Another SoCal Wind Analysis Site
I posted previously about my automatically generated wind maps. Now reader Charlie Houser writes to tell me of a very interesting variation on the same idea. It’s apparently being produced by the US Navy’s Pacific Meteorology and Oceanography Detachment at Point Mugu. Anyway, check it out: Southern California wind analysis.
They’re using the same weather buoy data I’m using. But they’re augmenting it with a lot of additional readings from shore stations, and (this is the cool part), they’re interpolating between the stations to produce forecasted windspeed and direction across the area between and around the observing stations.
I’m not sure how sound that methodology is; my racing sailor’s sense is that especially during light-wind conditions, the interpolated vortexes this system seems to produce bear relatively little relationship to the actual winds you’d find out on the water. But in stronger-wind conditions, I’d think that interpolation between the various stations would actually do a pretty good job of predicting real wind conditions.
Anyway, I thought it was pretty interesting. Thanks for the tip, Charlie!