Imagery of hurricane by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com Hurricane Odile made landfall Sunday night as a Category 3 storm near Baja Sur’s Cabo San Lucas with an estimated intensity of 125 mph. Initial reports of extensive damage to some resorts but no loss of life. No reports yet from La Ventana and Los Barriles on Baja’s…
We don’t talk much about hurricanes here in So Cal, until this year that is. Usually we leave all the talk about tropical storms to our forecasters on the eastern seaboard. But this year the Eastern Pacific has been particularly active, producing 14 named tropical systems and we have felt their effects here in the…
Well, the NW wind made a weak cameo appearance today as forecast. But if SW flow is not to your taste don’t get your hopes up for tomorrow. This summer the North Pacific High’s surface NW winds have been battered by Cut-Off Lows, Golden Gate eddies, Upper troughs and most recently by huge 850 mb…
High pressure over the western USA sends moist air above the west coast. by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com Several times each summer the exotic phrase “Monsoonal Clouds” appears in the forecast. For some of you the phrase is just greek for others it triggers vague memories of something to do with India. If you are a Vietnam…
…as the battered old North Pacific High merges with new North Pacific High. by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com It has been a wild 9 days of unending SW flow and Sherman Island and East Bay winds such as we used to see a decade or two ago. And the Sherman Island wind distribution was much more…
How an upper ridge impacts Southern California, Gorge and Bay Area winds. by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com In the first video we are looking at a model projection of the upper level winds at the 500mb level ( around ≈ 18,000 ft.) from Friday 28 through Monday. At the start of the video notice the very warm air (reddish…
North Pacific High makes an early move to its summer home. But is should return, briefly…… by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com Every spring the North Pacific High slowly moves up the coast from west of Baja ending up west of the Pacific Northwest. Of course it gets bumped southward with most storms or upper troughs passing to the north. But…
Video: Why such a large and long lasting Catalina Eddy today? by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com The causes of the Catalina Eddy that so often shuts down Southern California winds while creating weak SSE wind are complex. And one of these days I will do a special blog covering that topic. But today let’s focus on why today’s Catalina Eddy is so…
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…
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…