Our very convoluted weather pattern is still in place over the North Pacific and the Pacific NW. True we’ve had plenty of days in the 90s but compared to the rest of the country, we are very lucky. Plus the snowpack is holding up, barely, and the fire danger is just now starting to creep up so time to be extra cautious in the outdoors even when you’re on the boat. We do not need a California fire situation here.
As you can see from the surface charts, we still have high pressure offshore and low-pressure inland. Thus the pattern we have seen this week is going to continue into early next week before temps drop back into the normal summer range. We’ve had a very consistent pattern of light air in the morning then as the temps rise inland, cooler air is drawn down the Strait of JdF, Admiralty Inlet, and then down the Sound bringing our temps to the 60s overnight. The Strait has the potential for Small Craft Advisories in the late afternoon and evening.
The main difference this weekend will be areas of dense fog forming overnight. You can always check the UW Western Washington surface conditions chart(https://a.atmos.washington.edu/cgi-bin/latest.cgi?sfcplots-wwa), For each station on the left side, there is a red number over a blue number. The red number is the current temp and the blue number is the dew point. When those two numbers are the same, you will get fog.
The interesting charts for today are the 72hr, 1 Aug chart which shows the weak cold front which will bring our temps for next week back to “normal”. The other interesting feature on that chart is our elusive Pacific High finally starting to strengthen (1036mb) and become more round in shape. The bad news about that is the trip home for the Pacific Cup and Vic-Maui boats will be a long slog close reaching and beating.
The other chart is the 96hr, 2 Aug chart which shows not one but two hurricanes that have formed in the eastern Pacific, Frank and Georgette. They won’t last but the Pacific north of 20N is continuing to warm and we aren’t even to the active part of hurricane season yet.
Have a great 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)