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Weather or not

4K views 34 replies 17 participants last post by  outbound 
#1 ·
Just wondering if the spring and summer seems to have been unusual for folks in different regions.
In the north east US the usual summer lull in winds hasn't seemed to occur. The usual wind dying at dusk as thermals fail seems to occur less often.
No increase in gales or storms but less often are the times to fly a genny and full main.
Fishing seems different as well. Stripers no longer following past behaviors as regards tides and locale. It's been a good fishing and sailing season but somehow different.
I know " if you don't like New England weather- wait a minute ". Maybe I have a mistaken impression which why I'm asking for your opinion.
 
#3 ·
Here in Maryland, the summer doldrums have just arrived, pretty much the same old - same old. Winds SW 5 - 10 mph on a daily basis, with pop-up thundershowers.

As for the striped bass situation, ASMFC and the state regulators have pretty much screwed the population up again. Maryland increased the minimum size limit, only a handful of charter boats are out fishing for them because catching their 2 fish per person limit is nearly impossible, and the few locations that usually provide some action are producing undersized fish. When the Chesapeake's fish reach four years of age, they migrate up the coast to New England to forage on bunker and mackerel, then migrate back to the bay during the dead of winter, slowly make their way to the natal rivers and spawn when water temperatures reach about 53 degrees. I'm surprised that you have any fish to catch at all up there.

Hope things get better for both of us,

Gary :cool:
 
#4 ·
The fishing from shore with fly has been fairly good. Boat is fine at the hotspots like Cleveland Ledge, mouths of the canal,but various races which in the past were good are dead. Fly hasn't worked for me at all off a boat. Silverside imitations and eels slow trolled in shallow water catch fish near structure. Past experience timing the tides has been useless. Just go when you can. Doesn't seem to matter. Fewer blues more stripers which suits me fine. But mostly schoolies. See more black bass and even bonito then in the past.
Fresh water has been weird as well. Haven't seen a trout all year but catch way more pickerel than in the past and big ones at that. Think the water is warmer even inland. Even deep cold water kettle ponds stocked with trout and salmon produce warm water crappie, bass and yellow perch.
Sorry to hear the Chessie is doing poorly. Maybe I'm seeing Hudson River fish.
 
#5 ·
I don't think we've gotten into the usual pattern of trade-like SWer's. We have fronts and lows drop in and drive the wind E and NE more than usual. Today feels more like a July pattern, but it has not been consistent. Offshore fishing S of Marthas Vineyard has been unusual too. The warm fingers of gulf stream water have not made it as far north as usual I suspect stopped by this wind pattern and are stopping at the Canyons (continental shelf). That's made for some great Canyon fishing, but poor fishing on the flat's to the N. Your observations on inshore fishing align with my own.
 
#6 ·
Much wisdom to your post CC.

What you say makes sense. Friends doing offshore passages both north and south from here have been getting more beat up than usual as grib predictions seem less reliable. Friends went up to Nova Scotia. Had the heat on constantly, worn three layers and never saw the sun. Hate AC but when plugged in it's nearly always on down here.
Just came back from a short cruise of few days. Almost felt like Xmas winds. Very few boats out. Hot, humid air building through the day and wind through the night. Today feels like NE July for the first time in a week.
 
#7 ·
We got caught out fishing S of MV last Friday in the NOAA miss-ed back door cold front. Should have known better, given where the low was, but chose to believe the "most favorable" source. Wild ride home. A few others got caught way down at the canyons and had it even worse. I'd much rather get caught out in a sailboat.

I agree, the forecasters are having a tough time. It's not the usual summer here. I'm hoping it settles into the pattern now, a bit later than usual.
 
#8 ·
Spring was so late and cold in Downeast Maine, that I didn't get the boat work done that needed to be done, and my boat is still in dry dock. I'm not sure she'll actually make in into the water since now its "friends visiting Bar Harbor for the 100th Anniversary of the park" season.
 
#9 ·
Perhaps those "up north" have had a late Summer arrival but here on the southwest coast of Florida it seems to have arrived early. We have always scheduled our Summer cruise for several weeks beginning with the first week of June. Originally because of our daughter's school schedule and later because it was warm and pleasant but not miserably hot as it usually is in late July, August and September; and, because the squalls don't usually arrive until late in the day/early evening giving one good windows to travel yet reach and settle into a good anchorage. This year, however, the "miserably hot" days seemed to begin much earlier and the squalls have been hitting us from mid-day on. So, for the first time in 20+ years, we decided to pass on the cruise but will make up for it (I hope!) with an early and extended Thanksgiving Cruise. Unless, of course, winter arrives equally early!

FWIW...
 
#14 · (Edited)
There are plenty of indications that the next 100 years are going to be a Dalton or even a Maunder minimum. Temperatures in Maine are going to turn back into the 1950's, when people talked about the cold winters. Right now both the Atlantic and pacific duo-oscillations have turned cold together, which is very unusual. The warmth of the El Nino that covered the broader trends is going to look wonderful soon.

