Bob Blog 4 Feb

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 thanks probably to the warm rainwater flooding out to gulf of
Carpentaria. It is now a rain depression crossing central Australia.

Sea Surface temperature anomalies from psl.noaa.gov/map/clim/sst.shtml
There is now a stretch of warner than normal sea from Queensland to the
dateline and to the east of NZ. This may well herald a cyclone path over
next few weeks.

Average isobars for past month (below)
As far as the monthly averaged weather map is concerned, there has NOT been
much change during February.
The Siberian HIGH has expanded and intensified. In the Southern Hemisphere,
the subtropical ridge has weakened SW of Australia and over NZ .

The South Tasman Sea turned into a low breeding area during February. Apart
from that there wasn't much change around the globe.
The 1010 isobar has shifted south across Australia and New Caledonia and
northwards onto Tasmania and southern NZ .

TROPICS
KIRILLY reformed in Gulf of Carpentaria and moved into inland Australia and
is now a wet monsoonal low. There is a tropical depression in the Coral Sea
and it may deepen and move onto New Caledonia mid-eek.

WEATHER ZONES
The South Pacific Convergence zone is strong and lingers on north side of a
stretched-out trough linking a well-formed LOW L1 in the Coral Sea with a
low lingering between Niue and Aitutaki L2 and another briefly near Tahiti
mid-week: L3. Brace for lightning in the squalls with these lows and the
SPCZ.

HIGHS and LOWS
A Thundery trough crossed NZ on Saturday, opening the door so that NZ may
get some hot air from Australia in a slow-moving High next few days.
There is forecast to be a weak southerly change along East Coast around
Thursday, and a more significant trough by Saturday then another HIGH for
early next week.

Panama to Marquesas:
7 to 11 Feb are the better days for departure from Panama in order to
capture a burst of NE winds out across the Panama Gulf.

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