BOBGRAM7 issued 14 March 2010

WEATHERGRAM
YOTREPS
Issued 14 Mar 2010
Bob McDavitt's ideas for sailing around the South Pacific.

Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas come from
the patterned world of weather maps, so please fine-tune to your place.
Dates are in UTC unless otherwise stated.

TROPICS
It's another busy week of weather in paradise this week.
TC TOMAS is now 975hPa near and west of Futuna, heading SSW and should
swing more to the south so that its centre crosses close to Udu point
east side of Vanua Levu and across the Lau group. It is a large cyclone
with a wide ring of gales. It should weak and accelerate as it leaves
the tropics passing by the Kermadecs on wed 17 March and then off to the
southeast.
TC ULUI is very compact - smaller in size than TOMAS, but more intense,
central pressure 945 hPa today and taking an unusual track to the
northwest so that it will bother some of the southern Solomon Islands
tonight and on Monday. Then it should wander west and then SW so that
it gets into the central Coral Sea by Wednesday and Thursday and feed
off its warmth and grow according. Then is should swing south getting
close to west-of-New Caledonia on Friday 19 March and as close as it'll
get to Queensland coast on Sat sun 20/21 March... EC model then takes
it towards Northland early next week around 22 March... too far away to
be sure yet so double check and plan accordingly.
There is a squash zone on the south side of ULUI, between it and the
subtropical ridge over southern Australia. This squash zone will be
generating strong winds and heavy swells that will peak off Brisbane
late in the week . Avoid.

SUBTROPICAL RIDGE:
HIGH cell lies south of French Polynesia PF and should slowly wander to
east this week, allowing TOMAS to track south along its western flank.
This High should maintain trade winds over PF and east to northeast flow
over the Cooks and Samoa.

HIGH 1035+ to east of Tasmania today should fade away as it noses to the
northeast so that it is a drawn-out ridge of just over 1020 hPa over
Northland by Friday 19 March. This ridge is expected to pull off to the
east of NZ over the weekend - following the path of the remains of TOMAS
from the south leaving a centre nose itself eastwards across.

TASMAN/NZ
We had a squally southerly over central NZ on Fri 12 March, as mentioned
in last weathergram. 60 to 70 knot onset in Wellington; and the roaring
40s have been gale force over southern NZ past few days, keeping the
oyster boast in harbour.

Next cold front and southerly change is expected to rip north across NZ
on Tue 16 Wed 17 March, preceded by SW and followed by gusty SE winds
then followed over the North island by lighter winds of a ridge on 18
and 19 March. The South island should get further weaker southerly
fronts on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. SO it's not settled.

The terms used are more fully explained in the METSERVICE Yacht Pack.
More info at http://weathergram.blogspot.com
Feedback to bob.mcdavitt@metservice.com