June gloom never fully bloomed, and the last few days of the month should stick to the pattern.
National Weather Service forecasters say high pressure over northern Mexico will expand through Monday. That should pump up inland temperatures to the upper 80s tomorrow and the low 90s Monday. Coastal clouds should be kept to a minimum, and the beaches should be in the mid-70s.
Similar weather conditions dominated much of June, said Ivory Small, science and operations officer at the weather service's Rancho Bernardo office. In the typical June pattern, low pressure dominates much of the West Coast, Small said, and low clouds march into the inland valleys.
The persistent high pressure caused heat waves that warmed the waters off the county's coast. Those warmer waters have made it difficult for fog to form, Small said.
Yesterday, the ocean temperature was 72 degrees in San Clemente and 70 degrees in Solana Beach and the Oceanside Harbor. Normally, ocean temperatures are in the low-to mid-60s this time of year, Small said.
“When you start seeing numbers like that, you don't have the cooling in the boundary layer (the air near the ocean surface) that would help develop the low clouds,” Small said.
The pattern is more like what is usually seen in July, he said.
Cloud cover at Lindbergh Field, San Diego's official weather station, has been far less extensive than usual. There have been more days classified as clear – 30 percent of the sky or less covered with clouds – than in any June in the past six years. There also were fewer days when the skies were considered mostly cloudy. The Oceanside airport reported similarly clear skies.
At inland stations such as Ramona, skies also have been more cloud-free.
On the immediate coast, it hasn't seemed much different from the usual June gloom, Encinitas lifeguard Dan Jones said. There have been heat waves, but there have been gray skies, too, Jones said.
“We've had our fair share of cloudy days,” he said. “We've had plenty of June gloom.”
In Point Loma, the typical June pattern of cloudy skies early and all day has been rare. Many mornings have started out clear, then the weather has changed drastically, said Art Javier, branch manager of the Point Loma Credit Union office on Catalina Boulevard.
“Today, it started off nice and warm; then the fog rolled in during the afternoon,” Javier said yesterday. “Temperatures dropped 10 degrees, at least.”
Robert Krier: (619) 293-2241; rob.krier@uniontrib.com
