Weather

Yesterday was lovely, this morning was beautiful, right now (Ed. note: noon), not so much. Don’t worry, this is a fast-moving front and pressure is already rising and as you can see from the current Sat Pic, it’s already clearing in the Straits. No surprise, when the front went past Race Rocks the post-frontal westerly filled in at 40-knots at the Race.

This morning’s surface analysis shows the front as well as a moderate (1034 MB) high-pressure system offshore. The surface forecast chart for tomorrow gets even more interesting as this high builds to 1041 MB which is a higher pressure than we had all summer. This is both good news and bad as this high will act as a pretty good block for the next batch of fronts headed our way. The 48-hour surface forecast chart for 27 Oct shows a very impressive low-pressure system (978 MB) in the mid-Pacific with an attached cold-front that extends from the Bering Sea south to Hawaii. This chart also shows that while this high is weakening over the Pacific it is still strong enough to drive this low and attached frontal system north and into Alaska. This will keep our weather very nice well into next week. This will be reinforced by the jet stream which will take a big bend around the high and then bend back to south and into the Pacific Northwest bringing cooler air with it, see the 27 Oct 500MB chart.

So what’s the bad news? This high is setting up right over that blob of warm water off of our coast and this high will slow the rate at which the blob is cooling. We have definitely made some progress compared to the Oct 3^rd SST Analysis, so we’ll see how this goes.

What does this mean for the weekend? We are done with the rain however the wind will continue to blow from the NNE for now in the central Sound and it will continue at 20-25 knots and slowly back to the NNW. The breeze will back off over the evening and by tomorrow morning it will be around 10-15 from the N. The breeze will slowly build into the 15-20 knot range by midday and into the afternoon while backing to the NNW. By mid-afternoon it could be up into the 20-25 knot range.

Sunday will follow the traditional pattern of easing northerlies following the first day that ridge rebuilds after frontal passage. There will still be northerlies but more in the 8-12 knot range in the morning with another slow build into the 10-18 knot range in the afternoon. The center Sound will have the most wind of all the Salish Sea area on Sunday. The rest of the Sea will be sunny and lighter breeze.

Enjoy the weekend.  

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)

Plenty of sailing going on around the Salish Sea this weekend and for the most part, there will be wind but it’s really a tale of two or more cities. The Harken / Pro-Tech Pumpkin Regatta at the West Vancouver Yacht Club will have over 230 young participants from all over the Pacific Northwest and over 100 volunteers to make this huge event happen and it should be a great one with the weather providing some great sailing. STYC will have its’ Fall Regatta with almost 50 boats signed up, unfortunately, the weather won’t be quite so cooperative.

This week we knew we’d have the first of a series of frontal systems come onshore and while we had 40+ knots from the SE at Smith Island, the rest of the area benefitted from having the coastal buffer zone weaken these fronts as they came onshore. The graph for West Point shows frontal passage occurred around 1700 hours yesterday which coincided with a peak gust at West Point of around 35 knots.  The baro is starting slowly back up and that will keep the post-frontal S-SW breezes over our area for the rest of the day. The central and eastern Strait of JdF and the San Juans could have Small Craft Advisories Saturday and Sunday for winds of 25-30 knots.

The Sea/Tac Radar and the color Sat Pic for today show a very clear correlation between cloud cover and active precipitation headed towards both Seattle and Vancouver. Precip will continue over the area for the entire weekend which is fine as we are still about 2 inches behind for the year in rainfall totals.

Today’s Surface Analysis Chart shows the remnants of yesterday’s front on the east side of the Cascades, as well as a weakened front moving towards the area with a number of notations of gales or developing gales in the North Pacific. As that 992MB low-pressure system continues to weaken and move to the east this will allow onshore flow to build over the offshore waters, fill down both the Strait of Georgia and the Strait of JdF, and around the bottom side of the Olympic Mountains. This will bring West to NW wind to the Strait of Georgia for Saturday giving the Pumpkin Bowlers 10-12 knots to start with and then building to 12-18 in the afternoon.

This is the bad news for the STYC Fall regatta as the flow down the Strait of JdF and the flow coming around the bottom of the Olympics have to meet somewhere and that somewhere will be right over central Puget Sound, hence light conditions for the area off of Shilshole. 

The Surface Forecast Chart for Sunday shows another frontal system approaching the Pacific Northwest.  This will bring a pre-frontal E-SE breeze to English Bay and the Pumpkin Bowlers. There is disagreement in the models about when the transition from W-NW to E-SE will occur however right now it looks like by 0800 Sunday there should be 8-12 knots for the SE which may build slightly to near 15 by late morning. As it gets closer to mid-afternoon the breeze will begin to ease and back to the East before becoming light and variable by late afternoon and into the early evening.

All in all, besides being damp, it’s like a great weekend for sailing just always check the conditions before you head out.     

Ed. Note: It’s also the first day of the Seattle Laser Fleet Frostbite series for Lasers and Aeros. Sign up at seattlelaserfleet.org. Show up for a noon start off Shilshole.

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)

This will be the first major windstorm for this winter and it looks like we could have 25-40 knots over the central Sound. So if you haven’t re-tied those mooring lines and added an extra fender or two, now would be a good time to do so!

