Westerly Wednesday JWSP

[Chris Klohn]

The wind veered westerly through JDFS at midnight as forecasted which was earlier then I was hoping. It's been hovering around 35 to 40 knots in the central strait and 25-35 over Whidbey since 3am. Pressures are solid right now with still a good 4-6 hours before they come up and the winds back off. The swell is pumping at close to 8 feet just upwind of Smith Island. JWSP will have some large breaking waves first light. As I mentioned yesterday, get down there ASAP if you want to get on the small kite gear. Looks like W15-20 is in store for most of the day after the winds throttle back mid morning.

[Chris Klohn]

Good Morning Whidbey!

Here's my two cents on what's going on down south..........

The wind shifted westerly last night at 11pm through the western part of Juan de Fuca strait and 1am through the eastern part. I was hoping for a 3-4am switch to guarantee the best conditions early in the morning. The pressure rise as the leading edge of the front passed was impressive with 50 knot gusts at Race Rocks.

There's a Gale Warning up until 1pm for Whidbey with Westerly 25-35 knots. The winds are supposed to ease to Westerly 20-30 knots after 1 pm. The TAF is the only forecast not on board with the stronger and longer winds. It shows the winds easing off to West 15 from 3am until 9am and West 12 by 11am. The current winds are West 24G32 at Whidbey. The actuals are way over performing the forecast

BWD, G-Spot, NOAA, NWSS and the MM5 all show good wind until early afternoon. The pressure gradients have actually been increasing slightly each hour since the shift to westerly.............this is excellent! The buoy at the extreme western most point of Juan de Fuca Strait recorded its peak wind of Westerly 36G48 knots 15 minutes ago at 5:00am.............this is excellent! It's approximately 150 kilometres upwind from JWSP.

As I mentioned yesterday, the earlier the better to get on the road. I would be rigged and suited by 7am waiting for light if I could get away without the family and wasn't working overseas. 9am should still have you in good shape to catch some wind. The swell just upwind from Smith Island is almost 3 meters right now. If the wind continues to pump in the mid to high 30's JWSP should be size large at daybreak

My educated guess for today is:

0700-0800 West 25G35 7-9' Waves / Larger Swell
0800-0900 West 15G24 5-7' Waves / Larger Swell
0900-1100 West 14G22 3-4' Waves / Larger Swell
1100-1300 West 13G20 2-3' Waves / Larger Swell
1300-1500 West 12G19 2-3' Waves / Larger Swell

If something unexpected pops up with the pressures, direction or wind strength I'll let you know. Save a little energy for tomorrow, Double Bluff is going to be insane late morning through until dark! Perfect tides too all day down there with the sandbar!

Cheers,

Chris

[Faceplant]

Leaving right now thanks chris!!

[Chris Klohn]

No problem. The gradient has relaxed in the past hour somewhat. I believe it's only West 21G32 now. It'll probably fall off further to West 15G25 by the time you arrive. Juan De Fuca does accelerate this direction much better compared to locally. I've never seen Acadia and JWSP go off together. They both require slightly different isobar direction.

Good luck and save some energy for tomorrow at Double Bluff............crazy wind coming

Cheers,

Chris

[Chris Klohn]

The buoy at the West entrance of Juan de Fuca just jumped from West 20G25 to West 29G36 in the past hour. The slightly strengthening pressure gradient that caused that bump up in wind speed will move along eastwards down the Strait...........good news for you

[Chris Klohn]

[Chris Klohn]

The pressure gradient is down to -1.5 now. I'd guess only another 1-1.5 hours before it calms down to 15-20 ish' for the next couple of hours. The surf should still be sweet with 8 hours of 30-40+ westerlies.

[Chris Klohn]

5 Hours of wind and counting...............

[Chris Klohn]

Predicted 4 Days Ago............Got lucky I guess

Tomorrow afternoon is going to be epic!

by Chris Klohn » Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:40 pm

Killer setup shaping up for Wednesday down on Whidbey. There's a strong front moving through the area overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning with very tight pressure gradients forecast to setup in behind. They've got full gale warnings and wind advisories already for eastern JDFS. Timing looks to be first light throughout early afternoon.

I'd strongly recommend Whidbey over local Westerly options on Wednesday. It looks like there's going to be too much South in it locally to setup a classic day for Acadia. If it switches to a more W-WNW forecast direction then Acadia should work. When Acadia cranks Whidbey is 99% dead and vice versa. The forecast for Wednesday right now favours Whidbey with the SW-WSW direction.

[Chris Klohn]

Still going........