Wednesday
Weather
Another cloudy and windy day, with rain at times, mainly early morning and the evening. The wind will be a force 5 to 6 WSW’ly and it will bring mild air to the islands, hovering around 12°C day and night, so at least you won’t have to wear too many layers or have the heating on full crank. However, the downside of that mild air is that it is prone to mist and hill fog, so there might well be a couple of delays to aircraft movements, especially in the morning and the evening.
Surf and the Water
The surf will be about 6-8 feet and rather choppy on the west coast. There could be some small but rideable waves up north though. Swimming conditions will definitely be best along the east coast, especially down at Fermain. Low water will be around 11am and high water will be around 5pm (7.8m).
Thursday and Friday
Weather
The wind will stay SW’ly both days (generally just a moderate force 4, until it picks up to near gale force on Friday night). Also similar to Wednesday, the temperature will stay very close to 12°C throughout. There is certainly some difference in the weather between Thursday and Friday though… Thursday will be misty, murky and drizzly all day long (much like Wednesday) and then Friday will be refreshingly drier and brighter, perhaps almost as sunny as Monday was. Be sure, therefore to make the most of Friday then, because these moments are proving to be very few and far between.
Surf and the Water
The west-coast surf will generally be around 6 feet, but there could be an 8 foot pulse on Friday morning, which might mean that the north coast is rideable at that time too. Wave quality should be reasonably good as the cross-shore breeze won’t be especially strong. The low tides will be around midday and the high tides will all be during the hours of darkness, growing day by day but never getting particularly big, with the biggest high only being 8.4m around 6am on Friday.
The Weekend
Weather
Apart from a spell of persistent rain around dawn on Saturday, the weather will be more of a sunshine and showers affair. It has to be said though that the showers are looking frequent and heavy, and the sunny intervals are looking very brief at the moment. Therefore, I shouldn’t be expecting anything particularly pleasant, especially when you add in the wind detail… close to gale force in strength, with gusts in the order of 45-50mph near showers (SSW’ly on Saturday, veering WSW’ly through Sunday).
Surf and the Water
The west-coast surf will generally be about 8-10 feet and fairly clean, although it looks like there will be a 12-15 foot pulse on Sunday, meaning that the north coast will rally be the place to go on that day. High tides will be just before dawn (8.6m and 8.7m respectively) and low tides will be in the early afternoons. Swimming conditions will always be best along the east coast, especially at Fermain.
Next Week
Weather
With winds mainly W’ly and only occasionally SW’ly, this means that we should see similarly mild air but with sunshine, showers and rainbows being the most common daily weather, and only a couple of spells of more persistent rain. That said, some of those showers or longer spells of rain are likely to be heavy, so big puddles and difficult travel conditions will be a continuing theme. Furthermore, the winds will be strong to gale force at times, meaning that cross-Channel conditions will remain very difficult as well.
Surf and the Water
The surf will stay massive through Monday and then it will be a more ordinary shade of large through the rest of the week. Winds will come from the SW at times but they will be W’ly for the majority of the week, meaning that west-coast conditions will be rather messy on the whole, so surfers should look for as many north coast opportunities as possible. Tides will be gradually declining in size, with the largest high being 8.6m around breakfast time on Monday and the smallest being 7.5m on Friday night.
The next forecast update will be on Saturday morning…
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Swim Conditions
Ormering
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