In some respects, the start of 2025 has brought a spell of weather for the Bay Area that could be mistaken for the summer time — save for the frigid air overnight and the cool high temperatures during the day. The forecasts generally have been sunny and clear not even a rumor of rain.
“But even in summer, we have the marine layer with a lot more usually to the onshore flow,” National Weather Service meteorologist Lamont Bain said Wednesday. “This time, it’s been mostly sunny with offshore flow from the north and that’s keeping the marine layer and those things at bay. It’s just a very stubborn pattern.”
So it will be that the region is expected to roll through another dry and sunny weekend, with the air getting only slightly warmer. Temperatures during the day and overnight lows are expected to crawl up to the low 40s and high 30s.
Forget about rain. Bain said the last measurable rain outside of the North Bay fell on Jan. 3, and that the dry stretch won’t end anytime before next week, if then.
“I’m not seeing any opportunity for precipitation at least through next Tuesday” Bain said, adding that such a hope is quite optimistic.
That said, some other elements seen earlier during this weather pattern may return.
“The main story as we move to the weekend is the potential for some wind,” Bain said. “We’ve got a flow that’s gonna slide mostly to our east, but it may create something for us.”
Most likely, it will mean that winds on the region’s coastal areas will increase late Friday into Saturday. Those winds are expected to move in an offshore direction, meaning they’re coming from the north and moving toward the ocean.
Such a pattern has been an equation for fire danger in times past, but Bain said the weather service does not anticipate any advisories or warnings. Forecasters and fire officials have said that the rains last month in the Bay Area have created a different landscape than what faced crews in bone-dry Los Angeles County.
In that region, winds whipped again Tuesday and at least two new wildfires started. Fires have been burning in Los Angeles County for more than two weeks.
More dangerous to Bay Area residents with the uptick in the winds will be the response of the ocean waves, Bain said. Swells could become hazardous — another condition that has become more and more familiar to the region so far in 2025.
“It’s all from this high pressure,” Bain said. “It’s just very thick and stubborn. It’s not going anywhere.”