Storms & Kiting

[RickI]

TS Hanna is about to head across the Atlantic to Europe. It never turned into much of a hurricane which is a good thing. Still, lots of rain, areas of flooding, sustained winds and squalls swept up the coast. Some believe tropical systems once they head north into cooler waters smooth out and become less of a threat to kiting interests. Look over the wind plots below and see what you think. These wind meter stations may catch the gusts and lulls or may not, have measurement errors related to certain directions or erratic high winds at times.. A few miles away things can be a lot lighter or stronger particularly if the winds are related to squalls which can be local in influence. Some of the ikitesurf stations went down yesterday in Hanna's winds, so you can't say what went on after that point. The one thing you can say for certain, is that you really don't know what sort of winds some systems and squalls will toss out until they do. Pick your riding weather well, plan for great sessions and work to avoid the bad ones.

[RickI]

Looks like there were rideable conditions in some areas in fairly large holes or no squalls at all the day before and after (today) in some areas. How did folks do?

[humandrive]

In Wilmington, NC we had 30-35 mph with gust to 45 mph or so Saturday morning. Not too many lulls so that helped. Throughout the day the wind died off to almost zero that evening. Stayed gusty (10 mph gust over average) as long as there was wind.

I was out on a 5m Fuel '05 and had a great time in the morning. The gusts never really seemed too much even in the gusts. Had I been on a bigger kite there would have been problems, but with the right size kite high winds aren't too much of a problem.

[I Like Ozone Kites]

7am was 27 knts in LI 8-10 footwaves.. big air

it was rele funny watching a few guys almost die LMAO!!!!!!!!! yeah a few of them nearly died from a strong gust it wa shilrious lol

[nj kiter]

i live on lbi and rode by on of those sensors on Saturday not one of my better ideas but it was epic some of the best riding i have seen all summer. and i decided to pack it up and leave early.

[RickI]

I was hoping to get an idea what came through before and after Hanna. Failing that, what part of LI were you located on and what does LBI stand for (and what time were you there)? I'll see what kind of info I can find.

Any other experiences out there?

[nj kiter]

lbi is long beach island it is the location of one of the sensors i rode on 16 street in barnegat light between 12 and 2 it was epic

[RickI]

lbi is long beach island it is the location of one of the sensors i rode on 16 street in barnegat light between 12 and 2 it was epic

Got it, yes I bet it was. The wind seemed to build steadily but without excessive gusts up to 2 pm. Must have added excitement to the session. How were the waves? Good thing you came in well before 5 pm when things started to get a bit too exciting going from around 20 to 58 mph per the ikitesurf record.


The radar of the area just after things started going off along your area of NJ. Can't see a lot of good sized holes in there.

[RickI]

Heading back down south and into another hurricane, Ike. Cuba is being hit again with only the outer feederbands raking over the Florida Keys. Hope by some chance it fizzles before landfall in the Gulf. Still looks pretty intense right now in the Keys with some of the squalls in the bands. Some guys may have been thinking of going out today in the area of this squall line. Hope they reconsidered.


Upper Matecumbe Key


The gust spikes seem to have come with those bright red cells that just rotated counter clockwise to the NW of the Keys.

The forecast (seems accurate at this point):

TODAY
TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS. SOUTHEAST WINDS 30 TO 40 KNOTS
WITH GUSTS AROUND 50 KNOTS. SEAS 11 TO 15 FEET. SEAS INSIDE THE REEF
3 TO 5 FEET. NEARSHORE WATERS VERY ROUGH. NUMEROUS SHOWERS AND
SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS.

[RickI]

Just took a look at the end of the day measurements through the Keys on ikitesurf. The Keys were getting raked by Ike feeder bands all day with quite a few embedded squalls. It seems like a lot of the squalls in feeder bands emphasized KW and the Islamorada areas. Areas between were honking strong too, just with fewer spikes approaching 60 mph.


The whole day at Upper Matecumbe near Islamorada. Three spikes to almost 60 mph, that may be a record (at least that was captured). Can see some guys thinking to tough it out after 9:30 to about 12. What was it Mr. Bill used to say? Oh yeah, oh noooo, just before he goes splat against something.



Key West airport was no picnic either. Look at all those gust lull cycles per hour, only about a 30 mph+ gust range. Wonder what the winds were like out away from land shadow effects?



Sand Key is miles offshore from Key West and away from most windshadow. Then again, NWS doesn't have as good a capture rate as ikitesurf so the gusts and lulls are usually smoothed out. This gives the deceptive view of more steady winds than might actually exist. Still, 50 to 70 mph, no problem, right? What is the rule of thumb wind speed reduction from Sand Key to Smathers in normal winds anyway? Say about 3 to 5 mph less? Good day to sit out in short.

Good luck to the Gulf states with this one.