Tuesday and Wednesday
Weather
Tuesday will be crazy windy, but it won’t take you by surprise because, by breakfast time, you will have already heard about 6 hours of extreme rattling and howling. The direction will be W’ly, the mean strength around gale force 8 and the max gusts between 60 and 65mph. The gales and the heavy showers will stick around through the morning. But the afternoon should be a slightly more mellow affair, with the showers likely giving way to sunny spells and the wind dropping off to force 5 to 6. Carrying on to Wednesday then, I’m afraid W’ly wind is going to strengthen again, probably holding around force 7 all day, with the showers becoming frequent, heavy and gusty again. Max temps 12-13°C, min temps 8-9°C.
Surf and the Water
Huge waves on Tuesday. Proper massive. 12-15 feet massive. Horrendous choppy onshore winds though, especially in the morning. Could be interesting to see if some clean and rideable waves are available at Pembroke or anywhere else (north or south) that can offer some serious shelter. Tides will be big (roughly 8.9m) and obviously very splashy between roughly 3:30 and 6:30 (AM and PM). If you’re a daily swimmer, then Fermain is really the only place that I can recommend, preferably towards dusk. Moving on to Tuesday, the waves probably won’t be big enough to really provide at those extremely sheltered spots. However, the wind will still be fierce, so the west coast will only be of interest to the most hardcore windsurfers. As for Wednesday’s high tides… roughly 40 minutes later than on Tuesday and about 20cm higher.
Thursday and Friday
Weather
Winds will still be strong force 7 right through Thursday, but the direction will be SSW’ly rather than W’ly, meaning that some places will feel more exposed than on the previous days, but a few other places might feel more sheltered. Weather-wise it’s looking like a dry morning, followed by a very wet afternoon. However, it would only take a tiny shift in the arrival time of that weather-front for us to end up with an entirely soggy day. Moving on to Friday, the wind will reduce to a force 5 WSW’ly. Usually that would be considered rather windy but in the context of this week it will feel relatively calm. Furthermore, the showers will be few and the sunny spells will be long, so you might even feel inspired to go for a pleasant afternoon walk! Max temps 12-13°C, min temps 8-9°C.
Surf and the Water
Thursday is looking crazy because the waves will be enormous again, almost as big as on Tuesday. However, the wind will be offshore on both the north and the west coast. That wind will be very difficult to manage though because it will be so strong. Good luck finding anywhere sheltered enough for a straight-forward epic session. Heavy boards are the way forward (double 12oz volan). Friday’s surf will be just as huge but the onshore wind will make most places proper messy then. The west coast will have some tidal issues for sure, perhaps worst of all on Friday morning, when the astronomical tide-height is 9.5m before factoring in any of the effects of pressure, surge or swell. Over on the east coast, Thursday’s S’ly wind is currently expected to coincide with low water at lunchtime, meaning that there probably won’t be any issues over there.
The Weekend
Weather
When the conditions are as changeable as this, my confidence levels are always low for the precise details, but generally high for the overall themes. In this case the overall theme for the weekend is looking almost the same as for Thursday and Friday. The exact timings and quantities of rainfall will no doubt vary a little, but we are generally looking at strong S’ly winds with rather a lot of rain on Saturday, followed by sunny spells, isolated showers and slightly gentler SW’ly winds on Sunday. As for the temperatures, no noticeable change there, with daily maxima staying around 12-13°C, and nightly minima staying around 8-9°C.
Surf and the Water
Everything looks set to simmer down a little in the surf department, leaving us with clean 4-6 foot west-coast waves on both days. Although still pretty massive (around 9.4m), the tides shouldn’t cause too much trouble with these conditions, although it would still be wise to drive very carefully along those usual west-coast stretches around sunrise and through breakfast time.
The next forecast update will be on Wednesday evening…
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