Weather - Ocean Navigator

11 Aug

Maui wildfires and Hurricane Dora

Ken McKinleyWeathermarine weather, Maui wildfires, Pacific High, weather

by Ken McKinley During the second week of August 2023 catastrophic wildfires have occurred in the Hawaiian Islands. The fires have been most severe over western portions of the island of Maui, and the town of Lahaina has suffered near total destruction in some areas. Many news reports have cited Hurricane Dora as the primary cause of the development and rapid spread of the Hawaiian wildfires, but this is not the case. Lahaina has been a significant yachting center for cruisers and racers in recent years and has a rich maritime history. Unfortunately there has been significant loss of life…

24 Jun

2023 Atlantic hurricane season and storm reanalysis

Ken McKinleyWeatherweather

by Ken McKinley The official start of the Atlantic hurricane season is June 1st each year, but this does not mean that tropical or subtropical cyclones cannot occur before this date. Historically the peak of the season occurs later in the summer and into the early autumn, and it is not unusual to see long periods of no activity early in the season, though in recent years the first tropical system has shown up in either May or June. 2023 has been no exception as the first tropical cyclone of the season (Arlene) formed in early June. This system began…

12 Apr

Freddy’s Long, Strange Trip

Ken McKinleyWeather

Tropical Cyclone Freddy set records as it traversed the Indian Ocean and impacted Madagascar and portions of southeastern Africa in February and March of 2023. To start looking at this system, I suggest viewing the following video produced by the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS): https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/tropical-cyclone-freddy-breaks-records-lashing-madagascar In fact, it is worth viewing the video before continuing to read this newsletter. The video lasts just under two minutes, and there is accompanying text on the web page which is also worth reading. The video shows the extraordinary track of Freddy as it made its way across the southern…

11 Apr

2023 Hurricane Names

Ocean NavigatorHome Page Hero, Ocean Voyaging, Weather

One of the ways that we know a storm is a serious weather event is whether it attains the status of a “named storm.” Hurricanes, being the most energetic of storms in the North Atlantic and the eastern North Pacific, are given names to ease in identification and to speed communications. The National Weather Service actually maintains names for six years into the future. Here are the names on the list for 2023: Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Don, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harold, Idalia, Jose, Katia, Lee, Margot, Nigel, Ophelia, Philippe, Rina, Sean, Tammy, Vince, Whitney. How are the names decided…

15 Feb

Weather scales

Ocean NavigatorWeatherfronts, marine weather, Rossby waves

Ocean voyagers have to be aware of many factors when it comes to ocean weather. Among these factors are the various scales at which the atmosphere operates. To the experienced observer, the observation of wave-like characteristics in the atmosphere is second nature. The observer sees the wave-like patterns in the clouds or the pulsating nature of snowfall as simple manifestations of these characteristics. The atmosphere exhibits wave-like properties because its essential nature is that of a fluid. And, as with any fluid, waves are produced in the atmosphere when it is disturbed. These waves come in all sizes. Indeed it…

20 Dec

Weather window for crossing the Drake Passage

Ken McKinleyWeatherAntarctic Peninsula, Antarctica, Drake Passage, sea ice, Southern Ocean, weather

In the northern hemisphere as we move toward the winter solstice, our counterparts in the southern hemisphere are approaching their summer solstice with the longest day of the year on the way. At the highest latitudes of the southern hemisphere, this is the time of year when ocean voyages are possible. In particular, it is possible to get to Antarctica, and there has been an increase in both commercial and recreational passages in this part of the world in recent years. Even at this time of the year, though, passages in these areas come with significant risks. In fact, a…

12 Oct

Rocks in the Pond

Ken McKinleyWeatherduration, fetch, waves, weather, wind speed

Almost everyone is familiar with what happens when one tosses a small rock into a calm pond. The rock displaces the water level where it impacts the pond, and as the water level rebounds toward the equilibrium level, waves are generated which propagate away from the point of impact in concentric circles. This is a manifestation of the energy that the rock imparted to the surface of the water. A similar phenomena applies when tossing a small rock into the ocean, but the difference is that most of the time, the ocean is not calm, and waves already exist. In…

15 Aug

Dogwood and Cactus

Ken McKinleyWeatherweather

The title might suggest that this newsletter will be about flowering trees and desert succulents. Rather, the title refers to two new supercomputers that NOAA placed into service in late June of 2022. These computers are twins, meaning that they have nearly identical capabilities so that when one needs to be taken down for maintenance or upgrades, there is no loss of operational capability. They are located in separate parts of the country, again, allowing for redundancy in the case of some sort of an issue at one of the sites. They are some of the fastest computers in the…

28 Jun

Solstice weather charts

Ken McKinleyHome Page Hero, Weather48 hour chart, 48 hour forecast, Atlantic surface forecast, highs, isobars, lows, NOAA, NWS, Pacific surface forecast, sea ice, troughs, weather, weather charts, weather fax, wind, wind direction, wind speed

For this newsletter, I thought it might be a good idea to look at a few surface forecast charts and go through the features of the charts. This has been done before, but it is always good to have a refresher for this material, and there have been a few changes in the charts in recent years. Then I realized that we have just passed the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, so it made sense to look at some charts produced on the summer solstice, and also to look back at the same charts produced on the winter solstice…

27 Apr

Using radar offshore to detect squalls

Robert MacFarlaneWeather

In 2003 I installed a radar on my 1983 Morgan N/M 456, Tiger Beetle, to help with singlehanded races between San Francisco and Hawaii. The Furuno 4 kilowatt 24-inch radome I went with was one of the better small boat radars. The 24-inch-wide antenna provided better angular resolution than an 18-inch antenna, the 4 kilowatt power punched well through rain, and it had a guard zone/sleep feature to conserve power. I would set up the guard zone on the black and white display and targets that entered the guard zone would sound an alarm so I could check the target. I…