Unlike the day-lubbers, our main concern is not temperatures. We need cloud cover, wind patterns, fog distributon, and the depth of the marine layer. Here's the good sites...
The NOAA Monterey Bay detailed weather forecast , Local NOAA , NRL Monterey Bay Weather Sat and detailed discussion
Weather.us Detailed Cloud Forecasts. Excellent detail and forecast maps for California. Yellow is clearsky, dark gray is cloudy, can look at low, medium, and high cloud spatial distribution predictions separately. Compare quality: ECMWF vs GFS, looks like ECMWF comes out better as it uses local topgraphy in modelling
NOAA NorCal blue/gray Cloud forecast map
Fort Ord Vertical Profiler (for marine layer depth)
RAL Satellite Data Animations and description of general cloud cover forecast maps available
GOES Satellite Loops: Western List, including: San Francisco Area , Hanford/San Jaquin Valley WestCentral (CA,NV) , GOES viewer
Selected ClearSkyClocks in Monterey Bay General Area...
Astro Weather Panel (a more detailed product similar to ClearSkyClocks)
Balloon soundings give the temperature and humidity vs altitude, and are good for seeing the top elevation of the marine layer. The Fort Ord profiler is best as it's local to Monterey Bay, but if that's down.... click on the Oakland profile. Click on the map's "OAK" symbol to get a table of the latest balloon data from Oakland. To determine the depth of the marine layer, look at the temperature and the humidity beginning at sea-level. Look for a sharp drop in humidty and rise in temperature. The elevation of this transition is the top of the marine layer and will correspond to the tops of the fog. This elevation is fairly constant throughout the SF and Monterey Bay area. The highest accessible point in Bonny Doon is at 736m (2400 ft.), and other of our favorite nearby observing sites.
For excursions to the hinterlands, including cross-country skiing and desert foray's..
Snow Cover in California
Yosemite Webcams and, Yosemite Road Conditions
Hwy 120 Road Conditions
Badger Pass Snow and weather
Mono Lake/Conway Summit Webcams
Webcams in the Sierra Ski Zones
Yosemite CDEC stations map , Yosemite Weather
CA Dept Water Resources Stations (including live snow depth)
CA Regional Snow Cover from NOAA
Current Snow Depth Station Data and Sierra Stations Snow Depth from NOAA
China
Lake Naval Center's weather site.
My Planning Strategy
If there's an event or photo trip planned, I'll start with the satellite
weather , especially the Central
California page, to see if there's any storm-related
weather coming in soon. If that's OK, I'll see what the fog pattern is on the
satellite map. Does Bonny Doon, etc. poke above the fog tops, etc. If there's
no fog, but there's a marine layer of damp cool air which may saturate when
evening comes, I'll go to the balloon
sounding site and find the elevation of the top of the marine layer.
Then, I'll go to my list of
local observing sites and find one which is above
the marine layer and reasonably close.
