Bruce’s Briefs: Wx for 16, 17, 18, and 19 July. TRANSPAC!

Good luck to all the boats from the PacNW who competing in the 2021 TransPac. It’s going to be very interesting and very much fun to follow. The first group started on Tuesday and they had some slow sailing for the first day and a half. This group includes Andy Schwenk and his crew on the Express 37 Spindrift V. Today is the second start and that includes the J-121 Riva out of Portland YC skippered by Scott Campbell. Tomorrow the big guns get rolling and that group includes the TP-52 Sonic skippered by Marek Omilian and the RP-55 Zvi (ex-Crossfire) skippered by Alan Lubner. They all should have a great sail.

This could just about be a cut and paste forecast this weekend as not much has changed. We are very lucky to be in the PacNW with relatively mild temps however don’t let this fool you, it is still going to be a brutal summer. The snowpack is seriously depleted and there is no rain in the forecast for the foreseeable future. Our West Coast neighbors in Oregon and California are already experiencing extreme drought conditions and it is only going to get worse. This will mean more wildfires and it’s also entirely possible that we’ll have even more days of excessive heating,

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Our Pacific High has still not set up in what we would call a normal position nor is it at a normal shape or strength. This is going to keep our weather very much the same for the foreseeable future and make for a very interesting TransPac. Currently, the Pacific High is flattened along a line at about 40°N from about 140°W-170°W and is only at 1032MB where it would normally be round in shape, centered near 45°N and 145°W and be 1035 to 1040MB. The other feature of note today is the 500MB charts which show only a small piece of the jet stream because it is so far north. There is a small meander that shows up at the 48-hour forecast however that becomes an upper-level, cut-off low-pressure system in the Gulf of Alaska. The good news is that this will help keep the smoke from the Canadian fires headed to the east. The current haze we are seeing is upper-level smoke from wildfires in Siberia. Today’s Sat Pic shows the smoke from fires in California, Southern Oregon, and SW Washington all being pushed to the east.

The surface forecast charts for the 17^th show the Pacific High starting to become round but also weakening, shifting to the west and the south. This is caused by a weak low-pressure system (1017MB) moving to the east at about 45°N. The other feature of note is off the chart to the south and that is the formation of a Cat 2 Hurricane Felicia which now has sustained winds of 100-knots and gusts to 120-knots. There is also potential for a second hurricane to form just in back of Felicia. The good news is that Felicia will stay on a due westerly course at about 15°N and will run into cooler water and weaken. The next storm could be larger and move on a more northerly path which could take it to Hawaii but probably only as a tropical storm.

It’s going to be another beautiful weekend to be on the water especially if you have a powerboat. With high pressure offshore and low pressure inland this will maintain an onshore flow at least well into next week. As usual, the most wind will be in the afternoons in the Central and Eastern Straits. A thermal northerly will fill down the Sound in the afternoons however the rest of the time it will be light. The timing for the northerly filling down will be dependent upon how soon the clouds burn off and the land can start heating.

Be safe, use tons of sunblock, and enjoy the weekend.