Barometric Pressure Forecast for Los Gatos, California
Barometric pressure forecast for Los Gatos, California — at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains where Los Gatos Creek leaves the canyon and the Santa Clara Valley opens out. See current barometric pressure and what it means for weather-sensitive people.
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Pressure and weather in Los Gatos
Los Gatos sits against the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains at the southwestern corner of the Santa Clara Valley, a position that gives it a noticeably different climate from the valley floor a few miles northeast. The Mediterranean pattern divides the year sharply. From roughly May to October the Pacific high parks offshore, rain effectively stops, and the barometer runs flat and high for months; the only daily variation comes from the marine layer pushing through gaps in the coast range overnight and burning off by midday. All the real movement is in the wet season from November to March. Atmospheric rivers, long plumes of subtropical moisture steered into California by the jet, bring the deepest falls of the year, and because the Santa Cruz Mountains force that moist air upward, the hills immediately west of town collect several times the rainfall that San Jose records. Between those events, ridging usually reasserts itself for a week or two, so the wet season plays out as a series of distinct episodes rather than as continuously unsettled weather.
What this means for you
Almost all of the year's pressure movement is packed into a handful of winter atmospheric river events. Watching the barometric pressure forecast from November through March catches nearly everything that matters.