Cooking up a cyclone
As the June to November hurricane season evolves, attention will gradually focus on certain conditions of…
Crossing the Doldrums
For centuries sailors dreaded the aptly named Doldrums. This band of windless, hot, and humid weather near the equator could stall sailing ships for weeks, driving the crew to distraction with the monotony and sometimes even leading to the…
NOAA upgrades its global weather model
On March 22, 2021, NOAA announced that the National Weather Service (NWS) would use a…
Weather: Comma Cloud Systems (Low Pressure Systems)
From the Ocean Navigator School of Seamanship weather course A comma cloud system is really nothing more than a more descriptive name for a cyclone or low-pressure system. Learning to recognize the elements…
Weather: Keeping Score on Hurricane Names
In the last newsletter I speculated on the possible retirement of hurricane names over the past two Atlantic hurricane seasons. Recall that it is the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that generates the lists of names that are used for tropical…
Weather, October 2020
Omega blocks Upper atmosphere winds, blowing across the earth from west to east at speeds from 50 to 150 knots, help create and influence surface weather. Viewed from above Earth, these winds move along paths resembling ocean waves in profile.…
Planning, communication and flexibility
Weather routers provide services to ocean voyagers for passages all around the globe.
The eye of the butterfly
June’s arrival marked two significant weather periods, the beginning of “summer” and the June-November hurricane season, both raising the possibility of stormy weather and the more important question: What kind of storm?
Basics of the 500-millibar chart
One of the more useful weather charts in additional to surface analysis and forecast charts is the 500-millibar chart.
Weathering the pandemic
The global coronavirus pandemic has affected all of our lives in countless ways, and ocean voyagers are no exception.
Hurricane Humberto
The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season has been rather active so far, and the historic peak of the season, which is Sept. 10, is two weeks in the rear-view mirror at the time of this newsletter.
Heading north or south
As we have passed the summer solstice, many U.S. ocean voyagers may be heading north or south of the border.
