Now that rain has been removed from the weather discussion the Bay Area, only one more element needs to fade before the postcard beauty returns to the region.
To hear the National Weather Service tell it, that is expected to happen beginning Friday, when the gusty winds that began blowing on Wednesday are forecast to be finished.
“We’ll see them start to slow down Friday and by Saturday, you’ll see a shift in the off-shore flow, and it’s gonna start warming up more,” NWS meteorologist Dial Hoang said. “Those temperatures by the weekend should be up to the mid-70s. Some of the hotter places might get near 80.”
The winds that blew Wednesday night came mostly from the west and northwest areas. On Thursday, they are expected to blow more from the northeast. Offshore winds are those gusts that blow toward the Pacific Ocean, the opposite of the normal wind direction from the ocean that acts as the Bay Area’s natural cooling mechanism.
Thus, the windy conditions are likely to add warmth to the region on Thursday rather than make it cooler, according to the weather service. The winds gusted up to 30 mph on Wednesday. On Thursday, they could be greater than 40 mph along the coasts and higher elevations, Hoang said.
In the lower areas and more inland, they may gust up to 25-30 amid steady winds of 10-15 mph.
“We are starting to move into a more spring-like weather pattern” Hoang said. “There are not a lot of signs of significant rainfall, at least through the middle of March. And we’re starting to see some of the warming trends that we start to get when spring gets here.”
Additionally, a high-pressure ridge that began to develop after the last of the Bay Area’s February storms has taken hold north of the region, causing oncoming storm systems from the Pacific Northwest to take a different path. Small pockets of light rain briefly fell in the most northern parts of California and in areas near Tahoe on Wednesday, and those areas are expected to remain cloudier and cooler than average through the weekend, the weather service said.
The temperatures also are expected to cool down in the Bay Area early next week, though Hoang they are expected to remain above the seasonal average.
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