Weak winds for Southern California and the Bay Area with eddy woes!

by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com

Below is the Bay Area forecast for this weekend. Not very promising for most of the Bay Area and Southern California also has little promise for most sites. The following graphic tells the story. Watch the time line and the shape of the North Pacific High and how the ocean winds turn a less favorable NNW and eddies form.

Satuday: The North Pacific High tilts away from the Northern California coast and holds a large ridge into far Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. This ratchets up the temperature in the Bay Area into the 90’s brings light unfavorable NE winds and warming over us while holding the Central Valley thermal low over the Bay delaying and weakening the winds. The North Pacific High’s winds turn an unfavorable NNW so the coast winds fade. It looks like a tiny Golden Gate Eddy may spin up so the upper teens winds should focus on the Crissy to Treasure Island corridor with some of that winds reaching to the Olympic Circle but probably not Berkeley and Pt. Isabel. Coyote and 3rd. Ave. have upper teens potential in the Channel but the fate of the winds inside depend upon the Golden Gate Eddy. At this time it looks like the eddy may die around 4PM so there is a chance of WNW mid teen winds inside.

Sunday: Upper teens winds should focus on the Crissy to Treasure Island corridor with some of that winds reaching to the Olympic Circle but probably too outside for Berkeley and Pt. Isabel. Coyote and 3rd. Ave. have upper teens potential in the Channel but the fate of the winds inside depend upon that still unpredictable Golden Gate Eddy. At this time the winds inside look like WEST and weak.

Monday: The existing North Pacific High off our coast shrinks and recenters west of Washington state. So the NW wind totally fades away on our coast. A huge 200 mile counter-clockwise spinning eddy forms west of the Bay Area due to mesoscale low pressure at about 5000 feet elevation. WSW winds in the mid to weak upper teens focused at Crissy and Treasure Island and way outside. Meanwhile a huge new North Pacific High about 1500 miles wide forms north of Hawaii and begins to slowly march towards the California coast.