Upper level shortwave upper trough brings weak winds to the Bay Area, Gorge and Southern California: What in the world does this geek speak mean? by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com Don’t you hate it when the forecast contains geek speak like “An upper level shortwave upper trough will increase the clouds and bring a chance of rain” Of course you don’t have to…
What happens to the North Pacific High when a storm targets the Bay Area: by Mike Godsey Today, Saturday June 22, we have a very unusual winter type storm system moving in from the NW. The storm system, which arrives Monday, consists of an upper trough at about 18,000 ft. and below it 2 surface lows each with counter-clockwise spinning winds….
Cut-Off Low Dies: After almost a week of SW flow just aloft the winds turn NW by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com For many days the Bay Area has seen a combo of NW ocean surface winds and SW winds just aloft. NW surface winds typically curve and become more westerly as they come through the gaps in the Bay Area coast…
Where do Cut-Off Low go when they die? by Mike Godsey Every summer several Cut-Off Lows approach the west coast shaking up our forecasting of the California wind patterns. Then after a few days or even a week we suddenly stop mentioning the Cut-Off Low. The current Cut-Off Low was perfectly located to help funnel a combo of SW winds just…
For almost a week the Cut-Off Low you see in the imagery below has been spinning west to the Oregon/Washington border. This low has gridlocked the normal East to West movement of weather over west coast. But for the Bay Area is is perfectly located. The low itself is send SW flow aloft and marine layer clouds into…
Cut-Off Low usually have a bad rap but…… by Mike Godsey Cut-Off Lows form when a counter-clockwise spinning low pressure pinches off from passing upper troughs at around 18K feet. The winds at about 18K feet on the average are important in moving weather from west to east around the world. Once you have a Cut-Off Low to…
First the war stories then my analysis. by Mike Godsey Dmitry: “Madness increased beyond any measure as SFO shifted to 250degr and shot up to 39mph, but it became very bad on the water even 1hr before that. Peter A: “It was EXTREMELY gusty at 3rd. I was at the upper launch went out whitecaps…
We had a perfect Berkeley “T” yesterday day as the marine surge arrived here is the story in imagery. Here is the Berkeley T forming in the late afternoon as seen from the Berkeley hills.
Just a quick blog to show you photos from near dawn today. This is what the marine layer clouds looked like from Bay Area hilltops. I have also inserted an image from the Bodega 915 mhz profiler I use to determine the depth of the marine layer. Notice the cool marine layer air near the surface and the…
For a basic understanding of how marine surges in the Bay Area develop you should read the blog below entitled : Anatomy of a marine surge”. The marine surge that swept into the San Francisco Bay Area June 3, 4 and 5 was exceptionally strong. As you can see in the video below Sherman Island in the Delta held winds averaging…