As the holiday season shifts into full bore, the weather in the Bay Area has stopped being frightful. It’s not about to turn dreadful anytime soon either, according to the National Weather Service.
“We have high pressure building a bit,” NWS meteorologist Brayden Murdock said Tuesday morning. “That’s going to mean some pretty warm days and some pretty clear days, and it’s gonna stay that way for some time.”
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The change is a pretty significant one from a weather pattern last month that ushered in an atmospheric river storm that brought heavy rain everywhere and torrential downpours in the North Bay.
That pattern made its way out of the area some time ago, but other weather activity from the Alaskan Gulf has continued to make its way through the upper Northwest. That system is expected to create rain up there but no more than “increased cloud cover” in the Bay Area by the weekend, the weather service said.
“We continue to sit below a lot of the activity,” Murdock said. “We’re pretty much tucked under everything, and that’s what is allowing our high pressure to build.”
The high-pressure build will continue through the week and is likely to lift temperatures into the upper 60s through most of the region. Murdock said there is a possibility that some of the warmer areas of the interior could crack 70 degrees when the high pressure peaks.
It also will create a stillness in the air that could allow pollution to build. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s forecast called for mostly moderate air quality but added that areas along the North Bay and the central coast could see air that’s unhealthy for those with breathing or other conditions.
“All I can really say on that issue is that when we have some of our poorer air quality, it’s because we don’t have much wind,” Murdock said. “We’re gonna have weak winds for a while.”
The sunny-and-clear forecasts are expected to continue at least into Saturday, when Murdock said the region may see some significant cloud cover. Rain is not in the forecast during that stretch, nor anytime in the near future.
“We’re not gonna have a lot of variation for a while,” Murdock said. “It’s gonna stay like this.”