Round the island forecast

Meteorologist Libby Greenhalgh gives her views on what to expect on tomorrow's lap of the Isle of Wight

General Situation

An anticyclone centred over the English Channel will gradually slip eastwards maintaining a very moist light southerly backing southeasterly flow.

The very warm moist conditions underlying this anticyclone will mean a foggy misty start for the Round the Island with less than 5 knots likely for the early starters.

The main issue of the day being that the fog and misty conditions that will be maintained due to the continuation of the southerly flow. This will therefore limit the start of any thermal/ sea breeze wind.

Forecast.

As the sun rises and so does the temperature convective overturning will begin and the fog will gradually thin. But it is looking like a fairly late clearance around 1000 or 1100 in the morning.

Once this has cleared the sea breeze will try to develop with the usual southeasterly in the east of the Island and the southwesterly breeze to the west of the Island.

0600-0900 VRB mainly 140-180 05 knots

0900-1200 160 gradually veering to 210 05-08 knots in the west of the Solent. while in the east of the south the southeasterly sea breeze will be trying to dominate around 110-130 05-08 knots.

From midday onwards the fog should have lifted and to the south of the Island have receeded sufficiently and the southwesterly sea breeze will try to dominate for the rest of the period. This will not be a quik process and the battle between the southwesterly and the southeasterly will probably not have settled until 1500. The increasing southwesterly wind 12-15 knots will dominate and gradually veer round to 240 by 1600.

All in all a tricky days racing ahead that should end up with a fair bit of sunshine and reasonable sea breeze from the south west late on in the day. The temperatures will reach the low 20s in the Solent but feeling cooler to the south of the Island in mid teens.

See download the Bracknell synoptic chart for 0000GMT Saturday - click here or here for the 1200GMT chart.