The NW winds RULE this afternoon!

by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com

See the barely spinning 200 mile in diameter eddy NW of the Bay Area. The last several days this eddy was just west of the Bay Area. Since the winds are circulating counter-clockwise around the eddy we had SW flow ocean wind which favors Sherman Island and the East Bay . But the eddy has lost the upper level lows that created it and it is now wandering off away from the Bay Area so the SW ocean flow is long gone in our area.

Now find the center of the North Pacific High in the SW corner of the video. Notice its clockwise spinning wind. This means the NPH has NW winds on the California coast. But in the AM today those winds are focused way south of the Bay Area. Why? Because, as you can see in the video the eddy is diverting the NW winds so they do not reach the California coast until south of the Bay Area. This afternoon the eddy breaks down and those NW winds really ramp up on the Bay Area coast.