Southern California's May gray has been stubborn. Here's an explanation. But be prepared for June gloom.
It heats the land and air, but the ocean remains cool, because water absorbs heat.
Normally, air temperature gets cooler as it gets higher in the atmosphere. But because of the chilling effect of the ocean, the layer of air near the water’s surface is cooler than the layer immediately above it. Above that cooler layer, the air abruptly warms before cooling higher in the atmosphere. The warmer layer is called an “inversion” — in this case, a marine inversion — and the cool air trapped beneath it is the marine layer.
Low clouds extend far inland in this satellite photo of the Southern California coast taken Tuesday at 9 a.m. As Tardy points out, the weather pattern that brought heat to the Southland and monsoon-like thunderstorms to mountains and deserts May 10-22 featured high pressure at upper levels of the atmosphere. This upper-level ridging compressed the marine inversion, confining the marine layer clouds and fog to the immediate coast.Another mechanism that can spin low clouds inland in Southern California is the Catalina, or coastal, eddy.
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