Sunny skies and mild temperatures for this week

An offshore flow pattern will develop beneath building high pressure aloft today. A warming and drying trend will establish through Wednesday with periods of gusty Santa Ana winds. High temperatures will be back above normal in the mid 60s to mid 70s. Lows in the 30s and 40s. A cooling trend is expected for Thursday and Friday, then offshore flow will reestablish for next weekend.

Temperatures Tuesday similar or slightly warmer than today, so overall a few degrees above normal. Wednesday will trend 3-6 degrees cooler as onshore flow returns ahead of the next approaching system. Wind will be the primary weather issue for the next several days as it has been most of this winter so far. Yet another inside slider will drop through the Great Basin Wednesday into Thursday. As is common with this scenario we should see rapidly increasing northwest winds over the coastal waters Wednesday, then getting windy across the Central Coast, southern Santa Barbara County area late Wednesday into Thursday morning. Winds should easily reach advisory levels in many of those areas. Not a lot of moisture with this due to the inland trajectory, however enough so that there could be some light precipitation across the mountains. 

Thursday very likely will be the coolest day of the week by far. Following the trough passage Thursday we'll see warming temperatures into early next week as a strong ridge of high pressure develops aloft with offshore flow at times, mainly Friday and Monday. Perhaps a little dip in temps Sunday as onshore flow makes a brief return due to a weak trough moving through the Pacific northwest. Then additional warming Monday under light offshore flow again.