Bob Blog 26 Feb 2023

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 26-Feb 2023

The Cyclone season.. So far

It is now almost two -thirds thru this cyclone season and time to do a quick
check on its progress. Cyclones HALE and GABRIELLE have brought lots of
damage to NZ and the impact there will take months.maybe years. to recover
from. And yet, international meteorologists may look at the statistics and
judge this season as .. UNDERPERFORMING so far.

A list of what has happened so far shows 3 named cyclones, a C1, a C2 and a
C3 and 4 tropical depressions.

The Seasonal forecast issued by NIWA back in Oct 22 went for between 6 and
10 named storms of which 3-4 may become severe and 1 may reach C5. Two
thirds of that forecast is 4-7 named storms with 2-3 being C2 or above.
Compare that to what's happened so far: 3 named cyclones and 2 that are C2
or above. So, by the numbers, so far , this season is below forecast.

TROPICS
The positive boost of the MJO cycle is crossing the South Pacific over the
next two weeks
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

FREDDY was cat5 for a while as it approached Madagascar where it killed 7
people. It then travelled onto Mozambique and faded. ENALA is lingering in
the south Indian Ocean and expected to go south.

The potential for development across northern Australia and around Vanuatu
is above normal this week. MetService is looking at two tropical
depressions, one in the Coral Sea and the other to NW of Fiji heading for
Vanuatu
The one near Fiji has been labelled 08F by Fiji Met service and has the
following GFS ensemble forecast for its future at this stage
It is expected to peak over Vanuatu on Tuesday and Wednesday this week and
then go southeast and miss Aotearoa/NZ. Avoid.

WEATHER ZONES
South Pacific Convergence zone SPCZ

The SPCZ is expected to remain active from L3 in the Coral Sea to Vanuatu to
Fiji and Low L2 with an extension of convection southeast to L1 east of NZ.
L1-2-3 form a necklace of lows along the SPCZ.

HIGHS and LOWS
HIGH H1 over NZ is expected to travel off to the east along 50S. A trough is
expected over NZ on Friday followed by another High H2 along 45 to 50S.
These Highs should keep that necklace of lows off to the north, fingers
crossed.

Easterly winds across the north Tasman sea this week should help voyages to
the Brisbane area.

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If you would like more detail for your voyage, then check metbob.com to see
what I offer.
Or Facebook at /www.facebook.com/metbobnz/
Weathergram with graphics is at metbob.wordpress.com (subscribe/unsubscribe
at bottom).
Weathergram archive (with translator) is at weathergram.blogspot.co.nz.
Contact is bob@metbob.com or txt 64 277762212
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