I'm not sure what this means for sailing in the Down East and the Maritimes.
 
#11 ·
this is a LA NINA year, and the cold current is stronger in appearance than usual. you can see it nicely in wunderground´s tropical weather anomalies page.
beautiful changes.
watch how the formations climb up the sw coast of mexico--more normal than last year with the hellacious strength the storms become when forming in in hot water. watch the patterning of sea surface temps and how those affect your weather. they do. the lil rowdy current s off south america affect the weather for the entire planet. our ocean here is a lot cooler than last year, which was a super el nino, which followed a ¨normal¨ el nino.
ok. if you donot believe in el nino and la nina, it is time to open your eyes, as it is a factual cycling of the weather--it is a pattern that has been ongoing for millenia.
this is our third in sequence not normal year of weather. you guys donot remember normal. there is no normal, merely not el nino and not la nina. that makes 2 years not in those cycles.
maybe.
as we are all SUPPOSED to be intelligent sailors, i donot understand how many can be so weather ignorant.
weather is your life on the sea. weather and more weather. (ask jeff hartjoy. he knows from weather.)
or just sail gom yer round... there is a lot of weather there.. is speed learning course... ha ha ha
i was taught when i first began to find sailing fun(1955), that weather is a part of sailing and that i best be able to know what is coming at me. experienced my first line squall before age 8. (cooooool) . we were taught to read seas and skies and act appropriately before **** happened. this was back in the good old days when prevention was key and captain went down with ship.
unlike today wherein all is disposable.
 
#12 ·
While it seemed to be a late spring, the Mackerel appear to be early. Ospreys have been passing overhead with large ones in their talons, for a couple weeks. And fishermen line the public docks to harvest them. I watched a large school going up the river in the harbor. The above behavior and the large schools near the surface, is more a late August thing in my experience.

Water is still predictably cold outside the harbor. The lobstermen aren't complaining about a too early harvest(that kills them when warm water brings them into shore early - there's no market demand then)
 
#13 · (Edited)
Z- got that. Have done my Lee Chesneau classes and read my weather for Mariners books. Still, even accounting for La Niña/el Nino effects seems an unusual year. Now sitting in harbor doing maintenance. Warm rain, wind,chop like you'd see down by you. Not New England.
 
#15 ·
we have little chop unless there is a tropical event-- our ocean is smooth long rollers unless neptune has a case of the ass.
caribbean and gom are somewhat choppy, but that only due to frequency of swells. ours are normally 15-21 seconds at .5-1.5 meters. not too noticeable. over 2 meters with closer action is a lil busy.



as a mini ice age was spozed to occur before the increasing ocean levels, we are still on our way to coolerville.
i still think baaahstaahhn will be new north pole. should be about the time to change axis of planet, or are we overdue for that.. who is to blame for that one, i wonder...
ha ha ha ha \ lets have a global warming tax so we can keep the climate from changing. like money will make that happen.
i watched one usa candidate spew about climate change and how we have to stop it.. i want to know how is that going to be effected. are we stronger than nature?
personally, i have down throws and a nice warm down jacket in case of dire need and no more warm spots on planet. and uggs ordered. and a walking furball, nice n cozy huge n warm. he eats fish, so all is well.
i am still waiting the rising of the seas so i can sail over the high rises in fort lauderdale. doubt the 6 inches or so of increases we are expecting by 2025 will allow for that, tho.
folks have been calling for cleaning up the beach, now they ***** about the rising seas which will effect the request.. go figger--humans are fickle and short memoried.

our only constant is change--sit back and enjoy it.
:cut_out_animated_em
 
#17 ·
In the 9 years I've been sailing in the Northeast I haven't seen a "normal" here, so far as I can tell this year has been pretty much normal.
 
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#19 ·
SFBay seems to have normal Summer winds, near zero till the marine layer burns off between 10 and 12 and then blowing 25 through the slot by Alcatraz in the afternoons.

PredictWind Gribs at 1km are pretty well on for time and speed in the bay, offshore there are people are bitching that the NOAA GFS as been predicting 15 and they are getting 25-30 on the SHTP and Pacific Cup. The High seemed to setup more this past week than the previous.
 
#21 ·
the Black Sea was really a bit unusual as per our research and what we expected -- we had southerly and sw winds for almost 2 weeks before they turned what we thought would be normal - we are hoping to get a bit of normal in about 2 weeks when we begin to head west around the crimea - gribs seem to be about on track and not bad in giving us good data
 
#27 ·
Outbound - we use windfinder, passageweather, noaa models and guidance, and gribs - we are playing with windyty but not sure about it yet

we run the noaa model about every 3-4 days, but look at windfinder and passage weather daily and we record the gribs in a note book daily -
 
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#23 ·
This does seem to be a strange year so far here on Long Island Sound. After a mild winter, spring was cool with lots of strong northerlies. Now we are in the middle of a long heat wave with temps in the mid-90s. Waiting for it to break so I can leave on the boat for a couple of weeks.
 
