Weather Data January 19
Having good weather data turns out to be a really important part of planning a KAP outing. You need steady winds, at the right rate. Here in the Bay Area, we have microclimates galore, so while it may be windy at the airport, it might not be windy where you’re going.The Real-Time SF Wind Models work wonders. However, they’re updated 45-55 minutes after the time they are modeling. This is good if you’re heading out right now. I really like intellicast for it’s forecasting, but I’ve been wishing for more data than tomorrow’s “Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.”
So poking around the NOAA’s weather website I came across the point forecasts. Point forecasts let you place a marker in a particular location, and it’ll give you the weather forecast for that location. This is cool, however even cooler is the forecast graphs. These give you 96 hours of forecast data, and only the data you want. For instance, I really want to see temperature, wind, sky cover, and precipitation potential for Alameda Point. Well, that’s this link. Cool, eh? Includes gusts as a separate line above the winds, so you can have a pretty good idea if you’re facing steady 14mph winds, or 14-18mph gusts. Flag indicates the direction the wind is coming from, north is the top of your screen.
Clearly someone at NWS has been reading Tufte.