Bob Blog 3 March

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 they kept feeding off each other
and none was allowed to blossom beyond a brief storm.

An active SPCZ meant an active Hadley cell and thus an intense
subtropical ridge which helped to keep tropical systems away from NZ
latitude. However, it was an El Nino month and that allowed several
fronts from the Southern Ocean to move onto NZ and bring bursts of
large swells into the Tasman Sea as far north as New Caledonia.

The SST pattern has slightly relaxed since last month.

Average isobars for past month : During February the subtropical
ridges in both hemispheres were well marked.

The anomaly pattern for February shows that the trough area that was
over NZ in January has shifted to stretch from the SPCZ to the eastern
part of the South Pacific. The subtropical ridge has increased by over
5hPa since January.

TROPICS
There are no named storms tonight. During the past week LINCOLN
brought generous amounts of rain to the parched lands over NW
Australia

WEATHER ZONES
The South Pacific Convergence zone is rebuilding in the Coral Sea.
A passing front is expected to cross New Caledonia on Monday. Another
may linger to southeast of Tahiti.

HIGHS and LOWS
HIGH H1 is lingering well to south of Tahiti .
Low L1 is tonight a deep low 960hPa near 55S and expected to travel
quickly northeast to be east of Chatham Island by midweek. Its
associated thundery fronts should cross NZ on Monday, and then a burst
of large SW swells in the Tasman Sea mainly on Tuesday. Avoid.
HIGH H2 is expected to move into the Tasman se by Wednesday then stop
and fade.
Another low L2 and associated fronts are expected to travel northeast
onto NZ area on Thursday and Friday.

Panama to Marquesas:
The northerly winds in Panama gulf are expected to extend as far as
5North this week.

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