As I was perusing the upcoming weather and wind reports for
our little corner of the world, i came upon this for Saturday:
Wind SW to 7 gusting to 24. It got me wondering what the
biggest gust factor anyone has been out in.
We assume a minimum of 100% most of the time when out
skiing and hope for less in the Northeast.
Winter's settling in, time to tell tales...

Not sure of the gust factor with the wind blowing about 20 plus, I know the height factor was 30 feet.:o

Quote: Originally posted by bigkid

Not sure of the gust factor with the wind blowing about 20 plus, I know the height factor was 30 feet.:o

Out on the dry lake I am sure the gust factor is nutty. One moment everybody is standing all over with kites down looking like Meerkats the next it can be 20mh or more if you catch a dust devil passing through.

Quite regularly over in the UK in the winter we would have 25mph gusting to 50 which was pretty butt clenching if you were out on the wrong kite.
I do remember a PKA race the year before last when we set out on our first lap on 8-10m kites in around 20 mph and halfway round the course it picked up to around 45mph. Now that was one scary race, we got back to the pits to change down to 3m kites for the rest of the race.
I think there were quite a few OBE's that day with one guy being air lifted off the beach with a snapped ankle.

Ohhh the fun of traction kiting :D:D:D:D:D

If I am understanding your implication of 'Gust factor 4' ....?


Anytime the gust factor is over 2X of average winds it's not a good situation...like 15mph gusting to 35mph. ..especially for those on FB kites. I may likely have flown in such conditions with a 2m Flow and 3m beamer on some occasions..? Not real fun and has some anxiety with it-especially if you oversized for gusts.


In 2, 3, or 4x factor( 3 or 4x?!!:o really?).....You size a kite for the gusts and then you are barely moving most of the time. You dare go bigger you are headed for trouble..... until that gust hits and you got trouble with FB kites.

Depows are different so I won't speak for but a FB user like myself.

So the gust or it's x factor(multiple of average wind) is important.

Gust factor is to X factor, as Kite size factor is to a potential superman!


BTW.... it's blowing 25 possibly gusting to 50+ mph today later today around Boston...Wind chills in low teens... Should I skip today, I'm thinking..

FWIW I was just about to head out. A gust came through and even down here in the hollow where our house is, usually well protected by the wind, the house creaked and visibility went to zero. The winds were about 5kts up until that gust (I'm gonna guess about 25 kts) and we are at 5kts again I would bet. Our coverage isn't great yet, about 7-9" and light so it's going to move around a bit in these winds. Too early in the season to fight this fight.

Gonna order chinese take out and put the tuning shop back together instead. :P

And now it's dead calm. Yup, staying off the kites today. :D

Quote: Originally posted by Bladerunner

Out on the dry lake I am sure the gust factor is nutty. One moment everybody is standing all over with kites down looking like Meer cats the next it can be 20mh or more if you catch a dust devil passing through.

Some things need a visual.... in this case, meerkats...



ATB,
Sam

Double or triple wind gusts are normal here. Any worse and I stay home.

There's a weather station on the Stannard Rock Lighthouse you can access through NOAA, it's fun to check when a storm blows through. It's about 50 miles off shore on lake superior, and has the lowest gusts (steadiest wind) I've ever seen. During a storm it will be 55kts gusting to 56kts for example.

Even on my little inland lake I have pretty steady winds, with gusts usually not very perceptible.

Ted, se winds come not up the coast but across the land of the coast, right? I can see why the jump in gusts from the lower number.
Is it the same with the wind blowing from the south or se? My guess is you don't get winds off the water much. Gusty wind is the norm for you?

We had dinner in Portland on our way to WBB last time, don't remember the place but the burgers were good.:D the rain was falling but no wind to speak of and didn't see any beach big enough to buggy on. It did remind me of the other Portland quite a bit.

Our winds vary with the seasons. Our local beach, Pine Point, works with a SE to SSW wind, those directions happen mostly in the summer and spring when the land heats up and the cooler Atlantic ocean air moves onshore to fill in the rising warm air of the interior. Many spring days
start out with our land temperature rising until 11:00 when the wind turns onshore and the cool air begins to flood in. South winds in the fall
and winter are pressure driven by storm systems, and thus way less frequent and often come with rain or snow changing to rain at the end of a storm. 15 miles inland is another world.
The gusty wind is mostly winter when the predominate winds are from the NW and are traveling over land. We snowkite on lakes which lessens
some of the gustiness but not all by a long shot. Many of our lakes are in valleys and the direction of the wind can be critical for wind speed and gusts. A wind across a valley is much worse than one parallel to the valley.
I think that low base wind gustiness is the hardest to deal with as a kite that will work @ 7kts isn't going to hack 24kts very well. When you're
looking at 20kts to start out with, you will already be on a smaller kite and ready for the fight. DP way better than FB in these conditions.

Gusty is our normal winds, but maybe 10 knots max. 20 to 25 with gusts just over 30 means you're already on small kites having fun, so the gusts are gravy.

This week though, I got hit by . . . the hand of god. Threw a small jump then got yanked straight up another 30 feet it felt like :D I've had elevator rides before but this was something else.