#24 ·
Well, the weather forecasters have been telling us for some time that weather would be different this year due to the El Niño and El Niña effects. When we went to Vancouver on our sailing charter in June, the Vancouverites told us that it was unusually cool for the middle of June.

Here in the Midwest we have had some record heat wave, then some unusual rain. Usually by now, we are in the midst of a summer draught with cracked earth pulling away from buildings. This year we have had more consistent rain storms.

On TheWeatherNetwork.com they say:

2016, Weather patterns for the past year have been driven by a remarkably strong El Niño event, but a change is on the way for the summer of 2016. As El Niño dissipates and La Niña conditions take its place, we will be in a period of transition in global weather patterns over the next few months.

Here's how temperatures will break down, region by region:

Across the northern tier, particularly the Great Lakes and Northeast, we expect that there will still be a few more bumps along the road to summer with a couple periods of cooler weather during the first few weeks of June. However, by late June summer the heat will take hold and warmer than normal temperatures should dominate through July and August.

In the Southeast, temperatures have already been at or above normal for much of the spring. This should continue to be the case as we expect the usual hot and humid summer weather with a tendency towards above seasonal temperatures.

The South Central part of the country will see typical periods of summer heat, but more unsettled weather as well. With more clouds and rain than normal expected this season - particularly in the early part of the summer - the southern Plains should see temperatures average out near normal. In the northern Plains where drier conditions are more likely, above normal temperatures, but not excessive heat, are expected.

Some parts of the far West will be warmer than normal in the summer of 2016, particularly the Intermountain region. Coastal southern California is expected to be warm as well, where the heat will aggravate the ongoing exceptional drought conditions.

The northern California coast as well as the Pacific Northwest should see temperatures near normal for the summer. Warm waters in the northeastern Pacific will provide enough moisture for cloud cover and precipitation in the north to help keep the heat in check.

The Atlantic Basin Hurricane Season begins on June 1, and this year we expect to see a distinct uptick in tropical storm activity compared to the past three seasons. This is due in part to the developing La Niña, as well as temperature patterns in the North Atlantic.

Early predictions issued by researchers at Colorado State University and North Carolina State University are highlighting the threat for above-average tropical activity this season. These forecasts take into account current weather patterns around the globe, numerical modeling, and statistical analysis.
 
#26 ·
i am sure the massive numbers of canes and ts in atlantic basin this la nina season has you all concerned.
folks have great difficulty in remembering every 4 ish year what el nino and la nina bring to the planet, so it is understandable that predictions would be this far off.
see the nice yellow squiggly current off south america??? that is colder water. name it la nina.
funny how that lil insignificant ha ha ha ha ha current should make such difference in the planet´s weather patterns.
 

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#28 ·
1990's they came up with the global warming scare. We have to cut CO2 to save the planet. Sea levels will rise 20 to 25 feet within 20 years! (didn't happen...)
1970's, the climate scare was global cooling. w3e have to cut Sulfur Dioxide to stop acid rain and save the planet... Sea levels will drop 20 to 25 ft on the next 20 years! (didn't happen....)
1950's the scare was warming
1920's the4 scare was cooling
1890's the scare was warming

And the pattern goes back INTO THE 1700's!

Somehow we got stalled in the global warming scare this time even though NASA has said MOST ICE EVER at the south pole just 2 years ago... (and nobody hears about after that because its not supporting the Global warming scare...)

They ddid change to calling it "climate change" because the predictions of the 1990's DID NOT COME TRUE. and so they had to come up with something else... but it wasn't politically expedient to say Al Gore's Nobel Prize was for fiction.

Nobel Prizes have been mostly political awards for a long time.
They gave Arafat the Nobel Peace Prize and he used the money to fund suicide bombers. Its been a joke ever since.
 
#29 ·
TT generally don't respond to such ignorance as moderators are not ennamored. But will note virtually all climatologists the world over who are not supported by energy industry disagree with you. All graphs of weather since records where accurately complied disagree with you. If you took the trouble to review source literature you would see it's always been climate change. Some regions drier,some wetter,some hotter and even a few cooler.
You make the simplistic and incorrect argument that if a line appears to have sawtooth variation trends up it not trending up because at times it trends down.
I hope you stop drinking the cool aid of those with secondary gain. There are still people denying basic evolutionary principles or even believing the moonshot or holocaust didn't occur . So be it.

As regards your political comments. Again moderators view this poorly but even the reality TV watchers know all human activity is political.

Let's return to our regularly scheduled program.
 
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