Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 14 April 2024 A review of the cyclone season This time-map shows the cyclones that affected the Australian and South pacific regions during the cyclone season that started on 1 November 2023 and ends on 30 April 2024. Australia South Pacific VANUATU had a hard time in 2023 with three severe storms: Judy and Kevin in March, then Lola in October. Then in November Mal brought some minor damage to Fiji. During this cyclone season ..read more

Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 24 March 2024 Saturday 23 March 2024 was World Meteorological Day. The theme this year is AT THE FRONTLINE OF CLIMATE CHANGE They have just completed a report of the state of the climate at the end of 2023 This can be seen at youtu.be/ES7eKWRRJ0o The report starts with the alarming record breaking of a warming planet but ends with the hope of rapidly increasing sustainable energy sources, reducing emissions, and increasing inv ..read more

Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 17 March 2024 EL NINO fading to NEUTRAL, In mid-March the equatorial current was going westwards as if on steroids. As the surface: warm water is being pushed physically by an increasing wind from the east Pacific along the equator. This happens across the entire equatorial Pacific and piles up over the western Pacific. There, to flatten out this buildup, water beneath it at around 50 to 150m is pushed outwards at over 2kt, cre ..read more

Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 10 March 2024 1. We are here: For more info see climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ 2. Brace for a few weeks of extra convective energy (bubbly blue) in the South Pacific as the MJO moves across the Pacific. From http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/forca.shtml 3Between Galapagos and Marquesas, that “mirror convergence zones”” which I mentioned before have now formed : TROPICS The latest cyclone activity ..read more

Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 3 March 2024 A review of last month’s weather Here is a link to a YouTube clip giving an animated loop of the isobars and streamlines in the South Pacific for the last month at youtu.be/ufI3KuZYp3w During February we had an MJO passage for the first few weeks, activating the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) producing 4 tropical depressions of interest and two cyclones NAT and OSAI. These systems where so close together that ..read more

Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 25 February 2024 Panama to Marquesas -seasonal challenges Normally the International Convergence zone ITCZ meanders across the Pacific Ocean in a latitude band between 10 and 2 degrees north of the equator. An interesting “mirror” of the ITCZ forms in the eastern Pacific at this time of the year: This is triggered by the overhead sun. During late February and early March, the latitude of the overhead sun shifts slowly northward ..read more

Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 18 February 2024 El Nino is expected to weaken this autumn We are having an El Nino weather pattern. It is the name given to the period when sea surface temperatures over the eastern equatorial Pacific are above normal. This pattern is expected to change during our autumn as shown by this graph from The Bureau of Meteorology, Australia. with the trends in Sea temperature made by several computer models. The next image shows the ..read more

Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 11 February 2024 SUBTROPICAL RIDGE Occasional in summer we get today’s wonderful pattern when the MJO takes the Monsoonal trough out from Australia and into the central Pacific: Windy isobar map today During an El Nino period this helps feed the Hadley and Walker circulations to intensify the Subtropical ridges as per these diagrams I often mention how we can work out the rhythm of weather in the South Pacific by watching the ..read more

Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 4 February 2024 A review of last month’s weather Here is a link to a YouTube clip giving an animated loop of the isobars and streamlines in the South Pacific for the last month at youtu.be/BeFD1a7Hhu4 During late January an MJO started to move across northern Australia and triggered TC KIRILLY which moved onto Queensland and turned into a wet depression, In early February (late last week) KIRILLY rejuvenated back into a cyclone ..read more

Bob McDavitt’s ideas for sailing around the South Pacific. Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are from the patterned world. Compiled Sunday 28 January 2024 TROPICS The latest cyclone activity report is at zoom.earth and tropic.ssec.wisc.edu and Tropical Cyclone Potential is from www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/TCFP/index.html TANGGREK, and CANDICE are tropical depressions over Indian Ocean and KIRRILY over inland north Australia. KIRRILY briefly reached Cat 3 before making landfall near Townsville. These systems contain lots of rain but not much wind. The MJO, a burst of ..read more