Gorge rips but location of North Pacific High helps a tiny eddy form west of the Bay Area by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com Usually I can discern any eddies west of the Golden Gate by their signature in the satellite imagery and looking at all the coast sensors. But today high clouds are obscuring that view and there are…
2 Videos: Surface low forms below Cut-Off Low and combo push the North Pacific High to the north. by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com I will add more text the blog later but you can see the big news in those two videos. By themselves these critters are not too exciting wind wise BUT once they depart………
How can the wind blow 20 to 30 knots WEST Sunday and 20-30 knots EAST Monday? by Mike Godsey To understand this crazy 180 degree switch in wind direction you have to look at the big picture. Take a look at the video of the Pacific yesterday that I annotated. Find the North Pacific High the winds that spiral out…
What does a cold front have to do with NW wind? Yesterday versus Today. by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com How many times have you seen a graphic like this one on the TV or the web? And you many times have you read in our forecasts that “cold front is approaching” etc? You must have wondered…
Video: Sweating bullets! by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com Glad I am not forecasting for the Bay Area today. As you can see Mark is forecasting strong NW winds later this afternoon. But…WTF… the ocean buoys are all seeing NE wind this morning at 8PM!!! Gospel says the ocean buoys show strong NW wind prior to strong…
Using the models. by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com There are 2 problems for using the computer model forecast tables you see all over the web for isolated areas like PSC. 1. None of the models for that area “see” the local thermal wind so you have to add a fudge factor to the models wind velocity….
Powerful NW winds March 30th give way to SW storm wind tomorrow. by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com In this video notice how the North Pacific High is being distorted into a dumb ball shape by the storm dropping towards California from the Gulf of Alaska . Today that storm is pressing the North Pacific High’s surface NW winds towards the California…
Why Southern California strong WNW winds and Bay Area unreliable SW winds. by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com Ever wondered exactly what North Pacific High looks like? Well today in this video of model output the North Pacific High is hard to miss. It is that massive dome of high pressure air between Hawaii and Baja. Note how the wind…
Wind folklore says strong NW clearing winds follow a storm: Not this time! by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com At 9AM today, March 25, the edge of the storm system you see in this vide0 is passing over Bodega Bay in the San Francisco North Bay. In this video animation from 8AM today you can see the counter-clockwise…
Video: Why are the NW winds fading each passing day? by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com The last few days I have been mentioning in the forecast the storm arriving this Sunday. As this massive puppy moves westward into the Pacific Northwest and Northern California it has been pushing the North Pacific High against the California coast…