As wind junkies, we spend a lot of time looking at forecasting models, and in the short term that makes sense. But I’ve always thought it would be cool to visualize the actual recorded wind for a calendar year. There are lots of websites that let you search weather history, but I couldn’t find anything that displayed it the way I thought wind sports athletes would really want to see it. A big picture view that shows just how many glory days we get in a given month or year. So I have set out to create the Windy Dayz App, something that is hopefully novel and useful for all of my fellow wind junkies.
Highlights of how the Windy Dayz App was created
- Based on historical wind data that was available from NOAA.
- I tried to get coastal and Great Lakes locations from around the US, especially areas that I know are hot spots for paddling.
- The vast majority of reliable observation station were airports. In many cases the airports are close to the water, but not always. As a result, it may not always reflect conditions on the water, but directionally it should still be useful.
- The steady state wind strength, direction, and air temperature observations are typically recorded every 20 minutes. I averaged these to the hour.
- I excluded the hours between sunset and sunrise, as most of us are not on the water at that time.
- I added the ability to specify an hourly window and to set consecutive hours to better identify the “usable” days for any given paddler. For example, if you are a 9-5 grinder (like me) you might want to see the wind conditions from 5:00 – 9:00 PM.
A few ways the wind app might be used:
- Researching places to go on vacation and when to go. Most of us in the continental US don’t think to go to Maui in July and August, but wow, the trade winds are off the hook then!
- Reminiscing the Epic days
- Looking for overall wind patterns month to month and year to year
- With the plethora of wind & water sports now available to choose from, including Surfski, OC-1, SUP, Wing Foil, Downwind Foil, Prone Foil, Kiting, Kite Foiling, Wind Foiling, and Sailing. It is good to have an accurate sense of the wind in your area so you can pick the sport that is going to work best.
I’m hopeful there are many other ways that you will find this application useful and fun to use. Please don’t hesitate to shoot me an e-mail with any questions or suggestions.
