Forty-eight hours removed from a one-day cameo appearance by rain, the next question forecasters are probing is when the high pressure will build high enough and thick enough to create a summer-like simmer.
“We’re getting more and more into a summer-like pattern,” National Weather Service meteorologist Dial Hoang said Wednesday morning. “It’s gonna mean the warmer weather inland, clouds over the coast that clear out in the morning and temperatures getting warmer.”
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That means a slow build in temperatures leading to the weekend, and then a bit of a leap by Monday, according to the weather service. Temperatures in the low 90s in some of the region’s hottest regions and in the mid-to-low 80s elsewhere are expected while the sun sparkles without clouds through much of next week.
“It does look like it’s going to be mainly dry and clear,” Hoang said. “These is going to be high pressure that builds over the region.”
That accumulation of high pressure is expected to be interrupted briefly Friday night into Saturday with an upper-level trough that will lower the temperatures and increase the cloud cover, Hoang said. That trough won’t bring any precipitation but it could set up a situation that could lead to the type of northerly winds that can increase fire danger.
“That’s one thing we are going to watch closely,” Hoang said.
Those winds are expected to be minimal once the trough moves through the region, and the high pressure begins to build again, Hoang said.
How strong and long-lasting that upper-pressure will last is likely to determine how long the temperatures stay high, Hoang said. He added that the marine layer will remain positioned to provide some natural air conditioning to the region and overnight lows even in the hottest places are expected to dip back into the 50s.
Still, that will be warmer than the overnight lows that dotted the region on Wednesday; many of them were in the 40s.
“It’s going to stay pretty steady, at least through the first few days of next week,” Hoang said.