You can see from the Surface Analysis from this morning and the Surface Forecast Chart for tomorrow that there will be a significant tightening of the pressure gradient as this front comes onshore. While we have gale warnings for the coast, the coastal buffer zone will weaken the front and leave us with a Small Craft Advisory for the inland waters.

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)

I know, it’s not officially fall yet however it has become decidedly cooler in the evening hours. There is plenty of sailing action this weekend and except for the central and eastern Strait of JdF tonight and tomorrow night, it will once again be a fairly light air weekend.

The surface charts, upper air charts, and Satellite pictures give us a fairly clear overview of what will happen this weekend. We still have that low sitting on the other side of the mountains with a weak ridge of high pressure just offshore. This combination will continue to drive a weak onshore flow down the Straits. Offshore on the surface charts you’ll see a large but very weak low-pressure system (1008mb) with an attached cold front. This system also shows up very nicely on the satellite picture. This will move over the area late Saturday night and into Sunday morning. It won’t bring much if any moisture with it unless you’re hiking in the Cascades.

The Saturday surface forecast chart shows very clearly the reason we’ll be having light air as there is almost no pressure gradient from the Rockies to well offshore in the Pacific and as that frontal system hits the coastal buffer zone it will weaken and just go away.

The Sunday surface forecast chart is much more interesting in that from 20N to 60N and east of 140W we have SEVEN (7) low-pressure systems including the rapidly weakening Hurricane Juliette. Unfortunately, even with all these systems there is still no pressure gradient over the Salish Sea.

There was also a lot of discussion about the new “Blob” that has been forming off of the West Coast which, if it continues on its current trajectory, will have a serious impact on our area which is still recovering from the last “Blob” which was forming in September of 2014. The current “Blob” is much larger and much further along in its development. The reason why is what we have been complaining about all summer; no “normal” Pacific High and with no high, lows have been able to push across keeping the air mass offshore stagnant allowing for more heating of the ocean. The other feature contributing to this is the lack of a jet stream to move systems across and stir up the atmosphere. Today’s 500mb chart at least shows the jet stream trying to make its way south however the 8 September 500mb forecast chart shows yet another cut-off low-pressure system forming just off our coast which will slow the advance of the jet stream as it tries to get south. Definitely, something to watch.

Speaking of interesting things to watch, keep an eye on the Atlantic Basin this coming week as there is the potential for three more hurricanes to form with one of them setting up to be another major storm impacting the Caribbean and the East Coast.

Have a great weekend.

Ed. Note: Bruce is taking some time off to travel Italy and the French wine regions for the month of September. This coincides (purely accidentally) with the grape harvesting season. Rumor has it he’ll be chartering a powerboat. Yes, good Salish readers, we’ve got nothing really against powerboats. If anyone with skills wants to try a weekend weather forecast while he’s gone, please get in touch.

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)

It is not going to be one of the greatest of all time Labor Days but it’s not going to be a washout either and we are certainly not staring Hurricane Dorian in the face like south Florida. What we do have is yet another unusual weather pattern with a weak ridge of high-pressure over the Salish Sea that is sandwiched between a couple of weak low-pressure systems. This will bring a weak onshore flow down the Strait of JdF until another weak frontal system impacts the coastal buffer system and deteriorates. The current surface winds have already shifted to the pre-frontal southeasterly phase along the coast and in the Strait of Georgia. After this system passes another weak high-pressure system will build offshore bringing another weak onshore flow to the area and some warm, summer-like temperatures to the area starting early next week and lasting until next weekend.

Generally speaking, the pressure gradient is going to be very weak and that will result in light air over the area. The other interesting feature is in the 500MB charts which show a persistent cut-off upper level low pressure system which will just hang around giving us cloudy and cool conditions but not a lot of moisture.

Regardless, crabbing is still excellent in the San Juan’s and in the Straits, just be sure to check the regulations to make sure it’s still open in your area.

Enjoy the weekend!    

Kurt Hoehne

Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.

Just when we thought summer had arrived…..oh well, it is after all the Pacific Northwest. I’m not complaining, as I’ve said before, the longer we can keep things cooler with just a bit of moisture, the longer we can keep the wildfires at least somewhat at bay.

Click on any image to enlarge.

This weekend’s weather picture shows that the Pacific High is still pretty much a no-show for this summer with more low-pressure systems lurking off the coast and upper charts continuing to show a persistent upper level low off our coast. Then there is also a large upper level cut-off low off of eastern Siberia that will continue to drive smoke from their wildfires into the upper atmosphere and brilliantly color our sunsets. This pattern will provide a weak onshore flow over the weekend with the possibility of light rain places, widely scattered places. There will also be a bit of a stronger southerly flow over the San Juan’s on Sunday morning so coming south might get a little lumpy. For tonight and tomorrow expect small craft advisories in the central and eastern Strait of Jdf with lighter wind everywhere else.

The Moore 24’s started racing today in a light NNE which always provides challenging conditions off of Shilshole. Tomorrow will bring lighter NNE in the morning with a nice N to NW breeze filling down the Sound in the early afternoon. To be safe, sail your best races on Saturday as wind may be tough to come by on Sunday.

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)