Rain on West Coast – Backing off on rain but still windy Thursday and Friday

Updated model less wet for us.

Unlike California, which has declared a state of emergency due to the “bomb cyclone” that sent high winds and heavy rain to that state last night.

Here is the current satellite picture. You can see California is under cloud and is about to get a break.

The low has weakened and is now to the southwest of Vancouver Island. You can see it a little better in the Canadian satellite picture:

Heaviest Island rain heading north

The good news is this morning’s models expects the heaviest rains to actually miss Port Alberni and the south coast mostly. They will be more intense on the northern sections of the Island. Below is the 4-7PM period rainfall.

We still get rain, but not nearly as intense as previously expected as most of it goes towards Gold River.

However, it will still be a relatively long period of rain through Friday and you can expect gusty winds tonight and possibly Friday as well. There are already Wind Warnings up for West Coast areas. You can see the strong southerly winds off the Island in the 4-7PM picture above, with strong southeasterlies in the Straits.

Expect wind throughout the night on Friday night.

Below we can see another bout of wind on Friday afternoon in the 1-4PM period with strong southeasterlies along the coast.

It is always hard to know when the winds will punch their way up the Alberni Inlet, but usually it is the southerly and southeasterly winds that find their way to the Harbour. So I would expect Friday afternoon to be the windiest period for Port Alberni in particular.

One more quick bout of wind and rain will come through Friday night.

Showers will linger into Saturday. As I mentioned in the last post, we have more waves on the way for Sunday and Monday. So if you see a break in the weather, take advantage of it! 🙂

A WebCam

As you know from my tech updates over Christmas, the webcam is no longer operational. I am looking at alternatives, but given financial conditions right now, I won’t be able to purchase anything anytime soon. If you are at all interested and would like to donate a small amount to help purchase a new webcam I’d be extremely grateful. E-transfer to (chrisale at gmail dot com) would work. The new camera is about $US140 with shipping and whatnot.