It is starting to look a little more like summer, until tomorrow night, when we’ll be visited by yet another weak frontal system. Today’s surface analysis chart shows the same problem we have had all summer. The Pacific High (1029mb) has yet to fully develop so it is easily pushed around by low-pressure systems with attached fronts coming across Northern Pacific. As long as it remains weak, as in less than 1035mb and remains elongated and not round, it will still be easily pushed around.
July 10 500 mb 
July 10 Surface Forecast 
July 11 Surface Forecast 
July 12 500 mb 
July 12 Surface Forecast 
July 13 Surface Forecast 
July 14 500mb 
July 14 Surface Forecast
The races to Hawaii would have been mild, a little slow but made more interesting by Tropical Storm Cristina which formed this week and will probably become a full-fledged hurricane by tonight before it runs into cooler water and some upper-level shear which make it a post-tropical depression fairly quickly. It would have made life interesting as it is on a track to at least brush the Hawaiian Islands.
Since we have high-pressure offshore and low-pressure inland we will continue to have an onshore flow which, in the afternoons and early evenings, will bring stronger westerlies to the Central and Eastern Strait of JdF as well as the Northern part of Admiralty Inlet. As the front comes ashore tomorrow afternoon, it will bring southerlies (12-15 knots) to Central and South Sound however those will ease with frontal passage bringing light air for the rest of the weekend. Late Sunday afternoon the onshore flow could bring 10-12 knots of northerly to Central Sound.
It should still be a great weekend to get out on the water.
Be safe, stay healthy, and enjoy the 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)