Italian wind and misinformation ......

[wakeboy]

Ive been living in italy for a while now and i have noticed some of the italians love to talk utter crap about the wind..........

apparently any wind from the north is a mistral and any wind from the south is a sirirocco (excuse the spelling) after studying metorolgy at university for 2 year si have to say they are talking a load of crap, firsly sicroccos are rare wind that carry loads of dust indeed do come up from north africa but only occur maybe 7 times a year predominately in spring.

Secondly the Bloody mistral (apparently anything that is westerly is mistral)........... This wind originates in france in the rhone valley and is yes very strong, however it is normally only present in spring and autumn and is rarer in summer, if it affects the west coast of mainland italy it only does so when there is a low pressure system in the gulf of genova......so if the wind is from the north northwest it is not always a mistral in italy unless there is a low pressure in the gulf of genova......

The Bora
now i do live on the west of italy so i dont hear much about this one......

this wind is a katabatic wind caused mainly in the evening by decsending air in the mountians...... http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/nebraska/stupr ... batic.html

go here for a bit more detail.......

now i do live on the west of italy so i dont hear much about this one......


now something ive learnt about italy, there are many many old wives tales (superstitions, that have little or no truth) that seem to have been passed down through families and unfortunatly this seems to have affected the kite surfers here who dont seem to have a clue where their wind comes from........sorry to any italians here dont take it personnally but many dont seem to have a clue about the wind and are functioning on second hand poor information..........

feel free to discuss any technical point with me. Now i dont claim to be an expert weather man but after studying meterology for a long while at university i am suprised that that more kiters on the beach dont listen to me about the wind..... one pointed out the other day, you always seem to be in the right place for the wind direction .....my answer "because i looked at a bloody map!!!"

[wakeboy]

oh yes and the wind tommorrow will be off shore in tuscany unless you are in puntalla where it will be cross on and the argentario.

By the way the food is great here so if you are having a trip in europe com eto italy there is good wind here and nice friendly people....

[tux]

The Bora
now i do live on the west of italy so i dont hear much about this one......

There are 2 kind of bora the white one wich is created by the Siberian high pressure, bring sun and dry air cold, and the dark one created by a low pressure in the adriatic sea wich gives rain. If you understand a little bit of Italian there's an interesting work of the University of triest about the bora here:
http://www.dst.univ.trieste.it/OM/bora/BORA.html
Tux

[wakeboy]

thanks thats interesting for the bora, nice strong wind is what we all want!!