Blog Article
California's 65-Day Nice Weather Streak Explained
Sacramento and the East Bay haven't had a bad weather day since June 9. Here's why California's streak holds while the rest of the country deals with storms and heat.
California's Quiet Streak: 65 Straight Days of Nice Weather or Better
While the rest of the country has spent this week cleaning up after a bowing MCS that put 111 mph wind gusts on the ground near Newell, South Dakota, and knocked out power to more than 192,000 customers in Lake County, Indiana, there's a corner of the country that just... hasn't had a bad weather day in a very long time.
Sacramento, Oakland, Stockton, Walnut Grove, Berkeley, Napa, Concord, and a long list of Sacramento Valley and East Bay cities have not fallen below Nice on our tracker for 65 consecutive days, going all the way back to June 9. That's not a good week or a good month. That's every single day our streak tracker has data for. Shasta, up near Redding, is riding the same streak. So is Roseville. So is Antioch, out in the Delta.
It's the kind of story that doesn't make a headline because nothing dramatic is happening. Dry marine and inland air keeps sliding through, dewpoints stay low, afternoons warm up predictably, and evenings cool off enough to sleep with the windows open. No supercells, no derechos, no flash flood emergencies. Just a long, quiet run of pleasant.
Today's Ceiling Is Still Up in the Pacific Northwest
The day's single best pocket of weather on Wednesday belongs to western Washington and northwest Oregon, not California. Portland, Oregon is sitting at 92 out of 100, rated Beautiful, with highs in the upper 70s, dewpoints near 58°F, and only a 2% chance of rain. Seattle isn't far behind at 82. The marine air keeps things clean, with air quality readings as low as the teens and twenties around Portland and Stanwood.
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That corridor has owned the top spot most of this week, and it's a real story on its own. But it's also a tight, narrow band, essentially the Puget Sound lowlands and the northern Willamette Valley, and it comes with a soft ceiling: lingering marine stratus keeps the sky score just below what's needed for Perfect. If you're in Yelm, Sheridan, or Stanwood today, enjoy it. Just don't expect a repeat performance everywhere else in the country.
Where California Fits This Week
Here's the part that connects today's Northwest pocket to the bigger seven-day picture. As the Northwest transitions and monsoonal moisture starts working into the interior West by the weekend, a dry, sinking air mass settles in over coastal and interior California, and that's when this week's map really becomes a California story.
By Friday, August 14, Los Angeles (80.9), Sacramento (72.0), Fresno (70.3), Bakersfield (79.9), and Stockton (81.1) all land in Nice territory, joined by Boston and Portland, Oregon on the other coast. The AFD summary for that day is blunt about why California keeps clearing the bar: dewpoints averaging in the low 50s, only about 3% chance of rain, and winds under 13 mph across the zone. Anderson, up near Redding, posts a 47.8°F dewpoint and 0% rain chance with a high near 84°F, which is about as dry and comfortable as August gets.
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That pattern holds into Saturday and Sunday. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Riverside, Bakersfield, and Oxnard all stay in Nice on Day 4, and Fresno, Bakersfield, Riverside, and Victorville carry it into Day 5, when Reno and even Fargo join the Nice tier as the dry air pushes inland. It's the same basic engine the whole time: a narrow band of dry, subsiding air riding along the West Coast while the central Plains and Midwest stay locked under repeated rounds of monsoon-fed cloud cover and afternoon thunderstorm clusters.
The Week's Actual Winner Isn't a Big City
If you zoom out to the full seven-day picture, the single best-performing spot in the country by average score is Drain, Oregon, population 1,157, which posted a mean score of 80.4 and never dropped out of Nice all week, peaking at 92 today. Right behind it on the weekly leaderboard is a cluster of Central Coast California towns: San Luis Obispo, Pine Mountain Club, Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Mission Canyon, Goleta, and Montecito, all of which hit their best score of the week (92, Beautiful territory) on Friday. If you've got a farmers market trip or a trailhead walk planned in the Santa Barbara area this weekend, Friday looks like the pick.
What to Watch For
A few caveats worth keeping in mind if you're planning around this. UV runs high across the whole West Coast and California interior right now, generally in the 7 to 7.5 range, so sunscreen and shade breaks still matter even on a comfortable day. Some of the interior California and northern Nevada zones carry elevated fire weather concern from dry, breezy conditions, which is worth a glance at local Red Flag Warnings if you're heading into the foothills or the Sierra. And if you're drawn to the Central Coast beach towns like Pismo Beach or Avila Beach, remember the Pacific this time of year is still cold enough that a quick dip is bracing, not balmy.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country isn't catching a break. WPC's short-term discussion has dangerous heat building from the Central Plains into the Southeast this week, with heat indices reaching 105 to 115 degrees in spots, and CPC's week-two hazards outlook flags a high risk of extreme heat for the Central and Southern Plains, the Mississippi Valley, and the Southeast running August 19 through 21. The Midwest and Ohio Valley are also stuck under another slight risk of excessive rainfall today and tomorrow, the same stubborn stationary front that fueled this week's severe weather.
So the map this week really does split into two stories: a volatile, soggy, increasingly hot middle of the country, and a quiet, dry run of good weather hugging the West Coast that, in California's case, has now lasted more than two months without a break. For the full current outlook and to see how your city is trending, check the Nice Weather outlook page.
If you're trying to plan an actual outdoor weekend around this, Friday through Sunday in coastal and interior California, plus today through Thursday in the Portland-Seattle corridor, are your best bets. Everywhere in between, keep an eye on the sky.