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Wind forecast accuracy

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Aberdovy kiter
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Wind forecast accuracy

Postby Aberdovy kiter » Sat Sep 18, 2021 11:10 am

Just wondering with riders experience what forecast you've found to be the most accurate. For me I've only ever kited in the uk and I've found that on the day measuring the wind on beach using a hand held meter the GFS27 is surprising right more often than not, compared to ECMWF (using windy app) don't tend to use the others..

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Re: Wind forecast accuracy

Postby leeuwen » Sat Sep 18, 2021 11:18 am

Will depend from country to country.
Usually local high resolution charts will outperform any global models like GFS.
E.g. here in NL harmonie (Dutch model) and Arome (French) are the most reliable in general.

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Peter_Frank
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Re: Wind forecast accuracy

Postby Peter_Frank » Sat Sep 18, 2021 3:34 pm

Here in Denmark our national forecasts are usually extremely accurate one and two days forward, really amazing.

Longer than that is always more unreliable of course - but you still get an idea of what to expect, winddirections at least.

So I am impressed with their ability to forecast the wind.

Of course there will still always be local winds in some areas, where it accelerates and becomes a lot higher (great on light wind summerdays), and these can not be predicted.

But in general overall it is impressive how good they are, spot on most often, also in details :thumb:

8) Peter

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Re: Wind forecast accuracy

Postby Herman » Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:42 pm

My preference is the Met Office for UK forecast plus rain radar, satélite images etc and local weather stations for current data. Are the Borth and Dovey Yacht Club weather stations any good for your area?

The Aberporth weather buoy, 62301, used to be useful as did the Pembroke buoy but don’t think they have been operational for some time!
Last edited by Herman on Sat Sep 18, 2021 11:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Wind forecast accuracy

Postby plummet » Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:49 pm

I use swellmap.
Then I cross reference with live weather readings on the day. I also incorporate rain radar and lightning tracker on the stormy days.
Then apply the experience factor to the equation. Eg, I know that, on a SWday the forcast is typically 5 knots underdone and on a W day its pretty close and on a NW day subtract 5 knots.
On a solid seabreeze day i can also add 5 knots to the forecast.

Finally I at the beach its facethometer mixed with the above info + beaufort scale observations with the interigation of what others a already flying.
Add all that up and then a number of a kite size will pop into my head.

PS. I stopped using a wind meter 15 years ago.

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Re: Wind forecast accuracy

Postby Mike101 » Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:37 am

I think the 'best" model varies from spot to spot.

I used to say arome was the best for next day but it's been woefully over optimistic this summer.

Windguru live wind stations are another fixation. The stations at camber and greatstone are good- unfortunately wwe dont have one at my local spot. That is the faceometer and a wind guinea pig / forward observation officer on whatsapp.

Aberdovy kiter
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Re: Wind forecast accuracy

Postby Aberdovy kiter » Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:36 pm

Herman wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:42 pm
My preference is the Met Office for UK forecast plus rain radar, satélite images etc and local weather stations for current data. Are the Borth and Dovey Yacht Club weather stations any good for your area?

The Aberporth weather buoy, 62301, used to be useful as did the Pembroke buoy but don’t think they have been operational for some time!
Borth weather station is off 50% of the time, i was more interested in the actual forecast, so to plan time to kite rather than relie on the day.

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Re: Wind forecast accuracy

Postby Herman » Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:01 pm

Thanks for info re Borth. I think the Met office has become much more accurate in the past few years for my area. Usually I only need to look a couple of days ahead and I think their beach forecasts are very good for this. They don’t seem to over estimate wind force as they appeared too in the past and the assessment of sea breeze reinforcement is better than previous.

For long term forecast I look at windguru and jetstream forecasts but don’t really use them for planning.

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Re: Wind forecast accuracy

Postby nothing2seehere » Mon Sep 20, 2021 10:00 am

If you are lucky then someone local with have a local model. There's a local site for where I kite that takes the MetOffice model (normally most accurate) and adjusts it for the local terrain (always blows stronger in certain directions than the basic forecast).

I know there's a similar site for Tenerife as well. Maybe you have something for your local area?

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Re: Wind forecast accuracy

Postby edt » Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:13 pm

As said above varies according to what country you are in and what part of the country. So for instance in the great lakes the ikitesurf/windalert wrf2k is the best and the hrrr is always wrong but in other places the hrrr is the best. It takes a few months when you first get to a new spot watching all the models and how it compares to reality before you can figure out which is the best model for that spot.

I never use models like the gfs27 that has such a poor resolution. It can't see anything smaller than 27km. I only use models with resolution 5k or smaller.


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