As you can probably tell, not much has changed over the past week. We are going to see high temps near 90°F with lows near 60°F. Once again, winds to be light until your afternoon thermal northerly fills down the Sound. The good news is that maybe on Thursday and into next weekend we may get a dash of precip. The bad news is that whatever precip there is won’t make it over the Cascades, and folks on the other side of the mountains have already had enough of this. The continuing 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, you can just see the low-pressure system offshore with its attached frontal system and our coastal buffer zone is still very much in play so this system will weaken as it gets closer. If the chance of precip gets above 30% I’ll be surprised.
July 30 500 MB 
July 30 Surface Analysis 
July 31 Surface Forecast 
August 1 500 MB 
August 1 Surface Forecast 
August 2 Surface Forecast 
August 3 500 MB 
August 3 Surface Forecast
On the weather charts for today, the features of note include our Pacific High which has weakened from 1035MB last to 1025Mb today and now has a north-south orientation from 54N to 38N along a line at 153W. Between this weak high is this approaching weak low (1012MB)at 48N 142W with its cold front which, as I said, will weaken as it slowly comes onshore.
The PacNW teams getting ready to sail back from Hawaii could be in for a relatively quick crossing as the Pacific High is showing a tendency to strengthen and round up at 40N and 145W. This will mean lighter trades leaving the Islands and some very nice running conditions aiming them right towards home once they get to about 30N.
The other feature of note is in the current 500MB chart which shows the upper-level, cut-off low-pressure system off of Vancouver Island at about 48N and 143W. If this were to drift to the south and to the east this could bring smoke into the Pacific NW. Current models show this drifting back to the north. This just means that we will want to watch how this drifts. The other feature of interest is on the 96hr 500MB chart as the jet stream is in a huge oscillation coming down from the north at about 180W. This could form yet another upper-level, cut-off low-pressure system. Very unusual.
Enjoy the weekend, stay safe and use lots of sunblock.
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)