Southerly ocean winds prevail on the California coast from Eureka to Big Sur due to an elongated counter-clockwise spinning eddy in that area. Above this surface eddy a low pressure area up to 7000 feet also has counter-clockwise spinning winds which nurture the eddy keeping southerly winds on the coast all day. This same low…
Several years ago I was at 3rd. Ave. on San Francisco’s Peninsula rigging when I heard a conversation that went something like this: “We just are not getting the usual NW winds this summer. The North Pacific High has disappeared” That season the San Francisco Bay Area had a summer cursed by frequent eddies off…
If you live on the California or Oregon coast it seems like a regular day with dense fog at dawn. But above that fog and in the eyes of inlanders it is an atypical day with high thin clouds from the Sea of Cortez overhead from San Diego to the Columbia River Gorge. So take…
H Naga…62 asked: “I read Mike’s latest article on how the eddy is formed off GG with interest. What I did not quite get is the southerly coastal wind. Are the causes 1) the coastline sloping SE-NW and 2) coastal ridges?” Hi H Naga… 62! The short answer to your question is that both 1…
Update 5 PM: Satellite video of eddy from 8 AM to 5 PM today From 8 AM this morning: These satellite images from early this morning show the large eddy just off the San Francisco Bay Area. For days now I have been forecasting this event since the pattern was clearly developing. In the dim…
See Info-image at bottom if you are in a rush It was a sad day for a farmer near Stone Hedge near The Wall launch site in the eastern Columbia River Gorge. But the smoke from the fire created a natural experiment that helped confirm the changes in the Gorge wind flow that have impacted…
Southern California Monsoonal thunderstorms today create circular Gravity Wave that ripples through marine layer clouds.
The graphic below shows the evolution of a tiny eddy from the largest scale down to the area near the Golden Gate. The long graphic below show the evolution of a tiny eddy from the largest scale down to the area near the Golden Gate. The animation at the bottom shows the eddy dying about…