Well, the folks in Texas and Louisiana have certainly had enough weather probably for a lifetime. The bad news is that the European weather models are showing another 2-4″ of rain coming down Tuesday and Wednesday and then by the end of the week there’s the possibility of Hurricane Irma making a US landfall in the Gulf. YIKES! On top of that, the current administration Is going to cut funding to NOAA and FEMA while wiping out any mention of climate change. How is it we are getting 100 year, 200 year, 500 year and 800 year floods and storms every year now? Kurt is telling me to get back to weather in the Pacific NW now and save the politics for a happy hour discussion.
Click to enlarge:
In short, we are going to have a truly spectacular weekend with no rain on the horizon anywhere in the near future. For boaters this will be great except for the possibility of fog in the mornings. I’ve added the Western Washington Surface Conditions Chart so that you can do your own predictions for fog. I can tell you from personal experience that there was plenty of fog in Admiralty Inlet and the eastern end of the Straits this morning. No reason to go anywhere so why not soak the crab pots? We were rewarded with four gorgeous Dungeness. I digress. The red number above the wind arrow is the current temp while the blue number below the arrow is the dew point, the temp at which fog will form. The closer they are, the more likely you are to get fog.
As you can see from the surface charts, our weather is being dominated by a relatively weak ridge of high pressure extending from Hawaii to directly over us. In addition, there is second weak high pressure system directly east of us that will be bringing up warm air from a thermal low over the Central Valley of California. This will result in record temperatures for our area over the next 4-5 days. Great if you’re a boater, not so good if you’re thinking about camping. The other feature that will be present is a consistent offshore flow which will cause down slope compressional heating of the air mass. This also means there will be little wind coming down the Straits from the Pacific to cool us off and no small craft advisories in the eastern Straits.
Then if you check the upper air charts (500MB) there is no jet stream activity to move any of those low pressure systems you see out in the mid-Pacific towards us. If you like hot and dry, you’re going to love the next couple of weeks. If you’re a fire-fighter, not so much.
Be safe, 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)