Plenty of sailing going on around the Salish Sea this weekend and for the most part, there will be wind but it’s really a tale of two or more cities. The Harken / Pro-Tech Pumpkin Regatta at the West Vancouver Yacht Club will have over 230 young participants from all over the Pacific Northwest and over 100 volunteers to make this huge event happen and it should be a great one with the weather providing some great sailing. STYC will have its’ Fall Regatta with almost 50 boats signed up, unfortunately, the weather won’t be quite so cooperative.
This week we knew we’d have the first of a series of frontal systems come onshore and while we had 40+ knots from the SE at Smith Island, the rest of the area benefitted from having the coastal buffer zone weaken these fronts as they came onshore. The graph for West Point shows frontal passage occurred around 1700 hours yesterday which coincided with a peak gust at West Point of around 35 knots. The baro is starting slowly back up and that will keep the post-frontal S-SW breezes over our area for the rest of the day. The central and eastern Strait of JdF and the San Juans could have Small Craft Advisories Saturday and Sunday for winds of 25-30 knots.
The Sea/Tac Radar and the color Sat Pic for today show a very clear correlation between cloud cover and active precipitation headed towards both Seattle and Vancouver. Precip will continue over the area for the entire weekend which is fine as we are still about 2 inches behind for the year in rainfall totals.
October 18 500MB 
October 18 Surface Analysis 
October 19 Surface Forecast 
October 20 500MB 
October 20 Surface Forecast 
October 22 Surface Forecast
Today’s Surface Analysis Chart shows the remnants of yesterday’s front on the east side of the Cascades, as well as a weakened front moving towards the area with a number of notations of gales or developing gales in the North Pacific. As that 992MB low-pressure system continues to weaken and move to the east this will allow onshore flow to build over the offshore waters, fill down both the Strait of Georgia and the Strait of JdF, and around the bottom side of the Olympic Mountains. This will bring West to NW wind to the Strait of Georgia for Saturday giving the Pumpkin Bowlers 10-12 knots to start with and then building to 12-18 in the afternoon.
This is the bad news for the STYC Fall regatta as the flow down the Strait of JdF and the flow coming around the bottom of the Olympics have to meet somewhere and that somewhere will be right over central Puget Sound, hence light conditions for the area off of Shilshole.
The Surface Forecast Chart for Sunday shows another frontal system approaching the Pacific Northwest. This will bring a pre-frontal E-SE breeze to English Bay and the Pumpkin Bowlers. There is disagreement in the models about when the transition from W-NW to E-SE will occur however right now it looks like by 0800 Sunday there should be 8-12 knots for the SE which may build slightly to near 15 by late morning. As it gets closer to mid-afternoon the breeze will begin to ease and back to the East before becoming light and variable by late afternoon and into the early evening.
All in all, besides being damp, it’s like a great weekend for sailing just always check the conditions before you head out.
Ed. Note: It’s also the first day of the Seattle Laser Fleet Frostbite series for Lasers and Aeros. Sign up at seattlelaserfleet.org. Show up for a noon start off Shilshole.
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)
Thanks for including Pumpkin Bowl in the forecast!
Thank YOU. Those young sailors are going to have a blast, thanks to all you parents making it happen. -Bruce & Kurt