Poignard
Well-Known Member
Thanks.
Equinoctial gale?
- Thread starter Kukri
- Start date
Thanks.
Daydream believer
Well-Known Member
Can you rewrite that please. I am off to Dover from Bradwell tomorrow ( Sunday) & Boulogne on Monday. I will forget Dieppe as wind in wrong direction, but I would like a nice sail back to Bradwell by weekend, please. Up the chuff is OK, but not 30Kts
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Frank Holden
Well-Known Member
However I do think that the equinox has a lot to do with the weather.... in that as the sun 'moves' from north to south and back again it drags the big semi permanent highs with it. The effect of this is.. in my op... felt most in the 'transitional' lats... in the S. Hemisphere the 40's... weather in that part of Chile goes from NW in summer to S'ly in winter as the SE Pacific high moves back and forth.
It is very noticable in Bass Strait as the high over the continent moves south and then back again. Equinoctial gales a very much a thing...
While land gales are not so common the rainfall is a measure of it , wettest months down on the campo in SE Oz are typically March into late April and again August and September ( the campo is in 38º S).
Maybe 30 years ago Mike Harris, the Yotreps man, had a small piece published in PBO... an ancient Mediterranean weather 'Almanac' he had found which ran along the lines of ' on the 5th day after the 2nd full moon it shall blow a stinker from the west'.... seems it still holds true most of the time today.
For Bass Strait you don't need the weather man to tell you that 5 days after the southern summer solstice (Boxing Day) it shall start raining and a full SW gale shall get away on the 6th day....
My childhood Boxing Days involved sitting in a tent by the seaside, wet sand everywhere, surrounded by new 'beach toys'... goggles, fins, snorkel..... wishing someone had thought to give me a book....
And we all know what invariably happens in the eastern approaches to Bass Strait on the 6th day....
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GHA
Well-Known Member
Well, after a while on google seems probably not.... Not that specific anyway. Averaging out the 'best' weather is around midsummer and 'worst' is mid winter with a fairly even curve between , there isn't a spike just when the sun's geographical position happens to cross the equator. Though those days are memorable dates so our pattern loving brains remember events which happened then rather than some random Wednesday afternoon.
Interestingly now doing an at least 3rd reread of the fantastic modern marine weather by David Burch - the itcz is getting wider, the NH ocean highs are tending to be a bit further north as are the averaged out depression tracks as the planet gets warmer.
DoubleEnder
Well-Known Member
Yeah yeah in Faversham natives are a quid each, rocks 40p each!
BigJoe
Well-Known Member
Or maybe autumn gale would be a better term. Equinoctial gales are a myth. Our cavemen brains do love to see patterns which don't actually exist
Meteorological Office:
“The implication… that gales are either more frequent or more severe near the equinoxes than at other times is not supported by observations. In all parts of the British Isles, for example, the peak frequency of moderate or severe gales is near the winter solstice and the minimum frequency near the summer solstice.”
Kukri
Well-Known Member
And today, bang on cue, we had what might not technically have been a gale but was certainly Thoroughly Miserable.
GHA
Well-Known Member
Kukri
Well-Known Member
I am not an un-biassed observer! I have a boat eating her head off in a Solent marina and I want her home on the East Coast as soon as possible, but the weather is not co-operating!
LONG_KEELER
Well-Known Member
I think you have mentioned September gales in previous year/years . I think you are probably right
Am based in the West Country at the moment. It‘s horrible . Still quite warm though.
[70521]
Well-Known Member
Woke this morning to rain of biblical proportions.
Stemar
Well-Known Member
Likewise, plus a power cut. 
Memo to self: Dig out that camping stove that one of the kids has left in the loft. I don't do well without my coffee
All the same, a bit breezy yesterday, but certainly not a gale.
Getting back to weather patterns, it does seem to me that the first couple of weeks of September are often pretty decent, often better than August.
Memo to self: Dig out that camping stove that one of the kids has left in the loft. I don't do well without my coffee
All the same, a bit breezy yesterday, but certainly not a gale.
Getting back to weather patterns, it does seem to me that the first couple of weeks of September are often pretty decent, often better than August.
Roberto
Well-Known Member
A bit beyond astro dates (and possibly sensible forecast horizon), a little storm bowling with the Azores
animation of ensemble runs
animation of ensemble runs
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GHA
Well-Known Member
Wet and windy last year on 15th sept, obviously the middle of september gales cause by the sun being somewhere 
Kukri
Well-Known Member
In the distant era BC ("Before Children") I used to make a point of picking the first two weeks of September for a cruise.
Having almost arrived at After Dependency, I have gone back to that, but this year thanks to a steering gear issue I got caught out with the boat 223 miles from home...
Having almost arrived at After Dependency, I have gone back to that, but this year thanks to a steering gear issue I got caught out with the boat 223 miles from home...
[70521]
Well-Known Member
I'm off to the Solent this weekend, a rare and terrifying event due to the number of boats, a F8/F9 in the shipping forecast for Wright. Nothing to do with the nudge of energy as the earth starts wobbling the other way?
Thistle
Well-Known Member
Exactly! Nothing to do with the equinox per se but at this time of the year we often get the remnants of hurricanes making their way across the Atlantic and hitting us as high winds, perhaps gales.
Frank Holden
Well-Known Member
Ditto in Bass Strait and thereabouts..... first two weeks of March = Good.. however..
Anyone making hard arrangements involving going afloat or even going camping from mid March through to the first week of April is brave indeed. For landsmen the Autumn Break, for marineros the equinoctial gales.... a general term..
If it was set in concrete that it would blow on the 21st it would be known as 'The Equinox Gale' ....it isn't.. it is more flexible than that.
Very easy to spot the change in the weather in autumn at 'around the time of the equinox'... not so easy in the spring.
Currently in Antofagasta after a very fast run up from Valdivia... very fresh right up to the TofC... but I think that was just 'weather'.
