Fall in Southern California means Santa Ana winds. Its the changing of the seasons, when pressure gradients form between a High and a Low. This causes the winds to blow from the hot deserts to the coast, creating an offshore wind event. What you hear most about in these blue sky storms are the fires. These occur, because the tiniest of sparks, either man made or by accident, are picked up immediately by the raging winds, which can create a firestorm.

This is the 11am graphical forecast on 11/22 on Sailflow. Of special interest is the comparison of this graphic to the graphic of Hurricane Omar in my last post. That pretty pink color reflects a forecast of winds in excess of 40+ knots. While a hurricane is certainly forboding to those in its path, Santa Ana’s are much more sublime. All of a sudden it is hot on the coast, its beautifully clear and bright blue skies but the wind is of gale strength and has been known to reach Cat1 periodically…

For mariners, this obviously creates hazards. Normal harbors and anchorages out at the Channel Islands become lee shores; perhaps the most feared of situations for sailors. Not to mention opposite swell sets and more fun stuff like that… Surfers on the other hand like it a lot !

This is our 2nd Santa Ana of this Fall season and probably not the last.

Tags: ana, california, fires, gale, gradient, oxnard, pressure, Sailing, sailors, SailTime, santa, southern, storm, winds

As of mid day Wednesday, the forecast track for Hurricane Omar brings the eye over St Croix and just North of Tortola. The big worry beyond the possibility of a Category 3 is rain. The quadrant to the South and East of the storm will contain the most rain with predictions as high as 20 inches ! That quadrant is going to affect all of the Northern Leeward islands of the Caribbean.

The following graph shows the current Closest Approach of the eye of the hurricane to the Virgin Islands.

                           cpa
Island/Town              mi    km  hours
Tortola:                 5.7   9.2  20.6  (Thursday, Octover 16 at 7:36AM EDT)
St.Croix:               11.5  18.5  17.8  (Thursday, Octover 16 at 4:48AM EDT)
St.John:                12.0  19.3  19.9  (Thursday, Octover 16 at 6:54AM EDT)
St.Thomas:              24.2  39.0  19.3  (Thursday, Octover 16 at 6:18AM EDT)

We wish all of our friends, acquaintances, as well as everybody else in this region the very best of luck over the next 24 hours. The Saba Rock webcam is still operational as of this writing and shows heavy rain falling and the wind just beginning to pick up.

This graphic from SailFlow shows the expected storm passing over the islands as of their predictions mid day on Wednesday, clearly showing the eye over the BVI and the heavier winds to the South and East

UPDATE - 4PM EST 10/15 - -> Hurricane hunter aircraft report this afternoon that the barometric pressure has fallen 12mb in the past 6 hours and a drop of 5mb in just the past two hours to 973. The eyewall is having a hard time staying together which could keep the wind speeds down until after the storm passes them mid-day tomorrow. Thankfully wind shear and some interaction with the islands could keep this to a Category 2 in the BVI and the stronger rains could miss off to the Southeast. Antigua radio is asking people to prepare for a major rain event.

FINAL UPDATE - 7:30pm EST 10/15 - -> The prognosticator over at CaribWx, whom I find is right on more often than anyone else notes that Omar has nudged a bit East of the projected track. With just a little luck this will put the Virgin Islands in the less destructive Western Quadrant of the storm. I too, noticed this jog to the West a couple hours ago but not being any kind of official weather man, thought it not my place to announce it. The folks in St Martin are now in the crosshairs of Omar and we wish them every bit of luck that is left out there today.

Tags: antigua, bvi, caribwx, cpa, eyewall, forecast, hurricane, islands, jeff, marteen, martin, masters, omar, Sailing, SailTime, st, storm, track, virgin

Tropical Storm Omar wants to imitate Hurricane Lenny of 1999 and very well could. The difference this time is that Omar is still only a tropical storm while Lenny had become a hurricane moving West when it decided to turn around and head East. This caught many people off guard as they thought the storm had passed them.

Currently Omar is packing 40 knot winds and pushing somewhat South. But very soon, a trough is going to pick him up and draw him North and West. Puerto Rico is saturated from the long visit it had with Ike last month. The Virgin Islands are volcanic and can’t hold much rain. So flooding is currently the paramount concern. Depending on when the storm strengthens and which passage it takes will determine the fate of this island paradise. It could be just a lot of rain and moderate winds - or it could form into a Category 1 hurricane directly over the islands.

I’m somewhat encouraged to see all of this tropical action right now with our first planned trip of the season to the BVI less than a month away, I’m hoping it will work itself out over the next couple of weeks. 

There are some excellent weather prognosticators, both amateur and professional to help us keep track of all this. But my best source is the great web cam at Saba Rock (as long as there is electrickity to power it !

UPDATE: 3 hours later, hurricane hunter aircraft has measured barometric pressure at 986, which is a significant drop. they measured top winds at 70mph which fixes it at near hurricane strength and it is beginning to form an eyewall. It is still drifting southeast but is expected to begin a march to the Northeast sometime around midnight when it interacts with a trough. The windshear is low enough to allow further intensification and forecasters now predict a Category 2 with the possibility of a Category 3 landfall somewhere in the vicinity of the Virgin Islands on Wednesday (10/15) evening.

Tags: bvi, flotilla, hurricane, islands, omar, Sailing, SailTime, storm, tropical, virgin, weather