Warm weather and sunny skies are on tap for areas of Santa Barbara County over the next few days, according to the National Weather Service.
The NWS predicts temperatures will rise to daytime highs near 80 degrees starting Wednesday on the South Coast.
The North County areas are expected to be cooler and will likely get in the lower to mid-70s, with northwest winds of 15-25 mph in the afternoon.
Temperatures near the beaches also are forecast to be milder, with highs in the mid-60s to around 70 along the South Coast on Wednesday.
Thursday is likely to be the warmest day, according to David Sweet, a meteorologist with the NWS in Oxnard.
“It looks like Thursday is going to be the hottest day,” Sweet told Noozhawk on Tuesday. “If you are inland at low elevations, it could be as high as around 90.”
Daytime high temperatures will likely reach into the 80s to around the 90s in some parts of the South County on Thursday, except temperatures should be around 70 at the beaches.
Northeast winds around 15 mph are possible Thursday morning.
Thursday’s forecast calls for highs in the mid-60s to around 70 along the North County coastline, and soaring as high as the mid-80s in the inland areas. Forecasters expect north winds around 15 mph shifting to the northwest in the afternoon.
The temperatures won’t likely break hot weather records, Sweet said.
Overnight lows should be in the 50s to the low-60s in most locations.
This week’s projected warm-up is expected to gradually cool down for the weekend.
There is no sign of a chance of much-needed rain in the forecast.
“We are pretty much done, and we don’t see anything for the next seven days,” Sweet said.
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor map, released April 22, shows parts of Santa Barbara County are in “moderate drought” or “severe drought.”
The region is considered in the second and third of five increasingly dire levels in the drought monitor program, a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
December through April is typically the season for rain in Santa Barbara County, with January, February and March being the three wettest months.
The average high in April in Santa Barbara is 69 degrees, with an average of more than 1.2 inches of rainfall total, according to Western Regional Climate Center.
Click here for the latest forecast from the National Weather Service.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
