Forecasting the onset of coastal gales off Washington-Oregon

Offshore buoys have been shown to be useful in detecting the likelihood of coastal gales. Whenever the pressure difference between Astoria, Oregon and buoy 46005 is 9-mb or more, coastal gales for Wash1ngton should be considered. At times, however, a large pressure difference may be measured between Astoria and buoy 46005 and gales may occur many hours later, or in some cases, not at all. By applying screening regression to a large body of data, an objective technique was developed to determ1ne when storms were likely to produce coastal gales and the time to gale onset. The derived regression equations were tested on independent data from the winter 1980-81 season. John R. Zimmerman and William D. Burton. Includes bibliographical references (page 13).