Weather Basics is the topic of Sail MV's next Zoom talk, March 10, with Brian Whitely of Weather Routing Inc.
Friday, July 26: Rainy wet morning. Torrential shower overnight. One inch of rain falls from 1 to 2 a.m. Leaden grey morning. Puddles abound in all the down-Island roads. Colorful umbrellas and raincoats decorate Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs. More rain in the afternoon. Drizzle. Light showers in West Tisbury. Pink skies in the west, at dusk. Overcast.
Friday, July 19: Hazy. Fog over Edgartown harbor. A hot sun burns through the fog for a warm, sunny summer morning. The sky over Dogfish Bar is filled with avian friends, flying terns. Strong wind at the Gay Head cliffs overlook.
While Cape Cod and much of the eastern United States sweltered under the blanket of a heat wave, Islanders and visitors, though still uncomfortably hot, suffered more from the high humidity this week. Temperatures peaked at 90 degrees, not unusually high for July according to National Weather Service meteorologist Kimberly Buttrick, but the high humidity is unusual.
Tides will run higher and lower than normal this weekend and well into next week and it is tied mostly to two astronomical events. The moon is full on Monday, and it will be especially close, in perigee, on Sunday.
The gravitational pull of both the moon and sun create our tides. When the moon is particularly close, tidal pull is more extreme so tides run higher and lower than normal.
We had the same thing happen only a month ago, but slightly more extreme. Last month full moon and perigee were on the same day.
Friday, July 12: Gray and muggy morning. Temperature rises to the 70s. Threat of rain but none arrives. Little sailboats decorate the waters near the Edgartown Lighthouse. A fleet of sailing dinghies zigzag in the outer Edgartown Harbor, passing around bright floating orange buoys. Farland Square in Oak Bluffs is bustling with pedestrian traffic in the late afternoon.
Friday, July 5:
Hot and sunny. Strong southwest wind. Large and small sailboats handle the winds by reefing their sails. Competitive sailing in the outer waters of Edgartown Harbor. Spinnakers come out in afternoon. Pretty evening. Starry night.
