Ask anyone who wings, kites or windsurfs the west coast from The Gorge to Los Barriles to Hawaii and they will heard of the North Pacific High. This dome of high pressure spans much of the Pacific and changes shape, location and size daily and seasonally. This brings trade winds Hawaii, NW clearing winds to…
This photo from 2019 shows the dawn clouds from the sub tropical jet stream. They make for a beautiful sunrise and this big swell rolling onto the Rasta Beach north of El Sargento sure look promising. But all those clouds mean it was difficult to get coastal valley heating we needed to get that big…
Long ago the powerful winter northerly winds that started in the middle of the night and then blew for several days were called the “El Norte” winds. This photo taken at the sand bar break called “The General’s) just north of the La Ventana campground shows a classic El Norte day. In recent years those…
As we go into the 3rd La Nina winter our hope is that this is a repeat of last year’s epic winds from the North Pacific High. Typically La Nina means poorer winds compared to a Neutral Year. But last year the North Pacific High hung closer to Baja’s west coast than normal from whence…
Here is the link to the daily forecast Take a look at that computer gear at my workstation in the La Ventana area. Ancient gear, huh? You can tell I have been doing Baja forecasting for a while. Since those times my computer gear is much faster and my forecasts far better. Below are some…
Here is the link to the daily forecast This graphic tells you how to use the various Weatherflow sensors installed in the La Ventana area. The Weatherflow sensor at Baja Joes goes back decades and is still very useful. Several years ago we installed a new sensor at Ventana Windsports. We did this because the…
We are used to big NW clearing winds in the spring. But such events are rare in late October. Rarer yet is a counter-clockwise spinning eddy and southerly coast winds evolving into a powerful NW wind event. These images show how this event evolved. See satellite imagery of this event in this blog.
For me, the first hint of the coming west coast weirdness was while forecasting in Baja this past winter season. For several decades the winds on Baja’s East Cape have become less reliable, and gustier and the massive all-day/all-night El Norte winds were rarer. But this winter we had a great season but the source…
West Coast Wind Blog: by Mike Godsey: Baja daily human forecast Questions about the forecast: Mail me mgodseywf@gmail.com This satellite image from 7 AM this morning clearly shows the clouds being carried by the upper ridge that is drifting into Canada. Yesterday this ridge was over the northern USA where it has been…
West Coast Wind Blog: by Mike Godsey: Baja daily human forecast Questions about the forecast: Mail me mgodseywf@gmail.com The peak of the Baja season is ending with fewer people coming down in March. Meanwhile, I am getting busy doing the Southern California & Central California coast forecasts and soon the San Francisco Bay…