It’s one of the great things about the weather in the Pacific Northwest, it’s never boring. As you can see from today’s surface chart there’s a pretty good sized 975MB low pressure system off the coast that is going to slightly weaken, as in go to about 980MB, and then not move very much at least through Tuesday. Then we’ll have three merging low pressure systems right off of our coast, all the while sending frontal systems ashore from mid-Baja to SE Alaska. You can say the California has needed the rain and the snow but you’d really like to spread it out over a longer time span. I don’t know what boaters in Marina del Rey are going to do since the latest pictures show boats moored in an endless sea of plastic bags that have washed into the marina. It going to be almost impossible to avoid sucking those into the raw water intakes. YUK!
So what does this mean for us? Pretty simple, occasional rain with occasional wind. Today we’ll have strong winds, gale warnings offshore, which will back off and then by tomorrow about mid afternoon you can expect building breeze offshore and the eastern end of the Straits of Juan de Fuca from Pt Townsend to the northern end of the San Juan Islands. By Sunday morning a stronger system will approach the coast bringing a strong east southeasterly breeze to the Straits and coastal waters.
While we probably won’t see more than about 15 knots of east southeasterly breeze in the central and south Sound if you’re headed out on the water be sure to check conditions on a regular basis.
As you can see from the upper air (500MB) charts, it’s probably not going to change very much. California is just going to keep getting fire-hosed for the foreseeable future.
What’s the good news? The Seattle Boat Show opens a week from today! I’ll be working for the NMTA (Northwest Marine Trade Association) at the Boat Show Information Booth on Saturday and Sunday of the opening weekend so please stop by and say hello.
Have a great weekend!
Bruce has raced and cruised the Pacific Northwest his entire life. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Washington in Biological Oceanography and learned meteorology “to keep from getting kicked around on the race course.” Bruce spent nearly two decades as Associate Publisher for Northwest Yachting Magazine, retiring in mid-2015, and was the chairman of the board of trustees for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in 2014. (photo of Bruce driving Playstation is a bit dated, but cool)