I've copied some chat from the 'message board': Jl: The summer west wind is a 'Diurnal' wind. In the hot weather the land heats up faster than the ocean, hot air rises & in comes the wind off the Pacific. The 'turbo charger' for us is when a 'Marine push', that is fog or a marine layer of cloud moves up the coast further exaggerating the temp. difference...& Globe your correct, the jet stream needs to be North of us for this summer condition.(We need the jet stream near us in winter to provide the 'Pineapple express.) - Feb 02 7:42AM
Globe: Wow, it really boggles my mind how relatively accurate our forecasts are given the amount of continually changing factors - so many forces all at play simultaneously. So is it true that the higher the jet stream is in the summer the higher the likely-hood of westerlies? I suppose it also has to do with the amount of cloud/cooler temperature found on the outer coast... maybe you shouldn't bother answering that... I'm probably opening a bigger can of worms than I can handle. Anyway always interesting to analyze mother nature. Thanks for the input Mb - Feb 01 10:40PM
Mb: Oops. ARE not ATE! - Feb 01 9:17PM
Mb-> Globe: I'm no meteorologist but I spend inordinate amounts of time looking at weather maps. Like This one. The position of the high above Hawaii is all important. In the winter it sags south and the lows ate directed along it's northern border to BC. In the summer it moves north and is responsible for the great weather in June - Aug. and also for the prevailing Westerly. The high winds associated with the lows that move west to east across the Pacific rotate counterclockwise and exert force on the ocean causing big waves in Hawaii and the west coast. The Pacific HIGH! It controls our destiny! - Feb 01 9:16PMl: Here is another. Pressure overlay">Pressure overlay Will I get credits for this? - Feb 01 6:31PM
Globe: doing a geolab ya - so judging by those annimations i'd say the jetstream is south of us right now? I can see now how it seems to be sucking systems towards us from the north west (which makes sense) seeing as thats where most of our lows come from. - Feb 01 6:26PM
Jl: Sorry Globe I messed up earlier & deleted your post. As the link below shows our weather is often transported to us via the Jet stream. - Feb 01 6:22PM
Jl: Sure....Are you in a weather exam. ? - Feb 01 6:15PM
GLOBE: anyone else for that matter?? I'm meteorologically inept... - Feb 01 5:31PM
Globe: JL question for ya, what is the pressure zone that influences much of BC during the winter? would that be the aleution low or the high pressure arctic air mass? Am I on the right track? - Feb 01 5:00PM LINKS: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/ ... ?sat_300+1 http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guide ... /home.rxml http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/ ... r_enhanced+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Glob ... ystems.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/fax/PWBI99.gif

Doods, my brain hurts....

I love this site!
Thank you for the meteorology lesson MB and JL! Great links too!
BTW Globe ,Dave Cook, a local sailor and Paralympic silver medallist , has organized a series of talks on sailing and related topics as means for raising funds for his endeavor to qualify to compete in the next Paralympics.
Feb 7 at 7:00 PM Simon Walker is giving a talk at CFSA in Esquimalt on weather forecasting, which may be interesting for local sailors. Simon is a windsurfer from way back and a local sailboat racer and so he approaches weather from a point of view that we as local sailors would find interesting I’m sure!

Great idea JL:

I can continue my rant about the prevailing westerly. As you all recall, when we met last, I was expounding on the "prevailing wind" which comes about as a consequence of global circulation patterns. As can be seen from this map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Glob ... ystems.jpg

on our coast the prevailing wind is westerly circulating clockwise around the high pressure system that is a more or less permanant feature in the Pacific. The circulation in the southern part of the high is to the east, hence the consistent east winds at Maui, particularly in the summer when the high is centered further north. There is a good description of hlobal circulation patterns at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation

My next lesson will be on why the sky is blue ... well at least in places where the sun actually shines ...

Sorry. Forgot to log in. Pontificating Phil up above is me.

There is excellent weather analysis for the Pacific Northwest at:

http://www.ocs.orst.edu/pub_ftp/weather ... on.SEW.txt

Incidentally, according to him the GFS model forecast for the storm Friday Night into Saturday Morning leads him to state: "THIS COULD END UP BEING THE MAIN WIND EVENT OF THE SEASON AND POSSIBLY THE STRONGEST AND/OR MOST WIDESPREAD IN SEVERAL YEARS".

Tie down your helmet KUS!

Dooohhh! OK. Sorry again about not logging in after a system restart! Phil (see above)

Nice link...B.W.D. had allready passed on a similar Oregon link http://www.ocs.orst.edu/pub_ftp/weather ... on.PQR.txt I'm building an impressive weather bookmark file.

thanks for the info on that guest, that would definately be worth going to.

wow... too bad my 5m is out of commission. Hopefully it says below 30, friday afternoon/sat morning.
Think i'll be buying some extra candles for the night though.

Feb. 04 2006 STORM: 1 p.m. Southerly pressure slope (173') 6.4...Highest intensity I've observed !!!

Hey Jimmy(BH)...any chance of snow this winter?

Sure: http://www.alpinechalets.com/camatmtwash.htm

Here is a treasure trove of U.S. Navy public info: https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/PUBLIC/

2 thoughts for today: You know when you see the 'classic' tornado picture http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~tornado/im ... rn-big.gif ,well think of all low pressure systems as looking like that with the centre of the low (highest # in the middle of isobar rings) the top of that nasy vortex. http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/ ... ?sat_300+1 2. To calculate the peak wind from a weather map (40'N-60'N) measure 4' of longitude adjacent the front. Multiply this x 5 = peak wind speed...x .7 (70%) = average wind speed... Reference:Page # 194 'Living with weather'. http://www.weatheroffice.pyr.ec.gc.ca/p ... ult_e.html

One more thing: The Env. Canada pressure slope http://www.weatheroffice.pyr.ec.gc.ca/m ... ope_e.html is looking @ the low pressure system on a weather map NOT geographical points , which is why the effects of each front are inconsistent locally !!! Unlike the B.W.D. pressure difference: http://www2.bigwavedave.ca/RecentData/P ... plot36.png