And summer returns?

One more winter-like system will move into NorCal tomorrow into Saturday before a late summer- like pattern of warm temperatures and offshore flow develops across the entire state. Moderate rain may fall over parts of NorCal over the next 36 hours, especialli near the coast. Gusty winds will precede the front tomorrow in the Sacramento Valley and over mountain ridges as the pressure gradient increase ahead of the cold front. Post frontal-shower  activity won’t be particularly impressive, but an isolated thundershower is conceivable at some point before Saturday noon. After that, the jet weakens and move north, allowing a strong ridge of high pressure aloft to build in and bring warm and dry conditions to the entire state. Most places will be in the 70s and 80s and some interior parts of SoCal could reach the 90s by next week. The GFS indicates this fall warm spell may persist for at least 1-2 weeks. One interesting feature is developing tropical system Kiko, which is forecast to strengthen into a respectable hurricane by early next week and be located near the tip of Baja CA. The models currently show a very favorable pattern for remnant moisture to be advected in our general direction by the 5-7 day period, although no models explicitly show such a development just yet. It’s getting a bit late in the year for that…but the possibility does still exist. Hopefully the jet will sink southward again soon…La Nina may be playing some tricks on us at the moment…