Plenty of boating going on in the Salish Sea this weekend along with plenty of rain except for a break on Saturday where the temps will warm and the rain will ease. Speaking of rain, how about over an inch yesterday and we are now up to almost 2” of rain for the month compared to an average of .5” for this date. Even with this prodigious amount of rain this early in the month we probably won’t break the record for the wettest June ever which is almost 4.00” for the month. This is a good news/bad news situation because while it keeps our lakes and snow pack up it is also causing plenty of green growth to occur late in the season. If we have, as projected, above normal temps and below-normal precip, in July and August all this growth will die and dry out becoming fuel for fires. We shall see.
Today’s weather analysis chart, sat pic, and Doppler radar all show a series of weak weather systems which will move in tonight and into tomorrow morning. By mid-afternoon Saturday, a stronger onshore flow will develop bringing a westerly breeze down the Straits. The surface forecast chart for Saturday shows the next front approaching the coast and very little pressure gradient over the area.
Tonight at 1900hrs we’ll have the start of the Seventy48 Race in Tacoma where strictly human-powered craft will race to Port Townsend. Conditions will be pretty much perfect with a tailwind of 10-15 knots all the way to Pt No Point(PNP). After about midnight from PNP to Pt Townsend, the breeze will be light and variable until about mid-afternoon on Saturday when the onshore flow will bring a NW breeze to Admiralty Inlet. This will build to 12-15 for the rest of the day on Saturday.
Sunday afternoon and evening will see a stronger onshore flow come down the Strait of JdF bringing a westerly breeze of 20-30 knots to the area. By 0500 Monday, the start of the R2AK feeder and weeder race to Victoria, the breeze will be light in Pt. Townsend but will build to 20-25 as the fleet crosses the Strait towards Victoria.
This year could have been very interesting if the race had started last weekend or earlier this week as some boats almost certainly would have tried to go up the outside of Vancouver Island in breezy southerly conditions. That looks to be off the table now.
Have a great weekend and be safe out there.
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)