Sunday 26 August 2012

Blocking high

I'm liking the look of the latest forecast runs - for a while now it been locking to build in a nice block over northern France and southern UK. It should bring lots of nice weather. The nights are drawing in mind and those extra couple of hours of dark meant it was decidedly nippy when I went for a run this morning.

Good waves in September start with a blocking high - its like the foundation stone. Now all we need is one of those hurricanes to reel east and clip onto an atlantic storm and some upper air mobility.





The above has decaying hurricanes, but no interest from the upper air, and without that, we'll be struggling.

Thursday 23 August 2012

HURRICANE

This is an outlier in the forecast charts and as such is a long way from being a confident forecast

- BUT lo... there on the horizon, a few thousand mile away, lies an extratropical hurricane. It's perched menacingly in the slot...



Cross reference that chart above from the Seppo forecasters, against the might of the ECMWF modellers in Bracknell (who get it right a lot more often) and there are some similarities with the Azores ridge but the detail is very different - especially to the west of the ridge.

Confidence is low, but this is worth watching carefully.

Tuesday 21 August 2012

The Fall

The forecast charts are drifting into the Autumn. Where did the summer go? The summer's been dominated by whole series of charts with low pressure just that little bit to close to Cornwall, leaving us with odds and sods and very few "proper" swells.

As we slip towards darker nights, the forecast charts are offering up a lot more of the same, with a real reluctance of any kind of blocking high developing, to keep the wind south-easterly. There's lows out there this week and over the weekend, but they are mobile and too close to produce more than a short offshore window so timing is everything.
Best times at the moment, look like being Fri evening and maybe again on Monday as the wind backs south or south-east ahead of the next batch of sh!t weather.

Fri eve



Mon



And its all been quiet on the hurricane side of things too. Nothing of major interest has come our way yet, but Gordon, http://www.weathercast.co.uk/tropical-storms/storm/2012-al8.html will waft some not very interesting long period stuff our way towards the end of today. If you can find anywhere on the south coast that is offshore in a westerly wind you might get lucky.

a

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Heavy rain.

Not a very nice morning down west, with all the rain, no doubt lots of sewage will be pumping out into the sea as we speak.
The forecasts charts brings some sunshine to the heart however.



This latest low is sitting a notch or two further west than most of the lows we've had this summer and that means swell and more importantly winds from a more southerly direction(yesterday being a classic example).

I'm hopeful that Friday afternoon, right through Saturday and maybe even Sunday morning the wind will stay southerly. It never quite backs to south-easterly and it'll be rather strong at times but a solid size should mean it'll be a laugh.

Monday 6 August 2012

promise of some decent waves

Wobbly waves over the weekend - as expected, last week's low out to the west of Ireland has faded and merged into a flabby, unstructured brute which cause headaches for the mop up crews again today I suspect. Waves went from quite chunky on friday night to a foot or so by yesterday afternoon. It did it's best to clean itself up a couple of times, most noticeably on friday evening. Found some so so ones up around Boobies, but nothing spectacular.

There's a disturbance off the southern tip of Greenland now...



...which should fire some proper swell our way by midweek. Wednesday night is when the new swell will appear and hopefully it will last through Thursday.

Winds will be light and the sun out on both Wed and Thu, so there'll be a pretty decent sea breeze kicking in, which of course will junk it up - timing will be crucial.

Thursday 2 August 2012

Big up Bradley Wiggins

This is slightly off topic but...

A fine day was had by all yesterday at Hampton Court watching the pedallers pedal. Here's Wiggo powering over the bridge...





... and going by, sideburners ruffling in the wind...





And here is is going past with 150m to go -







the dog has been practicing for the high jump too...