After recent weather more reminiscent of early spring than early winter, the National Weather Service is predicting a significant change in San Benito County over the coming week.
Early in the week, nights will be cold, with sub-freezing temperatures that have prompted a freeze warning in the area. Daytime temperatures will mostly be in the 50s, which is 10 to 15 degrees cooler than what has been the norm recently, the NWS said.
“It certainly felt like winter this morning,” Bob Benjamin, a Monterey-based weather service meteorologist, said Monday. “And it will quite possibly be a degree or two colder (Tuesday) morning. Sensitive plants will be subject to frost. Plants and animals should be considered if they stay out all night.
A low of 24 was predicted for Hollister on Monday night, with a high of 59 Tuesday and a low of 28 Tuesday night.
Frost was likely Monday night and possible Tuesday night before clouds moving in from the north will make Wednesday a transitional day, with a 40 percent chance of rain in Hollister and a chance the wet conditions will continue through the weekend, Benjamin said.
“We won’t have a significant warm-up until Thursday morning,” he said. “There will be increasing cloudiness on Wednesday and a chance of rain most likely late in the day.”
The cold air is moving down from Alaska, and the rain is headed down from that area as well from a low-pressure center in the Gulf of Alaska that is “spawning off several different systems,” Benjamin said. Those systems are predicted to bring significant rain Thursday, Friday and Saturday, he said.
“We’ll get several inches in the mountains,” he said. “It definitely has the potential to provide some catch-up rain. It won’t make up the deficit, but it will go a long way to brining us back on course.”
In addition to possible heavy rain, the weather service said the incoming weather systems could produce locally strong and gusty winds at times during the latter half of the week and into next weekend.
“After a month of virtually no rainfall, rivers and streams will have ample capacity for rainfall runoff,” the NWS said in a statement released Monday. “Even so, minor urban and nuisance flooding will be possible if periods of heavy rain develop later in the week. Persons planning travel and outdoor activities this week should be prepared for significant weather changes as well as possible travel delays and driving difficulties.”
MCT News contributed to this report.
