Friday May 12, 2023
San Francisco Chronicle —
A rare, summerlike weather pattern is shaping up for the Western United States next week, with a hot high-pressure system building to the north of the Bay Area and a low-pressure system to its east.
Together, these systems will likely create an atmospheric conveyor belt that could reel in rounds of unstable air and moisture toward California. Depending on how much instability makes it north of Los Angeles, parts of the Bay Area could experience monsoon-like thunderstorms by next week, which usually don’t arrive in Northern California until mid-June.
A low-pressure system will develop over New Mexico and Texas this weekend, spinning against the usual atmospheric current of west-to-east flow and settling over the Four Corners region. Its counterclockwise flow has a good chance of synchronizing with the clockwise flow of a strong high-pressure system in the Pacific Northwest, carving out a pathway for moisture to reach California.