Blog
Blog
11:21, March 25, 2008
Much like Scandinavia and Western Europe, we are also wondering what happened to Spring here in Lanzarote. It seems that winter wasn’t quite finished with us and decided to return to the Canary Islands. Fortunately, here in Lanzarote we are not suffering nearly as much as our friends in relatives back home. While temperatures have cooled from what we had in late February and earlier this month, we are still able to get by with little more than a jumper onshore and a spray jacket offshore.
This cool down is the result of a strong polar low which settled over Scandinavia and northern Europe late week. The trajectory of air flow has been direct from the Arctic all the way to the southwest Europe and, most recently, on down to the Canary Islands. Fortunately, the air flow is significantly modified on its journey south, so our temperatures are still able to make it to 20C in the afternoon. Not too bad, really!
This cooler weather pattern has been good news for the Ericsson sailing program. The strong low pressure over Europe has contrasted with high pressure over the northeast Atlantic Ocean to produce a moderate flow of northeasterly trade winds. Recent days have seen winds ranging from 15-25 knots across the area, and only minor changes are expected in this pattern through the next week. While we may see some lighter winds on Friday and Saturday (along with a return to more Spring-like temperatures), another big blow is expected Sunday and Monday.
Blog
11:27, March 4, 2008
The Volvo Ocean Race weather laboratory here in the Canary Islands continues to serve up a wide variety of conditions for testing our two Volvo 70s. Most recently, it has been relatively windy and we are expecting this trend to continue well into next week. While Europe has suffered through intense storms and wild weather changes this winter, we normally receive only the lingering debris of those storms and any bad weather is quite short-lived.
To determine the degree to which European weather systems will impact our wind here in Lanzarote, I monitor something called the North Atlantic Oscillation or NAO. By tracking the NAO, the importance of the Azores high pressure – which is needed to drive the usual northeast trade winds – can be gaged. The NAO is essentially a measure of the surface pressure difference between the Azores and Iceland. When the index is positive, our weather in Lanzarote is dominated by NE trade winds. Alternatively, when the index is negative, the Azores high is weak and our winds tend to lighter and/or much more variable.
At the moment, the NAO is in a strong positive phase, which essentially means a well established high pressure is situated west of Europe near the Azores. This helps keep the trade winds going at a good pace here in the eastern Canary Islands. Earlier in February, when the Ericsson boats made their round trip between Lanzarote and Barcelona, the NAO was in a neutral or slightly negative phase. As a result, the weather was unusual and changeable during that trip – with mostly light winds on the way to Barcelona and strong, sometime stormy winds on the way back.
The forecast calls for the NAO to stay in a positive phase for the next week to ten days. This should be good news for the sailors as they work to take advantage of every minute of useable winds for testing sails, tuning boats, and crew practice.
Blog
12:01, February 22, 2008
Until recently, "liquid lead" sunscreen protection has been the go here in Lanzarote. But over the last few days, the sun has been well hidden by thick cloud cover. This even prevented our ability to enjoy the Lunar Eclipse which would have been visible in the early hours of Thursday morning. A real pity. All this cloud is due to an trough in the upper atmosphere which has done a nice job of hooking up with a very wet sub-tropical jet stream. This jet stream is bringing heaps of moisture northeast from the tropics and directly over the Canary Islands. There is enough moisture in the air to produce something else we don't see often - rain! Although not heavy, there has been enough rain around to wash the dust off most things and keep us wearing our Helly Hansen wet weather gear. The winds have been disappointing as well. After a long period of moderate NE-SE breezes, the upper atmospheric trough has killed the wind here. The Volvo Ocean Race weather laboratory normally supplied by the Canary Islands has been on holiday. However things are looking up. The cloud should clear out over the weekend and we can expect strong northeast trade winds next week. Everyone is excited about that!