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One more Fall-like day before the heat and smoke return

Valley air quality remains in the moderate range
Valley 10-day forecast 9/29/2021
Mountains 7-day forecasts 9/29/2021
Posted at 4:51 AM, Sep 29, 2021
and last updated 2021-09-29 11:28:21-04

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Bakersfield saw a high of just 74 yesterday, the coolest we've been in 110 days! We haven't seen highs in the valley in the 70s since early June, and thankfully we're holding onto those Fall-like temperatures for one more day.

Yesterday's trough is moving east, with high pressure building in from the Pacific give us one more day of a northerly breeze between the two systems. That means more sunshine than yesterday but we're able to hold on to the highs in the mid-70s and the moderate air quality here on the valley floor. That's about 10 degrees below average! Lake Isabella will be in the mid-70s too, but with more smoke and ash being pushed into the Kern River Valley from the Windy Fire burning north of the county line. The desert sees highs in the low 80s this afternoon with breezy upper 60s in the south mountains of Tehachapi and Frazier Park today.

But that high pressure builds in from the Pacific tomorrow, jumping us up about 10 degrees to those seasonal mid-80s yet again. As we lose the flow of fresh ocean breezes, that will allow the wildfire smoke to fill back in for the next several days. So we're quickly back to the hazy 90s this weekend, the first couple days of October.

Looking ahead to next week, we'll increase breezes Monday into Tuesday as a low passes over Southern California, bringing cleaner and cooler air into the region through mid-week. While showers will be possible in our mountains, we aren't expecting rain here on the valley floor. But air quality is expected to get better with a drop to low 80s heading into the end of next week.

So with that forecast, while it gets warm this weekend, there are no 100s in sight!

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