This post is mostly to summarize the weather patterns associated with the storm simply for future reference. Keeping a good record of how the weather played out and the resulting birds may help predict seabird events in the future.
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Three big things I learned that day:
- that seabird numbers can and do increase during daylight
- winds don't need to be 60+km/h overnight to get storm-petrels into Holyrood
- visibility (i.e. fog/drizzle) plays a big factor as to whether the birds stay in Holyrood regardless of wind strength
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-----------------The Boring Data------------------
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Speed of max gust at the St. John's Airport was 54 km/h on Aug 28, and 72 km/h on Aug 29.
Here's the data from the St. John's Buoy which is just North of Cape Spear:
| Date & Time | Average Wind Speed (knots) | Peak Wind Speed (knots) | Wind Direction From (degrees) |
| 8/29/2014 12:23:01 | 29.14 | 38.85 | 6.2 |
| 8/29/2014 11:53:01 | 27.78 | 35.16 | 1.2 |
| 8/29/2014 11:23:01 | 29.92 | 36.52 | 6.2 |
| 8/29/2014 10:53:01 | 29.14 | 38.07 | 10.2 |
| 8/29/2014 10:23:01 | 28.75 | 36.71 | 15.2 |
| 8/29/2014 9:53:01 | 28.56 | 37.49 | 16.2 |
| 8/29/2014 9:23:01 | 27.78 | 32.83 | 19.2 |
| 8/29/2014 8:53:01 | 27.97 | 34.77 | 18.2 |
| 8/29/2014 8:23:01 | 26.81 | 32.83 | 26.2 |
| 8/29/2014 7:53:01 | 27.58 | 33.99 | 27.2 |
| 8/29/2014 7:23:01 | 27.97 | 34.38 | 31.2 |
| 8/29/2014 6:53:01 | 25.45 | 30.69 | 29.2 |
| 8/29/2014 6:23:01 | 25.45 | 33.99 | 38.2 |
| 8/29/2014 5:53:01 | 24.67 | 29.53 | 42.2 |
| 8/29/2014 5:23:01 | 25.64 | 31.27 | 45.2 |
| 8/29/2014 4:53:01 | 27 | 33.41 | 40.2 |
| 8/29/2014 4:23:01 | 25.64 | 30.3 | 39.2 |
| 8/29/2014 3:53:01 | 24.09 | 28.56 | 42.2 |
| 8/29/2014 3:23:01 | 24.09 | 29.33 | 37.2 |
| 8/29/2014 2:53:01 | 24.86 | 29.14 | 36.2 |
| 8/29/2014 2:23:01 | 22.34 | 27.97 | 31.2 |
| 8/29/2014 1:53:01 | 18.26 | 22.14 | 27.2 |
| 8/29/2014 1:23:01 | 17.48 | 22.92 | 18.2 |
| 8/29/2014 0:53:01 | 17.09 | 20.79 | 22.2 |
| 8/29/2014 0:23:01 | 16.51 | 20.01 | 16.2 |
| 8/28/2014 23:53:01 | 13.79 | 16.9 | 11.2 |
| 8/28/2014 23:23:01 | 14.37 | 18.45 | 29.2 |
| 8/28/2014 22:53:01 | 13.79 | 17.29 | 34.2 |
| 8/28/2014 22:23:01 | 14.37 | 18.45 | 33.2 |
| 8/28/2014 21:53:01 | 15.93 | 20.2 | 40.2 |
| 8/28/2014 21:23:01 | 14.96 | 19.23 | 38.2 |
| 8/28/2014 20:53:01 | 14.76 | 18.07 | 41.2 |
| 8/28/2014 20:23:01 | 13.79 | 17.09 | 40.2 |
| 8/28/2014 19:53:01 | 14.18 | 17.09 | 36.2 |
| 8/28/2014 19:23:01 | 14.76 | 17.68 | 34.2 |
| 8/28/2014 18:53:01 | 13.21 | 15.54 | 35.2 |
| 8/28/2014 18:23:01 | 12.24 | 14.57 | 30.2 |
| 8/28/2014 17:53:01 | 12.63 | 15.93 | 35.2 |
| 8/28/2014 17:23:01 | 12.24 | 15.73 | 38.2 |
| 8/28/2014 16:53:01 | 12.63 | 14.96 | 31.2 |
| 8/28/2014 16:23:01 | 13.02 | 15.73 | 28.2 |
| 8/28/2014 15:53:01 | 12.24 | 14.76 | 24.2 |
| 8/28/2014 15:23:01 | 11.66 | 14.37 | 34.2 |
| 8/28/2014 14:53:01 | 12.04 | 14.57 | 30.2 |
| 8/28/2014 14:23:01 | 12.24 | 15.35 | 28.2 |
| 8/28/2014 13:53:01 | 13.21 | 15.93 | 35.2 |
| 8/28/2014 13:23:01 | 13.4 | 15.93 | 38.2 |
| 8/28/2014 12:53:01 | 11.27 | 13.79 | 32.2 |
| 8/28/2014 12:23:01 | 12.04 | 14.18 | 33.2 |
According to this data, winds were 46km/h on average and gusts up to 63km/h around sunrise from 38 degrees (NNE).
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---------------------Wind Maps--------------------
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A series of wind maps starting at 3:30pm August 28.
At 3pm on the 28th winds were from the NE (70 degrees) and were blowing at 33km/h at the mouth of CBS:
Around midnight they were up to 42 km/h still from the NE (70 degrees):
At 3:30am winds were up to 51 km/h (55 degrees):
At 6:30am (around sunrise) winds were now up to 58km/h (55 degrees). The first birders arrived on the scene shortly after this to see about 300 storm-petrels in the bay:
At 9:30am winds apparently dropped to 45km/h at the mouth of the bay but were from a more NNE direction (35 degrees):
At 12:30pm winds were now 52km/h at the mouth of CBS at 30 degrees:
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----------------------The Birds---------------------
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Holyrood eBird list:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19608492
Storm-petrels: low hundreds around sunrise, increasing throughout the morning to the high thousands (up to 10000 in total)
Jaegers/skuas: First one seen around 9:45am. Ian picked out a skua sp. at the same time I found a Pomarine Jaeger. Another 5-10 jaegers seen in the next 10 minutes including 4 adult Pomarine Jaegers seen flying against the wind without much difficulty. Other jaegers seen sporadically over the next 2 hours. A probable immature Great Skua seen exiting CBS from Cape St. Francis around 2:45pm.
Gannets: a few seen at sunrise. Didn't seem like numbers of gannets increased throughout the morning.
Terns: Up to 10 terns, the ones seen well enough were identified as Common Tern.
Phalaropes: None. They should have been there though...
Gulls: not many at sunrise. A slight increase by noon perhaps associated with the fact that storm-petrels were starting to die due to exhaustion = easy food for the gulls.
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------------------Until Next Time-----------------
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That's all. Hopefully some day this data will come in handy for me or someone else trying to predict what a Northeast storm might carry with it.
