This weekends sailing forecast

Our resident meteorologist, Libby Greenhalgh, has a look at what's in store for Solent sailors this weekend

A deep low pressure centred off Greenland will dominate the weekends weather as the glorious day of Thursday is washed away by wet and windy conditions with the wind strength reaching gale force on late Sunday. The low centre will push towards the UK throughout Saturday and Sunday producing stronger winds across the weekend with a cold front providing wetter conditions on Sunday afternoon.

The general south south west direction will mean that there will distinct funnelling effects between the Island and the mainland with the western end of the Solent providing an increase in wind strength of about 2-5knots. While land effects will be noted around Calshot as the wind is forced round.

Saturday 9am: Start the day off with 15knots from the west which will quickly back and increase in wind strength. By 11am the wind will have backed towards the southwest (240) and will be reaching 20 knots. Across the afternoon the wind direction will continue to back eventually settling on the southwest by late afternoon. The mean wind strength will remain around 20knots with gusts reaching 30knots at times.

The Solent should remain dry across the day with rain expected in on Sunday when the cold front pushes across.

Sunday 9am will start off dry and windy with a similar direction and a slight in increase in strength of wind to that at the end of Saturday, around 25knots from the southwest. Conditions will be gustier with the approaching cold front producing some significant cloud structures, which in turn will provide rain and shifty conditions. The cold front will push across early afternoon between one and two which will see the wind veer over proceeding hour to a west southwest direction and remain strong at 35knots. Watch out for the lowering of the cloud base as the cold front approaches, along with large cumulonimbus clouds structures that will be producing gusty conditions at their edges.




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