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Mike -- Palo Alto Prediction 5/30/23 -- How on Earth?
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windfind



Joined: 18 Mar 1997
Posts: 1899

PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2023 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mac wrote:
Mike—I don’t remember the 25th. But what seems different this year is that you have to go further west from Berkeley, or the yacht club, before you get any steadying of the wind velocity than any year in my memory. The north-south battle is a familiar one, and can sometimes be escaped by going North, or South, or west. But this year the up and down nature has characterized about 2/3 of my 30+ days out. Again today.


In normal years the battle is between the "good" NW ocean winds that curve through the Golden Gate and become steady WSW winds that go towards Pt. Isabel and Berkeley. And the "bad" winds are triggered NW winds aloft that come over the Nacasio and Fairfax gaps in Marin's coast range. Those winds turn WNW and become turbulent as they hit the ridges. Then as the ripple over the Treasure Island to Pt. Isabel and Berkeley area push the WSW wind away from parts of the sailing area.

This abnormal year we have had frequent eddies and eddy southerly wind coming through the Golden Gate. This southerly wind curves into WSW winds near Treasure Island to Pt. Isabel. This wind is unreliable since the eddy constantly changes in size, location and strength. So when the WNW "Bad Wind" hits the eddy-induced WSW winds, you have a mess covering a much larger area.

Does this make sense?

I have been forecasting long enough to remember when eddies were extremely rare and utterly caught me by surprise, destroying my forecast for great coast and Peninsula NW winds as southerly winds came out of "nowhere".

Finally, I took one of our USAfishing.com party boats on such a day and covered the waters from the Farallon Islands to the Golden Gate. That is when I realized there was an eddy out there. Back then, the satellite imagery was too crude to see the eddy.

I will dig up imagery from that day.

Mike
iwindsurf.com
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17743
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2023 3:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah, blame it on Eddie. I used to just look at the pressure differential between Berkeley and Rio Vista and know pretty much what to expect. But things have changed. Some scientists have reported 20-40% fewer fog days at SFO as climate has warmed. Not this year.

As they say in relationships, “it’s complicated.”
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Goodwind



Joined: 06 May 2005
Posts: 323
Location: On water

PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This year, with frequent eddies and eddy southerly wind, is considered the year of garbage wind in my book thus far. Winging has really been a session saver for many of us.
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windfind



Joined: 18 Mar 1997
Posts: 1899

PostPosted: Fri Jun 09, 2023 2:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Goodwind wrote:
This year, with frequent eddies and eddy southerly wind, is considered the year of garbage wind in my book thus far. Winging has really been a session saver for many of us.


West Coast Wind Blog: Evolution of yet another San Francisco Big Eddy this weekend!

https://blog.weatherflow.com/west-coast-wind-blog-evolution-of-yet-another-san-francisco-big-eddy/

Mike Godsey
weatherflow.com
iwindsurf.com
ikitesurf.com
sailflow.com
fishweather.com
USAfishing.com
https://windnotes.smugmug.com



Bay Big eddy evolves 2.jpg
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windfind



Joined: 18 Mar 1997
Posts: 1899

PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2023 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here is a page about our "Nearcast Technology" that uses our growing Tempest network and other tools to improve the model and human forecasts:

https://business.weatherflow.com/nearcast-technology
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