Why does the Bay Area feel like Hawaii right now?

View of Twin Peaks from Bernal Heights, Aug. 3, 2017 View of Twin Peaks from Bernal Heights, Aug. 3, 2017 Photo: Danny Kokopop Photo: Danny Kokopop Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close Why does the Bay Area feel like Hawaii right now? 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

It feels like Hawaii out there. The air is thick, hot and sticky.

Scattered showers and thunderstorms are in the forecast Friday in the Bay Area, and it's still warm.

What is going on?

All of this moisture is coming from a North American monsoon. The weather system draws moisture from the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Mexico and usually hangs out in the Southwest in the summer, fueling thunderstorms in the desert and mountains.

But now we're getting some of that monsoonal moisture here in Northern California, as a high pressure system bearing down over Northern California is pulling parts of the monsoon into the Bay Area.

"The monsoon moisture is becoming more prevalent over the Bay Area," explains Rick Canepa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Monterey. "It has pretty much been set up over the Southwest going into June. Finally the pattern has come up such that the clockwise flow of this upper level ridge has transported this moisture into the Bay Area."

While tropical-like conditions are not typical for the Bay Area during the summer, they're not that unusual either.

"It seems unusual because we're used to the fog and morning and nighttime clouds. Usually at least once a summer this happens," said Suzanne Sims, a meteorologist with the NWS office in Monterey.

Canepa says the muggy conditions will begin to subside over the weekend as an onshore wind builds.

"We'll start to get more of a circulation off the temperature and that will help start to get cooler temperatures, and even inland," he says. "And we'll start to see more average temperatures for August over the weekend."

Thanks to the monsoonal moisture creating layers of clouds in the sky, the sunsets and sunrises have been spectacular in the Bay Area in recent days. Check out reader's photos of the drama in the sky in the gallery above.