Bruce’s Briefs: Wx for 23, 24, 25, 26 July. Pyewacket First to Finish TransPac.

As you can probably tell, not much has changed over the past week. If you like the high temp to be around 80°F and the low to be around 55°-60° F, winds to be light until your afternoon thermal northerly fills down the Sound, and no rain in sight, that’s what is coming for the next week. The bad news is the no rain part as this will increase the fire danger and folks on the other side of the mountains have already had enough of this. The good news for the Salish Sea is that with the ongoing scenario of high pressure offshore and lower pressure inland, this will continue to send the smoke from all the fires streaming off to the east. Take a look at the Sat Pic for today, it is very easy to see where with the fires are and those are not getting smaller very quickly.

Our NW contingent in TransPac are doing fairly well. Andy Schwenk on the Express 37 Spindrift V will probably end up 2^nd in Div 8. The team from Portland on the J-121 Riva should take 2^nd in Division 7. Sonic in the TP 52 Class is currently in 6^th place but may move up one place as they get closer to Hawaii, They are in a really tough class with a bunch of newer boats that are being very well sailed. Zvi has the misfortune of being the small boat in class in a waterline race to Hawaii. When the breeze went light they moved up 2^nd but as the breeze has built, they have dropped back to 4^th. It has been a remarkably fast race with wind all along the rhumbline allowing the boats to sail the short course. I’m sure there will be plenty of gear failure stories when this one is over.

On the weather charts for today the features of note include our Pacific High which is still weak (1034MB)and still flattened along a line from 35N to 40N extending from 135W to 175W. This is allowing the weak (1010Mb to 1012MB) low-pressure systems to come over the top of the high and continue to keep it flattened. It will also tend to keep the Pacific High centered well to the west of where it normally would live. This will provide challenges for the teams sailing back from Hawaii.

The other feature of note is in the 96HR 500MB Chart as an upper level cut-off low pressure system will develop off of SE Alasaka at about 55N and 145W. If this were to drift to the south and to the east this could bring smoke into the Pacific NW. This just means that we will want to watch how this drifts.

Enjoy the weekend, stay safe and use lots of sunblock.  

Bruce Hedrick

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)