Warm and bright as indeed a micro-mini heat wave is upon California’s north coast — right now, near-noon, the WunderBlog weather thingy show we’re sitting just under 75 degrees, with a high today already of 77 or so.
Apparently, we’ve peaked and cooler temperatures are already setting upon us — mainly due to a nice, though-chilled a bit, feel of a Pacific sea breeze taking the sting out of the heat, or what we’d call ‘heat.’

However, my earlier walk to Safeway this morning and before the winds came, was a warm one — the hottest day of 2016 for sure, and the first trip (15/20-minute trek) I’d made in a long while without need of a jacket.

Wonderful to say the least…

(Illustration: Tessa Hunt-Woodland‘s ‘Solar Flare,’ found here).

And I should enjoy/savor the moment as we’re forecast to be heading back into a week-to-10-days of an ‘El Niño pattern,’ a couple of low pressure systems off the California coast could bring at least some overcast skies and maybe rain showers, starting supposedly tomorrow evening.

Every little bit is needed due to the ceaseless drought, but we’re in a flow to dry. The problem for us is atmospheric patterns, like the now-defunct, so-called “ridiculously resilient ridge”, a high pressure region diverting precious rain/snow further northward.
A new study from Standford University (via ZME Science):

“The current record-breaking drought in California has arisen from both extremely low precipitation and extremely warm temperature,” says Noah Diffenbaugh, associate professor of earth system science at Stanford University.
“In this new study, we find clear evidence that atmospheric patterns that look like what we’ve seen during this extreme drought have in fact become more common in recent decades.”
…
“What seems to be happening is that we’re having fewer ‘average’ years, and instead we’re seeing more extremes on both sides,” Swain says.
“This means that California is indeed experiencing more warm and dry periods, punctuated by wet conditions.”

Major-operative word: ‘punctuated,’ as in, every-once-in-a-while, and shorten rainy seasons…