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Old 06-19-2008, 02:31 PM
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ricki ricki is offline
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Thanks for your detailed input, good stuff! There was a particularly notable microburst involving a kiteboarder in Utah a few years back. I recall it was his sixth or seventh microburst while he was riding. Dry microburst may be even more common in the western states than the wet variety in our area. They have some fairly sophisticated warning measures in place out that way. In this case, the rider thought he could handle this extreme weather events and would ride with them going off around him. Not sure if he realized they could boost up to around 170 mph or not if a good sized one struck nearby. Out there the dust columns show them up from a fair distance away. He landed his first jump from perhaps 70 ft. high after burst hit but failed to carry the remaining ones off. More about this at: http://fksa.org/showthread.php?t=631

There was another severe lofting in Portugal in 2005, one I have learned little about unfortunately. One newspaper account puts the height of the lofting at over 325 ft. and distance downwind of over 1750 ft.. I have no details about the weather that contributed to this tragic event. I have to wonder if it might not have been some form of burst. It happened to a well experienced commercial airline pilot out kiteboarding.
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