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Weather Bouys

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mmac
Navigator

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USA
168 Posts

Initially Posted - 02/02/2004 : 08:53:22

Happy Groundhog's Day everyone. I hope he gives you East Coast folks some good news. BTW does anyone know the sites for the weather bouys that give current sea conditions?

Mike in Sunny San Diego
Mara #1372 '79 fk sr SD/MB Fleet 7.
"All I ask is for a tall ship and a star to steer her by."

Edited by - on

dlucier
Master Marine Consultant

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Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
7583 Posts

Response Posted - 02/02/2004 : 09:19:53

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by mmac
 Happy Groundhog's Day everyone. I hope he gives you East Coast folks some good news.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

[url="http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Northeast/02/02/groundhog.day.ap/index.html"]Groundhog Day: Punxsutawney Phil predicts long winter[/url]

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ClamBeach
Master Marine Consultant

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3072 Posts

Response Posted - 02/02/2004 : 09:26:23

NOAA Weather Buoy home page...

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

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JimB517
Past Commodore

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USA
3285 Posts

Response Posted - 02/02/2004 : 13:03:47

Hi Mike, please check out these favorite links:

La Jolla Surfing Weather has bouy maps, live beach cameras, and tons of weather data. Always my first stop every day:
http://facs.scripps.edu/surf/weather.shtml

Mission Bay Boat Club has a live feed showing current wind and air temp right in MB

http://www.missionbayboatclub.com/weather.htm

Here's a link for the Southern CA Marine Forecasts

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sandiego/marine/marine.shtml

This takes you right to the Catalina Bouy

http://seaboard.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.phtml?$station=46025

CDIP is really cool because it shows a direction and wave period spectrum of all waves hitting the sensors:

http://cdip.ucsd.edu/cdip_htmls/quick.shtml

Here's a quick look at the weather for Imperial Beach (ery representative of offshore Mission Bay):

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?hourly=1& query=91932& yday=22& weekday=Friday

I also belong to this forum - a San Diego offshore fishing group. This is a great source of info on our local waters.

http://www.sandiegofishing.com/buddydb/

Great weekend of sailing, although I cancelled Saturday because the Tanner Bank bouy (60 nm offshore) was reading 17.5 foot waves and 35 knots gusting higher! I knew our local waters were going to be a mess.

Edited by - on

JimB517
Past Commodore

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USA
3285 Posts

Response Posted - 02/02/2004 : 13:10:39

By the way, using Microsoft Active Desktop, I automatically grab the La Jolla Surfing Weather color photo looking north from the Scripps Pier towards Blacks Beach. Every 15 minutes throughout the day this scene is updated and becomes my new desktop background.

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RichardG
Admiral

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990 Posts

Response Posted - 02/02/2004 : 16:06:48

Jim:

Those are a couple really interesting sites of which I was unaware.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">the Catalina Bouy<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Do you know roughly where that bouy is located in relation to West End, Two Harbors or Avalon?

I went out Saturday for a few hours. Although pretty lumpy and the wind more from the West than the usual Southwest, with just a reefed main and a little bit of jib left out, we moved along really well...any more wind, I would have been nervous. It was fairly warm, too. It was one of those days that the bigger full-keel boats love (and way outnumbered us lighter craft). Also looked like the seas made it tough for the guys searching for the plane that crashed off Cabrillo Beach.

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JimB517
Past Commodore

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USA
3285 Posts

Response Posted - 02/02/2004 : 16:16:16

Here's the map from La Jolla Surfing Weather, which shows the bouy I refered to as "The Catalina Bouy" It's the red dot, showing winds from the south east and swell 2.3 feet at 11 seconds.

It's really off the West End and more in the Santa Monica Bay. In this version of the map, you can click on any bouy and go straight to the data page, which includes real-time data and graphs of winds and waves over previous time periods.

Friday night I sailed out of the bay after work to find strong, gusty winds from every direction and quite rough seas (this after a Thursday evening sail that was just this side of heaven). With a west sky full of black clouds I decided not to anchor or even spend the night. Saturday morning the offshore bouys were reading 17.5 foot waves and winds in the 35 knot range! I stayed home and spent the day with Karen and the kids. Sunday I had a wonderful day of sailing - the best in a long time. The intial seas were about 6 feet but they laid down during the day. There was about 12 knots of wind from the west. I sailed to La Jolla and then Pt. Loma, never below 5.5 knots of boat speed and without excessive heeling or feeling like I should reef. I had all the fishing gear out but the water was dirty and did not look "fishy". As the afternoon waned, the seas glassed off and the winds dropped to about 5 or less. I sailed so I would have a dead down wind run back and then sailed wing and wing back with the genny poled out (that really helps - added about 1 to 1.5 knots of boat speed). Brought in the pole and sailed right into the slip. Much better than watching the game!

Edited by - JimB517 on 02/02/2004 17:02:56

RichardG
Admiral

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USA
990 Posts

Response Posted - 02/02/2004 : 17:47:45

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Saturday morning the offshore bouys were reading 17.5 foot waves and winds in the 35 knot range! <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Not sure what they were inshore, although I'm pretty certain they were calmer. I usually don't try to guess because I often hear broadly different estimates from different people of the wind speed and wave height on days I've witnessed them myself. But I usually start by looking at the treetops at my house, then go by my "nervous scale" on the boat from there. As my house is in the windshadow on the east side of the Palos Verdes Hill where normal 10-15 at the San Pedro Bouy produces just a little ruffling of the leaves here, on Saturday morning the leaves were blow'n pretty good, suggesting caution. But it was so pretty outside, we decided to give it a try. For fun...I'd say winds were about 20 with waves 3-6 (and steeper than usual), but started to die down a little on the way back in. Went out about 7 miles. Like I mentioned, conditions were on the upper end of my tolerance on the nervous scale -- any more and I would have turned back much sooner. Tried fishing some...just caught a bunch of kelp.

Glad to hear it was nice for you on Sunday. Conditions were flat and calm in my living room during the game (other than the kids playing and me shouting at the screen).

Edited by - on

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