I've just found an even better source of local wind forecasts, since it
gives a separate forecast for every hour of the day, which is great for the
days when the wind starts off calm and gets pretty windy (the regular
forecast just says something like "Winds from the North at 5-20 mph" or if
your are really lucky "Winds North 5 mph, becoming 15-20 mph this
afternoon"). With an hour-by hour forecast I can see whether the wind is
supposed to pick up at 1:00 or at 4:00, which makes a big difference in
whether I head out to the field at 12:30 to fly!
Here is the forecast for North Richland Hills, TX, zip code 76180, which is
where I normally fly. You can substitute YOUR ZIP CODE:
http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/76180
Note that you get details on predictions for cloudiness, temperature, wind,
etc., for every hour of the day!!! I compared tomorrows forecast for a zip
code on the west side of Fort Worth with that for a suburb on the east side
of Fort Worth, and they are clearly different, showing the trend of wind
and weather as it moves across the area, so this is not just some
regional forecast disguised to look like a local forecast. Also, though
only 8 hours are shown per page, click "show next 8 hours" to see up to 32
hours from the current time.
My previous best wind forecast site, which still may be useful to see the
big picture on a map, only breaks the day down into four predictions, each 6
hours apart. For links to this and other weather sites, see my "Better Wind
Forecasts" page on my web site (see end of this post for link to my web
site).
Hope you find this info useful -- I'm sure I will, as I love having some idea
what the wind will be before heading out to the thermal field, or to a local
slope site. Keep in mind that the closer you are to the time you are
interested in, the more accurate the forecast is likely to be.
By the way, if you do find the page useful, be sure to click "Send us your
feedback about this page" at the bottom of the page and let weather.com
know, so they will continue to support this new format. The average person
is not likely to be interested in such detailed information, so the more of
us who let them know we ARE interested, the better.
David Cole
Fort Worth, Texas
http://home.flash.net/~davecole/RC_Sailplanes.htm - my web site address
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