The death of the SW flow.

by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com

The large video shows the pattern that has created the small surface counter-clockwise spinning eddy west of the Bay Area. As you know the North Pacific High normally brings strong NW winds to the Bay Area coast in the spring and early summer  and then modest NW wind  in the summer that ramps up a bit in the late summer. This modest summer NW flow is critical for funneling wind to inside Crissy and to the Stick, Coyote & 3rd.

This summer for complex reasons the North Pacific High has brought N to NNE winds to the California coast. And  given the slant of the Northern California coast that means that those winds are west of the ocean buoys in our area as you can see in the larger video. As these winds come over the coast range north of the Bay Area they cause compressional heating so low pressure develops in the interior of Marin and Sonoma.

This causes some of the N to NNE winds to curve into towards the Bay Area creating an counter-clockwise spinning eddy and SW flow for much of the Bay.

The small video shows the death of eddy which I expect to happen mid day Sunday September 7, 2014

More detail soon.