Going
to be quite active to start off Crescent City. Strong southwesterly winds off
the low-friction ocean will occur tonight ahead of a surface trough just to the
north. Winds are already approaching 25 kt this afternoon, and they are
expected to strengthen some tonight, so they might be a bit stronger than
modeled, especially with any convection to mix stronger winds from aloft. I
wouldn’t be surprised at brief 30+ kt winds. As is always the case for coastal
sites though, only high-resolution models can resolve the wind and temperature
gradients along the coast reasonably well. The southwesterly winds will bring
in warm, moist Pacific air straight into the coastal mountains, leading to heavy
rain with some of the upslope enhancement impacting Crescent City. The high
will likely occur during this time before the surface trough passes to the
south late tomorrow, with winds weakening and turning to northerly behind it,
leading to slightly cooler temperatures. The timing of the trough passage is a
bit uncertain, and precipitation amount will depend on how long it lingers over
the area. More intermittent showers are still possible behind the trough. The
air mass is not that much colder immediately behind the trough, so the temperature
will only drop a few degrees even with the wind shift to northerly. Complete
thick cloud cover means that daytime heating and radiational cooling won’t
really be a factor.
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