This weekend's weather

Solent sailing forecast by The Daily Sail meteorologist Libby Greenhalgh

The high pressure weather that we have been enjoying for Thursday and Friday will continue throughout the weekend. With a large scale high pressure system centred over Denmark and no strong low pressure features developing in the North Atlantic the strong southwesterly winds of last weekend will not be troubling us. A cooler lighter wind with a strong easterly element to it will be seen.

Saturday will dawn with clear skies and an easterly wind of around 15 knots. There will an increase in the wind strength of up to five knots between 11am and 3pm while the direction will remain constant. The speed at which a high pressure system moves and the lack of frontal features will mean no significant change in the wind strength and speed on a synoptic scale across Saturday.

Sunday will see slight decrease in the wind strength at about 12knots with the direction veering slightly towards the south east. The wind will increase slightly across the late afternoon, but otherwise remain constant.

The key to this weekend will be the shifty conditions caused by the wind bouncing out onto the sea from the land. There will be wind bends causing the wind to veer across the sea nearer the shore (in theory 20˚) as friction in reduced.

Below is a synoptic chart for midnight Sunday showing surface pressure (light blue lines) and precipitation (pink shaded zones).