Question about Local Wind

When I started windsurfing at Cabrillo back at the end of '98, there were many days of overpowering conditions. As the years went by, those days get fewer and fewer. Even last season, there were many days I simply could not hold down my 6.7 sail. This year, there were about two. Now, if I go out on a 6.0, I risk being stranded or slogging. I was also able to sail way deep into October, this year, it's almost end of season. The Cabrillo old timers echo the same thing: it's getting lighter and ligher. They said back in the late 80's, early 90's, half of the season was 5.0 days. I have not seen a 5.0 day for 3 years.

For those who's been sailing for a long time, is it possible for a location to be progressive worse over a long time? Or is it just part of a bigger cycle? I sure hope things bounce back...

Dean, In a nutshell, it's called the Catalina Eddy... The harder it blows near Pt. Conception, just West of here, and in the Santa Barbara Channel, the more it will backwind down there, killing the potential for the normal thermal at Hurricane Gulch to develop. Water temps, inland temps and marine layer also have an effect... and are related...one thing is for certain...the wind will return... sooner or later... Lopez has been all time and Isabella is seeing great days... It's always nice when it blows in your backyard, though...

WARDOG

one thing is for certain...the wind will return...

Yeah, I hope the cycle is not 10 years

I noticed that too. I'm still quite away from Lopez though. They also require camp site reservation in advance. If it keeps getting worse, I could be moving to Maui in a couple of years..

I think we got your wind during July and the first three weeks of August. Central West Texas was blowing every day and the temperature was almost 10 degress less than normal. It was great. Then this past weekend, the temp started up toward the 100 degree mark and the heat killed the wind returning us to a typical August. Before is was like an extended spring. Now if the winds of September show up on time, we will have a year where only two or three weeks were not good

Could it be the new 5.0's are designed and tuned for higher winds? I just thought I'd throw that dumb comment in to remain consistent with my mantra that the gear has changed dramatically since last week, month, year..... not very funny.

not very funny... but very true! Good Point. Plus perceptions change. When you start sailing certain conditions, they may seem particularly big, windy, whatever... after a while you get used to it, and it's just not as exciting. When you look back, you remember how you felt then vs how you feel there now. Just another observation.

Another thing that could be affecting things currently is that we did begin another El nino period in July and that has been building since last year sometime. This certainly pushes warm water up the west coast (there was a huge el nino in 97) and warmer water could certainly affect thermal wind by decreasing the temperature differential between the wind and the land. There are also stronger than usual easterly tradewinds in the carribean right now and higher sea surface temperatures. I know in the corpus area we get alot of our southeasterlies from thermal aided western sides of high pressure areas over the atlantic or gulf and this also causes it to blow in the rest of south texas. If you really want to get technical about global climatology and its affect on weather (hurricanes in particular), check out the following link: It will give you an idea of how global weather patterns affect everything. http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/2002/ aug2002/ Wolfram