Weather Archive for Saturday, 5/11/02
The 6K temp took a dive (down to 6° C Friday night) and was on the rebound as the airmass trended toward offshore subsidence. Santa Barbara looked potentially doable. Debbie was still indicating gust to about 15 from the NE at my decision time of 9 am, but the first cycles of the day were starting to stir and it looked like she would block. With the building high pressure, I was worried it may get inverted near the coast before we navigate down range to The Pass. The early flow also looked like the coast could have some early low level eddy flow from the SE.
Looks like SB was probably the call for long distance, but I let Art and Brendan push me off the fence and went for the sure thing in Ojai. Reports form SB indicate reasonably good action and altitudes in the low 4s on course. I think the wind came through from the west.
4 pilots hiked to the Nuthouse, and another 10 pilots took John Kloer's shuttle to Chiefs with Mike Dawson for crew
It was drawing light upriver when we started our climb from the base of The Nuthouse about 9:45. It was cycling in good at launch by the time I got up there an hour later. The initial climb was a little slow a bit after 11, but it was switched on over at Spine One by 11:30. Pilots were reporting over 6K off Chiefs about the same time. Most pilots were getting above 6K on course, but there was some north wind above that. I topped over 75 a couple of times, and was drifting pretty good from the north.
The high pressure thermals had some sharp edges, and I took a few tip folds. There was sheer in the transition zone to the upper NE flow, and the associated turb was cause to sit up.
All the usual spots seemed to work, including the upper Ojai convergence. Pilots easily climbed up the west side of Santa Paula Ridge. Santa Paula Peak worked good (I got to 76), but there was more than 10 knots of NE at altitude. Below 35 it was upriver from the west. There seemed to be convergence setting up over the ridge line of the Santa Paula Mountains, with thermals coming up both sides, but it wasn't the classic E/W (offshore/onshore) bridge that we get on a lot of Santa Anna Days. Lancaster was east all day on the deck, and there was a fire behind Kagel that was leaning out of the NE, but the Santa Clara River was drawing solid upriver all day at least all the way to Castaic Junction.
Pilots reported lift down in the river flow, both in the Santa Clara and the next valley south along Highway 118. Nobody reported climbing above the upriver flow once down in it.
Pilots flew the Rincon Coast but reported inversion and poor conditions.
There were whitecaps off Ventura later in the day, and the Avenue was soarable. The wind was straight in about 15 in places, but mostly upper wind with a lot of holes below it. The sheer line between the lower level light stuff and the 15 knots above had the expected surge. A hang glider might have been able to thermal up into better action, but on a slow paraglider I wasn't willing to track the thermals back over the ridge line due to unreliable penetration.