Calm before the Weekend Storm

Murphy has reared his ironic head and ensured that what looks like the strongest storm of the winter so far will appear when my weather station is offline.

Oh well, we can still admire it coming, revel in its effects, and watch other sources for the details (he says through gritted teeth :))

The next two days, Wednesday and Thursday are going to be quite nice. And compared to what is coming for the weekend, it will be very nice indeed… Unless of course you like storms, which if you follow this blog, you may!

So here we go:

First the GFS model

The rain and wind will hit on Friday evening. I would expect wind and possibly rain
warnings to be posted Friday morning for the West Coast. We likely will not get wind warnings on Central Vancouver Island but the East and South Coasts are more likely. The arrows emphasize the points of strongest winds and rains which should be around 7AM Saturday (the hour will likely shift a bit between now and then)

The first storm will ease Saturday afternoon. Then the next will come through Sunday night into Monday morning.

What I find most interesting about these storms is where they are coming from.

Instead of the usual train of systems curling up from the West and South and slamming into our Central and North coasts, these systems are coming down from the Gulf of Alaska and sinking down along the coast before turning East into land. This is kinda new for me… At least in the strength of them.

Here is the European model (considered the best in the world) showing Monday mornings storm.

I’ve drawn the arrow to show the winds along the pressure lines. You can also see the low pressure centre up off the Charlottes and another up in the Gulf which is where these lows seem to be generating from.

In my very limited experience ive found these southbound systems to be weaker and come in the winter time and bring us snow… But there will be no snow this time and it is far from weak. Just goes to show there is much to learn!

So, batten down the hatches. The weekend should be fun, and I will see if I can’t russel up some current conditions to display on the front page while my station is under repair.

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Alberniweather Blog (Chris)

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