Had a great time last night doing the Seattle Pre-Boat Show Connect Webinar with my friends Mark Bunzel from the Waggoner Cruising Guide and Peter Schrappen from the Northwest Marine Trade Association. We discussed what’s new at the National Weather Service and what will be changing this coming year with new forecasts and hopefully, improving accuracy. As a side note, as this will be a virtual Boat Show (very cool, I’ve seen a sample), if you purchase the Premium Ticket you will have access to all the Boat Show University Seminars and once again I’ll be doing an advanced two-hour seminar on the new high-resolution forecasting as well as Weather in the Pacific NW. Send me your questions in advance and I will work them into the Seminar.
December 11 500mb 
December 11 Surface Analysis 
December 12 Surface Forecast 
December 13 500mb 
December 13 Surface Forecast 
December 14 Surface Forecast 
December 15 500mb 
December 15 Surface Forecast
Also, thank you to those of you who commented on my long-range forecast for a wetter and cooler winter week in light of five consecutive days of sunshine and some record high temps. I’m sticking with that forecast and you can see why with today’s Operational Sea Surface Temp Anomaly Chart. If you compare today’s chart with the one from two weeks ago you will notice an increased intrusion by the colder water moving from West to East along the equator. Combined with the jet stream becoming more zonal and moving south, this will bring more storm activity into the Pacific Northwest. It is also interesting to note that we still have a “blob” of warmer water off of our coast, not good.
The surface analysis chart for today shows a weak low moving across the middle part of Vancouver Island with a weak high-pressure system between this low and another weak low moving in a southeasterly direction off of the northern Vancouver Island. Off of Northern California, there is a stronger low-pressure system (994mb) with attached frontal systems that will move into our area late Saturday and early Sunday.
As usual, the more interesting chart is the 48 hour surface forecast chart which shows seven low-pressure systems coming across the Pacific with four of them packing winds of 50-knots or more. The 980mb low just north of Hawaii will intensify to 969mb over the next couple of days and impact our weather (wind and rain) early next week.
For this weekend, it looks like there won’t be much wind for the Snowbird Race at Shilshole or the Hope Island Race on Saturday. However, the RVicYC Fall Long Distance Race on Sunday should have plenty of pre-frontal SE breeze (15-20 knots) as long as they don’t have to sail towards Race Rocks. The problem will be that by mid-afternoon an onshore post-frontal breeze will try to work its’ way down the Strait of JdF creating an area of very light air where the two breezes meet.
Stay 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)