All about the West Seattle neighborhood around Beach Drive
Stay tuned for BDB's newest segment on fire-pit cooking! I'll be sharing original and classic recipes along with accessory reviews and fire-side chat with special guests.
Beach Drive's pet squirrel "Peanut" does a great job of unveiling the star of the show, the Fire Pit Master 5000.
Scupper
Coming down off Jacobson hill last night around 5:30, I figured the wind was blowing around 40 mph by the way the waves were reacting to the wind. It's Scupper here to review how waves can tell you how hard its blowing on our neck of Puget Sound.
Flat mirror like water translates to winds at…zero
Waves just starting to crest with a cap translates to winds at…about 10mph
Sporadic white caps across the water translates to winds at…about 15mph
White caps just about everywhere translates to…about 20-25mph
Large waves with some spray blowing off the white caps translates to…25-30mph
Consistent streaks of spray & foam blown off the waves…30-40mph (what I saw coming down off the hill!)
Beyond what's described above results in denser foam/spray off the waves and indicates gale force to what the Beaufort Scales would consider "storm" conditions.
Scup
Ok, settle down you old salty dogs, these aren't the fair-weather countersunk sailors you see sunning themselves on the decks of 50 ft. sailboats. We're talking about weather classifications.
We hear the terms "small craft warnings" or it's "blowing a gale" often enough to take a more detailed look at what these terms really mean as far as wind speed and water conditions. Let's start with small craft warnings.
There are no exact definitions for small craft warning and therefore is subjective to the local marine area. Let's call it lower 20 to just over 30 mph winds where my neighbor Pat may want to delay his standing paddle surfing gig for another day. You could expect 2-4 foot waves with white caps out on the sound for at least a couple of hours.
When neighbor Jeff tells his wife "simmer down Agnes", there's usually a gale predicted to blow on www.beachdriveblog. You can expect winds in the lower 30 to upper 40 mph range. Waves come in at 4 to 6 feet commonly sending spray onto Beach Drive over Emma Schmitz park.
I'm currently in a dense fog of creeping crud caught from my sons that brought it in from high school…
Scupper
Editors Note: Please welcome a new contributor to Beach Drive Blog who is writing under the alias of "Scupper". Scupper is a Beach Drive resident and we look forward to more colorful post. If you live in the Beach Drive neighborhood and are interested in contributing to the blog, please let us know!
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