There is plenty of sailing going on the weekend with CYC Turkey Bowl, the Squaxin Island Race, Snowbird #1 and the GHYC LeMans Race. Unfortunately, the south Sound Races will be light while center Sound Races will enjoy near-perfect conditions all-day Saturday. Saturday night a stronger system will bring very breezy conditions to the north Sound, Admiralty Inlet, the east end of the Straits of JdF, and the San Juan Islands. This system will weaken as it passes through on Sunday. By Sunday morning the Turkey Bowlers will have a nice 15-25 knots of post-frontal southwesterly breeze. Unfortunately, as this system leaves the area, the breeze will ease substantially by mid-afternoon Sunday.
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For the center Sound folks on Saturday, this will mean a southerly breeze of 10-12 knots with the usual shift to the SE as you get closer to the Seattle side of the Sound. As you get more to the middle of the Sound the breeze will tend to stay out of the south with puffs to the SW. As the day goes on and the barometer starts to drop this will mean that the breeze is going to shift back to the SE probably by early afternoon and build to 12-15 knots. As the afternoon goes on the breeze will increase slightly to a steady 15 with puffs into the low 20’s.
Sunday will start with 15-20 knots of SW with the possibility of higher gusts. By early afternoon the breeze will begin to ease and stay out of the SW. As the puffs begin to swing more around to the W, the breeze will begin to drop and by mid to late afternoon, it will become very light and shifty.
Overall, the weather pattern is shifting and while we may be almost 4” behind in rainfall for this month, the gap should narrow with a steady diet of frontal systems being directed by the jet stream into the Pacific NW. The forecast for the 19th shows an impressive set of low-pressure systems in the northern part of the mid-Pacific with two strong cold fronts that extend almost as far south as Hawaii. They will weaken as they approach the coast however there are more systems after this one and they will bring more rain and maybe some snow for the mountains.
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)