We have a mild weekend lined up as a ridge of high pressure crosses the west coast, bringing sunny skies on Saturday with temperatures that will rise into the mid-60s. Winds will be fairly mild (NE to 10 in the afternoon). Sunday will likely warm up to nearly 70 degrees, but clouds will increase ahead of a weak storm system that will likely miss us here in Reno, but could bring an isolated shower Sunday night into Monday morning. Temperatures cool slightly next week, but still stay seasonable in the low 60s Monday before warming back into the 70s by mid-week.

Yesterday, Jerry wondered how far to the west I look with respect to incoming weather. If you really want to get technical, I look all around the globe (at least the entire northern hemisphere), since the whole atmosphere is interconnected. But I look most intently at what is going on from here out into the central Pacific, and less so at the rest of the Pacific.

There are some exceptions to this: The far western Pacific can be of great interest. Often when we get a deepening low pressure over Japan it foretells a storm dropping over us about four days later. It doesn’t always work, but it’s not a bad rule of thumb.