Njörðr

Njörðr is the name of the god of the wind in Norse paganism. When the old vikings went sailing they prayed to Njörðr for good winds and cast off their lines. Now days we pour over charts with isobars and radar images. We read NOAA's weather reports and predictions and listen to weather news on radio and TV. I'm not so sure these modern methods are any better that the Norse prayers.

Weather flows over the North American continent from west to east. What we sailors look at primarily are the high and low fronts that you see on the maps each evening on the local TV news and weather show. As we all know from Ben Franklin's experiments 200 years ago, rain storms and thunder storms suck, that is, they happen as a low pressure front crosses over us. Thus air rushes to fill the low (wind is out of the east because the front is approaching from the west) and we often have rain and/or unsettled weather.

We say that the wind is "clocking" around, that is, changing clockwise. So normally a north wind changes to NE and then east (watch out for rain now), then SE (this is when you start thinking about sailing east to Bahama) , then south, then SW, then west, then NW (you better be in a protected area or at least close because you know what's coming next), then North and it starts over. Of course if there is a big high pressure area close by who knows what will happen, it may just stall everything, cause the wind to back, and sailors beware.

Today the wind is out of the NE to east and I expect the wind to be out of the SE by Tuesday or so. This means that a window of opportunity for crossing will be here on Wednesday or Thursday. So if things go according to plan A, we'll spend Thanksgiving sailing and hopefully by next weekend be 150 miles east of Florida with anchors down. On the other hand, if Njörðr is feeling nasty, we may rent a car and go down to Key West and goof off for a few days.