Last week there was somewhat atypical weather and winds for the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and the Columbia River Gorge. The Gorge saw very frequent blue skies and warm dry air plus westerly winds. Southern California saw many days of strong NW wind that curved into the coast. While San Francisco saw a…
This La Nina year has brought exceptional winds to Baja’s Sea of Cortez. Typically the winds in the El Sargento Los Barriles zone is an everchanging mixture of northerly winds from high pressure in the Great Basin and the local sea breezes generated by heating in the local inland valleys. And the only role of…
Yesterday, March 22, saw strong winds in the El Sargento to Los Barriles area. These wind developed as the North Pacific High created a solid pressure gradient down the length of the Sea of Cortez. Today the North Pacific High is in the same location and same strength and continues to send strong northerly wind…
Have you ever heard a meteorologist talk about an “inversion”? Or maybe you read about a “low-level inversion” in a National Weather Service forecast discussion and wondered what that means? If so, you’re in luck. Let’s break down what a temperature inversion is, how it forms and “breaks”, and why it matters to wind sports…
So for days, my Baja forecast has been calling for very strong winds Sunday, Dec 13, 2020. But as the date finally arrived I was only calling for upper-teens to low 20’s for the La Ventana to Los Barriles area. Why? Well the expected high pressure developed in the 4 corners (where all the USA…
The Baja’s East Cape kiteboarding and windsurfing sites Los Barriles and La Ventana have seen almost 2 weeks of great wind. But on December 9, 2020, those winds came to a grinding halt. This occurred as 2 low-pressure systems blocked both of the Baja wind machines. In this animation of both satellite imagery and model output,…
by Matt Souders with graphics by Mike Godsey. This historic early-season easterly wind event got off to a dangerous start this morning. High winds over Yakima, WA fanned the flames over an 80 sq. mile wildfire. The smoke from that fire can be seen in this visible satellite loop arcing SW, then westward over the…
Part 1 the big picture. The headlines are heating up about record temperatures being set from Salt Lake City to Tucson to Dallas and to the 0 percent contained ravaging Southern California fires. At this time it looks like Death Valley, the hottest place on the planet, will reach 127 by Monday. In response, the…
Gusts and lulls, up and down, crazy wind. Why are winds sometimes mild and other times wild? There are many complex meteorological causes for the turbulence that causes gusts and lulls, but here we focus on gusts and lulls winds where the causes are very local and easy to visualize. The local cause of gusts…
Way back in June I said in the iwindsurf.com forums: “Hi jgda, …we are in the early phase of a La Nina pattern. This means wider N-S swings in the pattern of upper trough and upper ridges inbound from the Pacific We will probably have more such swings this summer which in theory means more…