Winter Riding Conditions in Florida

[ricki]

The "Florida In Summer" post just went down, so you know what that means? Yup, up goes the winter and WIND SEASON post! Yeeha!

We're still getting tropical system winds in the south, lots of days too with fairly easily dodged squalls fortunately. The northern part of the state has already been working a number of good cold fronts.

Have a good, safe riding season and remember the following. It doesn't take much time:

1. Check the best forecast for your area including wx hazards.
(like http://www.nws.noaa.gov/)

2. Check the national weather map loop to see if cold fronts or unstable systems are inbound. If so, how strong, how fast and when?
(http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/day0-7loop.html)

3. Check color radar/satellite for inbound unstable weather. If so, how strong, how fast and when, what is the temperature drop? Waiting an hour or so can make all the difference sometimes, forewarned is forearmed.
(http://www.nws.noaa.gov/radar_tab.php , http://www.weather.gov/sat_tab.php?image=ir)
NOTE - the radar and sat. image maps above this should give current conditions.

4. Check realtime winds both locally and upweather or in the direction the system is coming from to time the passage of a cold front, possibly with a squall line or just a dry mega boost in wind. Is the wind rising, if so how much, are there spikes, is the direction changing or erratic indicative of squalls. Rig for actual conditions AFTER the stable wind, wind shifts come on and new temperatures. Try to make sure you aren't avoidably "surprised" by the wind boosting and shifting side offshore as others have in the past.
(http://www.ikitesurf.com/windAndWhere.iws?regionID=171 , http://ompl.marine.usf.edu/PORTS/tampa.bay.html )

5. Keep your eyes open at the beach. Sometimes you can see cold front wind lines creep toward you, both the good kind and the kind that may be too much for what you are flying. Watch out for storm clouds and avoid having a kite up when they approach.

You can time your cold front wind waiting down to about 30 minutes at times using this technique and be prepared with a better idea of what kite size to fly. Less time waiting and changing out kites/boards, more time riding?!

Think about trying this out and tell us how you do.