Back to our regularly scheduled Fine Fall weather.

Up in the Sierra, this past weekend, it was perfect holiday weather.  The actual holiday, Thursday, was cold and blustery with a dusting of snow overnight.  Friday and Saturday were beautiful, sunny and warm. About 50F at 8000 feet.  Not too shabby for late November.  Of course, that did not last long, as the sun dipped behind the mountains around 2PM, and things started to chill off quick.  As for the skiing.   Northstar and Heavenly continue to offer the very best options with plenty of manmade corduroy.  Kirkwood's WROD was short and decent.  But if you prefer to ski natural snow, Kirkwood did offer up some decent low angle off piste skiing.  Just expect to find a few rocks, miniature tree tops and plenty of grass.  And it is only getting thinner with the warm days allowing some melt off.

California Route 1.  A bit of a scenic road in Santa Cruz County.

So, what is the weather forecast?  Most thinking has us staying high and dry through about December 8th, or more.  That is not to say we could not get some rain and snow, but it is against the odds.  At least for the next two days we should stay dry and have partly sunny skies along the coast.  Quite beautiful, actually, with day time temperatures in the high 60s.  Up in the Sierra, they expect around 50 and mostly sun.  The bad news if for those of you in the valley.  And not just the Central Valley this time.  Dense fog is reaching even into the Bay Region inland valleys this morning and for the next few days.  Typical winter inversions have set up.  We saw it on our drive home from the mountains yesterday.  50F in Kirkwood, 70F in Pine Grove, 55F in Tracy.  The blanket of grey even persisted over Altamont Pass, and into Livermore, at 2PM.  Expect delays and dive carefully.  Fog clears out Wednesday with the next short wave.

Solitude is the only chair running at Kirkwood.  Grey clouds gather along the Cirque and Sierra Crest.

Current thinking has a small low pressure pinching off from the jet near the PNW.  Most models have this thing losing moisture and moving to the east, well north of us.  This will still serve to cool us off.  The mountains return to a season mid 30s high, and along the coast we expect to see about 60F by the weekend.  And very good chances we stay dry.  Slight more likely that it is will precipitate in the mountains.  Not much of a chance, but perhaps we will see a dusting of new snow.  If we are lucky.  Any snow is welcome this time of year.   Slim chance that this thing will move south, and develop a one, two mini punch of rain and snow.  Stay tuned, in case this scenario develops.  For now, expect a pleasant week, with dropping temperatures and strong north winds on Thursday.  Oh yeah, those.  Strong NNE winds will blow out the fog, and make blustery conditions along the coast.  And increase fire hazard, as we expect these to be dry.

A storm moves into the Sierra Nevada.  But it left only a trace of snow.

Those same winds slowly shift east through Friday, and help to clean up the surf.  There was some good surf this past weekend.  Another north swell arrive this afternoon, but it will be accompanied by building high pressure and onshore winds.  Oh, well.  Still, expect fun chest highish surf in town.  Swell holds through Tuesday, and the morning could have good conditions.  More swell arrives mid week, but so does plenty of wind swell.  Things start to clean out through Friday, with another small swell possible, but with cleaner conditions.  While not very exciting for the last week of November, still a decent week.  And Hawaii finally is getting a worthy swell, and the Vans at Sunset got started.  We will see a much smaller version of this swell later today.  Still, it should be fun and a bit overhead.

So expect fair weather this week, and into the next.  Slight chance for a change of plans for the latter part of this week, but I don't think that will really happen.  Still, this has been a crazy season already.