Current Conditions: You are between the previous cold front and the tail of a secondary, trailing cold front. The ASCAT pass at 22:12 UTC 12 March indicates that the winds are generally westerly at 5 to 15 knots, which is consistent with a ship report to your west taken at 18 UTC. The ship report and others in the area indicate temperatures in the mid 70’s F and about 50% cloud cover. Significant wave height is from the north at 3 to 4 meters and a peak wave period of 11 to 13 second and a primary swell period of slightly longer.
Short term forecast (12-24 hours): As the secondary front passes, you may get some scattered showers, but the frontal boundary is weak and the wind shift likely will not be dramatic. The winds will weaken and become more northerly, potentially to below 12 kts. Through 24 hours, though, the winds will have a small westerly component. Significant wave height will slowly begin to decrease and temperatures should remain fairly steady, though it may begin to become less humid and the sky will be clearer.
Longer term (36-48 hours): As the large, North Atlantic weather system that brought you both fronts moves off to the east, the winds will continue to weaken to less than 10 kts but still out of the north. Significant wave height will reduce to 2 to 3 meters and the clouds will build again. Near the end of the forecast period, you may start picking up a westerly component to the winds again, but the clouds will also start to clear.
Current discussion: You don’t appear to be near any major ocean eddies and the current forecast is for weak and variable currents, so it is unlikely that our forecasts are accurate.
Note: You have now rowed far enough west that the National Weather Service tropical weather discussions are beginning to cover your location. Hooray! We’ll have some professional opinions to draw from!
Forecaster Brown