textproduct: San Francisco Bay Area

KEY MESSAGES

Updated at 835 AM PST Thu Jan 22 2026

- Morning fog across North and East Bay Valleys

- Isolated very light rain through this morning across Central Coast and portions of the Bay Area

- Gusty offshore winds across higher terrain of the North Bay late Friday into Saturday

UPDATE

Issued at 847 AM PST Thu Jan 22 2026

Shower activity has mostly slide south of Monterey County this morning, but cannot discount a stray light shower or two forming somewhere over the Bay area and southward. Some fog is impacting typical areas this morning, with visibilities down to around 2 miles, but that should improve in the next couple of hours. Otherwise, high confidence for fairly benign and quiet conditions today. North to northeast winds still on track to increase later tonight and Friday, and persist through Saturday.

SHORT TERM

Issued at 114 AM PST Thu Jan 22 2026 (Today and tonight)

Scattered showers continue over the marine environment and across the Central Coast. This forecaster can confirm that very light rain is making it to the surface in Monterey after stepping outside to investigate. In the last six hours there was a trace of rain reported within the Santa Lucia Range while up to a tenth of an inch was reported to our south over the SLO county line. We still are not anticipating much accumulation at the surface tonight with even the NBM 90th percentile capping precipitation accumulation at a few hundredths of an inch. Following high resolution HRRR guidance, scattered showers are likely to persist through mid morning across the Central Coast with showers unlikely across the Bay Area. Cannot fully rule out a very light rain making it to the ground in the Bay Area but it will be a lot more difficult. Aircraft soundings from the Monterey Airport show decently moist lower levels (81% RH from 0- 0.5 km and 65% RH from 0.5-1.0 km) compared to much drier conditions to our north at SJC (65% RH 0-0.5km and 48% RH 0.5-1.0 km). Given the much drier air in the lower levels of the atmosphere, there is more room for any falling precipitation to evaporate as it falls over the Bay Area compared to over the Central Coast. There is some potential for fog to develop across the North and East Bay Valleys tonight. However, any dense fog should be localized due to the cut- off low offshore helping to keep the lower levels of the atmosphere more mixed.

The cut-off low offshore to our west will gradually move down the California coastline Thursday. Rain chances diminish by late morning with dry weather expected through the remainder of the day. Morning low temperatures remain seasonal with lows in the 40s across the lower terrain and upper 40s to low 50s across the higher elevations. High temperatures warm by a degree or two today compared to yesterday with highs in the low to mid 60s across the lower elevations and mid to upper 60s across the higher elevations. Widespread fog is possible across the interior valleys Thursday night into Friday morning due to increased surface moisture and calm winds.

LONG TERM

Issued at 114 AM PST Thu Jan 22 2026 (Friday through Wednesday)

The cut-off low will continue southwards down the coastline Friday before moving inland over Baja California and merging with a deep upper level trough across the Central U.S. late Friday into Saturday. In its wake, ridging redevelops across the West Coast before becoming zonal late weekend into early next week. What does this mean in a general sense? Dry weather and seasonal temperatures in the upper 50s to low 60s persist for much of the upcoming week. Morning temperatures will get progressively chillier starting Saturday with lows dropping into the mid to upper 30s across the region. Morning lows will trend seasonally cool through the middle of next week.

The main thing to note for the long term forecast is that we are expecting offshore winds to strengthen Friday night, continuing through Saturday, across the North Bay Interior Mountains and East Bay Hills. We know our upper level pattern is fairly quiet so we have to turn to our surface pressure gradient to identify why we are seeing offshore winds strengthen. Along the CA coastline we are seeing a coastal trough develop while high pressure rebuilds across Nevada and the Northwestern U.S. This setup is conducive for offshore flow with a stronger pressure gradient resulting in stronger winds. The SFO-WMC gradient shows it becoming strongly negative (offshore) starting Friday evening and remaining that way through the day on Saturday. The current SFO-WMC gradient is forecast to peak around -10.8 mb early Saturday morning. There is decent low level support for offshore winds with a low level 925 mb northeasterly jet (peaking around 30-40 knots) located over the interior North Bay at the same time. This brings good agreement that we will see gusty offshore winds across the North Bay Interior Mountains and East Bay Hills this weekend. Gusts are expected to be between 20 to 30 mph but locally stronger gusts may occur across the highest peaks. A few stronger gusts may mix downwards into the neighboring valleys so forecast winds for those valleys were bumped up slightly. The overall fire weather threat remains low but there is still a low potential that dry, winter fuels could result in some fire growth.

Ridging redevelops by the middle of next week but not all hope is lost for rain lovers. The Pacific remains active with a series of strong upper level lows developing offshore. Most of these systems look to stay well to our north but we may see the ridge start to break down/return of upper level troughing by the end of January into early February. Models remain in disagreement about whether or not we will see the ridge break down. The Euro is much more confident that upper level troughing and rain will return while the GFS is more pessimistic and keeps upper level ridging in place. The Euro ensemble members nearly all show rain returning while only a handful of GFS ensemble members do. This is still well over a week out so make sure to stay up to date on the forecast as models come into better agreement on ridging vs troughing.

AVIATION

(18Z TAFS) Issued at 1004 AM PST Thu Jan 22 2026

VFR expected to prevail for the remainder of today as a closed 500 mb low pressure system drifts southeast offshore the southern California coast. Mid level moisture wrapping around this low may yield isolated light showers or virga (20% chance) today south of Monterey Bay, mainly over the Mountains of San Benito and Interior Monterey County. Brief MVFR conditions will be possible with these light showers over the higher terrain. Conditions are forecast to deteriorate tonight through Friday morning as areas of coastal stratus and fog return and fills into the coastal valleys.

Vicinity of SFO...VFR. Light and variable wind becoming onshore 5 to 10 knots in the afternoon and continuing onshore tonight and Friday morning.

SFO Bridge Approach...Similar to SFO.

Monterey Bay Terminals...VFR with a few showers today. MVFR due to low clouds developing tonight and Friday morning. Light southeast winds becoming onshore 5 to 10 knots in the afternoon. Light and variable winds tonight and Friday morning.

MARINE

(Today through Tuesday) Issued at 840 AM PST Thu Jan 22 2026

North winds and choppy seas will steadily increase today through Friday over the region, stronger over the northern outer waters. Small Craft Advisories are already posted, with a 30 percent chance of localized Gale Force winds over the outer waters off Point Arena on Friday. Seas and winds will gradually ease Saturday afternoon and remain around typical into the beginning of next week.

MTR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

CA...None. PZ...Small Craft Advisory from 3 PM this afternoon to 3 AM PST Saturday for Pt Arena to Pt Reyes 10-60 NM.