As I said last week, don’t tell your friends who live outside of the Pacific NW about the summer we are having out here. It’s great, so far, and we are still very lucky. The biggest problem will be how many more days without rain we’ll have and just how dry our forests and grasslands will become.
Our weather pattern just isn’t changing. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some interesting features popping up in the sat pic and 500MB Charts.
Let’s start with today’s sat pic. Absolutely crystal clear over the Pacific NW with a marine layer along the coast. Then directly west of our coast, you can see the next cold front which will brush over us late Monday and early Tuesday. Well off of the coast of Cabo San Lucas, you can see Tropical Depression Four-E which will bother no one, it’s just interesting to have this much activity this early in hurricane season.
In the 500MB charts, we have a very interesting situation with today’s chart showing an upper-level cut-off low-pressure system directly west of central Vancouver Island with the main jet stream well north in Alaska. The 25 July 500MB chart is even more interesting as this upper-level low splits and still hasn’t moved very far. This is the primary reason our weather is so moderate.
Today’s surface chart shows a weak complex of high-pressure systems extending from our area off to the SW and then to the major (1037MB) high-pressure system well to the west of where it should be. Then inland from the coast, we have a series of thermal low-pressure troughs running from Mexico north to BC. This will keep the heat dome over the southern USA, with the possibility of more heavy rain and flash flooding in the NE USA, a big bummer.
For boaters in the Salish Sea, we will have another spectacular weekend with light air over the Sound in the morning. Once again as the day wears on, a strong westerly will fill down the Strait of JdF in the afternoon and eventually it will fill down Admiralty Inlet and the Central Sound. In the Straits, we could have small craft advisories with the possibility of gale warnings.
Enjoy this weather, use sunblock, be careful, and remember that the water is still very cool, not exactly swimmable without a wet suit.
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)