Category: Weather Blog
West Coast Wind Blog: Eddy, 950mb. winds and Bodega
by Mike Godsey, mike@iwindsurf.com On this day the WF-WRF barely showed a hint of an eddy. The NAM surface had a better hint. But, as I have noticed again and again for larger elongated eddies, the 950 & 975 NAM do a very good job forecasting existence of an eddy and its duration. Also notice…
West Coast Wind Blog: Forecasting UP AND DOWN Gorge winds.
A Slack discussion: Learning to recognize a pattern for very up and down winds in the Columbia River Gorge by Matt Sounders & Mike Godsey windfind 4:36 PM Here is a animation I am working on to help explain the UP AND DOWN winds today. Even over the ocean at dawn you can see the instablity. GorgeUnstableAir.gifcask.2019-07-18…
D-Day Weather
by Meteorologist, Kerry Challoner Anderson As we recognize the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion it is interesting to look at the role the weather and meteorologists played in the success of the operation. According to How D-Day was Delayed by a Weather Forecast, “The planning team responsible for the invasion of Normandy had to…
Kite Surfer Rescue
by Weatherflow Meteorologist, Kerry Challoner Anderson Last night I was out walking near sunset, checking out the marine layer development north of Santa Cruz, California when I noticed a Kite Surfer struggling to make it back to shore. The winds were quickly fading as the temperature over the land cooled off. High pressure over the…
Severe weather in the Northeast
Thunderstorm season in the Northeast US is off to an eye opening start after yesterday’s severe weather outbreak. A strong squall or line of thunderstorms passed through MA down to NJ in the late afternoon and evening bringing damaging winds and localized hail. In the radar image below, note the gust front ahead…
Waves arriving from Down Under
by Weatherflow, Meteorologist Kerry Challoner Anderson A cold outbreak for Eastern Australia has not only meant that I am preparing this from under the warmth of some extra blankets but also has brought record wave heights, epic winds for Wind and Kite Surfers here in Brisbane and the potential for great surf later in the…
Picking the Right Model
Yesterday’s forecast was a tough one so I made sure to check back this evening to verify. We know we may not always be exactly right and so the process of verifying helps us to learn and improve and also to understand the eccentricities of each model. WeatherFlow has a suite of models to chose…
A close look at Southern California isobars
Take a look a the close-up animation I made of the WRF Southern California Isobars. 1. It appears to be far higher than 3km res. 2. Note the exceptionally tight isobars are all over the mountains at all times of the day. 3. The isobars around mountains do not shift as you would expect from night…
Eclipse Weather
by Meteorologist, Kerry Challoner Anderson After listening to my daughter’s description of her total eclipse experience I regret not making the effort to get myself in position to be in the path of totality. Instead my experience included trying to prepare the midday update for Oregon and realizing that I could not see the where…