Winter storm continues, forecast for Sunday Mar 3rd

A very chilly and blustery storm continues to batter the entire West Coast. While we haven't see too much rain, low elevation snow and gusty winds have been widespread with more potentially ahead. We do have a couple of Wind Advisories for mountain areas where gusty southwesterly winds could top 45 to 55 mph. This advisory will last through about mid day Sunday.  A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for the mountains of Santa Barbara and Ventura County through mid day Sunday. Areas above 5000 feet could see up to 6 inches of snow with areas above 6 to 8000 feet seeing much more. Couple that with the gusty winds and hazardous driving conditions will prevail, so hold off on any prospective snow play until maybe late Sunday or Monday. Temperatures on Sunday will continue to be very cool with highs only expect to top out in the 50's and very low 60's. A High Surf Advisory will also stay in effect for much of the coastline along west and northwest facing beaches. Waves from northwest will be up above 5 to 8 feet through Sunday and in to Monday.

Looking ahead, scattered showers will be mostly past us by early Monday. Temperatures will stay on the cool side with the exception of the South Coast where the northerly flow will help to keep it slightly warmer with highs possibly in the mid to upper 60's. Another weak storm system will approach the region by late Tuesday and Wednesday with more scattered showers expected. Rainfall should once again be light to moderate. We then see our forecast models trying to keep us mostly fair and maybe even warmer by the following weekend. More storms are lining up, but high pressure might win the battle of the air masses which pushes the storm track north and we get to dry out a little. We will monitor closely and fine tune the forecast as we head through next week.