooler temperatures and more marine clouds are expected Tuesday. There is the possibility of some rain, drizzle, and inland thunderstorms on Wednesday. Near or slightly above normal temperatures are expected late in the week and into the weekend. Breezy northwest winds with gusts of 25 to 30 mph are possible.

DISCUSSION

A weak shortwave moved through the area Sunday afternoon. This increased the winds helped to clear out the coastal areas. This should help clear out the coastal clouds again on Monday. Most areas are expected to see 3 to 5 degrees of warming over Sunday. Even more warming is possible in the near coastal areas such as Gasquet, Garberville, and Legget, and Ukiah. These locations could see as much as 10 degrees of warming. These locations also have the potential for a forecast bust if the marine layer is more persistent than expected.

Tuesday a weakening upper level low is approaching the area. This will start a cooling trend and will likely increase the marine layer. The near coastal areas will likely see the most cooling. Winds will continue to diminish as well. Tuesday night into Wednesday the models are coming into better agreement on a weak frontal boundary moving through the area ahead of the upper low, however there is still wide range of potential rainfall amounts. The current NBM and forecast is less than a tenth of an inch of rain. The individual models continue to show a wide range of solutions. Some of the models show upwards of a half inch in many areas, while some of the models show no rain at all. The future forecasts may need to increase the rainfall amounts. Wednesday afternoon there is the potential for a few thunderstorms. Probabilities for thunder have decreased slightly and this may be due to more model solutions with widespread cloud cover keeping it cooler and less unstable. Current inland highs Wednesday are expected to be in the 60s to low 70s. Inland areas may still see thunder, but it is now looking less likely.

Late in the week the flow generally becomes more zonal keeping temperatures near seasonal normals with a marine layer in place. Thursday temperatures start to gradually rebound into the upper 70s to around 80. Friday and into the weekend there is increasing uncertainty on the timing of some weak systems moving by to the north. But it looks like temperatures will gradually warming into the low to mid 80s. Breezy northwest winds are expected each afternoon. The strongest winds look to be around 25 to 30 mph over the weekend. There is higher than normal uncertainty on this weather pattern. With the fairly fast zonal flow to the north of us, there will be some weak shortwaves moving through this flow. These may bring fluctuations in the temperatures and wind speeds. At this point very few solutions are showing rain. MKK

AVIATION

The marine layer mixed out Sunday afternoon at the coast, but has come back this morning in Humboldt and Del Norte counties. The current forecast is for this marine stratus to clear out fairly quickly in the morning. There is still some uncertainty on this with quite a bit of stratus along the coast and up the river valleys of Humboldt county. This even stratus is expected to return fairly quickly to much of the coast bringing IFR conditions. MKK

MARINE

The northerly winds are expected to start diminishing and pushing off the coast through the day Monday. The steep wind driven waves will gradually diminish as well. A northwest swell around 3 to 5 feet at 12 seconds is combining with these wind driven waves.

These winds continue to diminish on Tuesday to be around 5 to 15 kt. The northwest swell continues to be around 5 feet Tuesday and is expected to continue Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday and Wednesday night high pressure starts to build back into the area and northerly winds will slowly pick up again. The winds are expected to gradually increase into the weekend. Confidence remains lower than normal with increased uncertainty on the large scale pattern. MKK

EKA WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

CA... None. NORTHWEST CALIFORNIA COASTAL WATERS... Small Craft Advisory until 3 AM PDT Monday for PZZ455.

Small Craft Advisory until 9 PM PDT Monday for PZZ470-475.