Bobgram

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 15 Feb 2026

More about the outgoing La Nina

A good way to see how quickly this LA NINA episode is relaxing, and may soon be trending to an EL NINO
is to look at the sea temperatures at depth, as shown on the TAO website at www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/drupal/disdel/  .

This shows that the -2C pool just below the surface near 100W in January has disappeared in February. 
Also the +2 isotherm has nosed from 160W to 140W during the past month.

When the +2 isotherm rises to the surface neat 100W we will be moving into EL NINO conditions.
Meantime we can expect a few months with average Tradewinds and with Highs travelling along a subtropical ridge averaging between 30 and 40S .

Early this week we have a LOW deepening just southeast of central NZ as shown here:

Compare that Low with the one which flooded Tararua /Manawatu almost exactly 24 years ago in February 2004:

TROPICS

The latest cyclone activity report is at zoom.earth and tropic.ssec.wisc.edu and Tropical Cyclone Potential is from http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/products/ocean/tropical/tcfp/

GEZANI is expected to continue to linger near the south of Madagascar next few days.

At least 31 people were killed by high winds and flooding when Category-2 Cyclone Gezani caused extensive damage in northern Madagascar.

 . Cyclone Mitchell uprooted trees and knocked down street signs as it skirted northwestern Australia.

.WEATHER ZONES


   Rain accumulation this week from Windy.com below shows a South Pacific convergence Zone
that is active over the central Coral Sea and New Caledonia and another convergence zone
active over Southern Cooks and Austral Islands.

LOWS

L1 is southeast of central NZ tonight with multiple damage reports.
  L2 is expected swing SE from near Fiji to east of the North Island by midweek and mainly miss NZ.

L3 is expected to form south of Tahiti and travel off to the south


Wind accumulation from windy.com above shows the path of wind accompanying L1 and L2.

 Highs

High H1 stays quasi-stationary well south of Tahiti, blocking the Lows.

High H2 is expected to travel east along 40S, crossing Victoria /New South Wales on Wednesday /Thursday
and then central New Zealand slowly this weekend into mid of next week.
I think we may get an opportunity for sailing from Australia to NZ with this High, after several weeks of no-go.

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