Laudation for Utahwindriders and Craig Goudie

[Charles Ryon]

As a catamaran sailer/windsurfer in search of the Utah creamy breezy, I must say how much I have enjoyed the Utahwinders.org website, and in particular, Craig Goudie's daily forecast. This is a semi-recent discovery of mine and I having been keeping regular tabs on it.

I think Utah should feel super grateful to have a sport-specific weather watch such as Craig. I have become addicted to reading his comments even when I can only window-watch the conditions. Super cool.

By the way, Craig, what sights do you monitor in making your projections? I would love to hear some narrative on Utah specific weather as Jeff Renner has done for Washington.

Thanks,
Charles

[Ralph Morrison]

I think Utah should feel super grateful to have a sport-specific weather watch such as Craig.

Please don't imply that we don't know how lucky we are to have Craig and that we aren't grateful!

I'll say it again though, Thanks Craig!!!

[Craig Goudie]

Thanks for the props. Check either our weather page http://www.utahwindriders.org/wind/HTM/weather.htm
or the Home page upper left for the most popular sites to
monitor.

I use NOAA, just like everybody else, but also The Weather Channel,
Wunderground, just about anything you can get your hands on
(internet wise). Iwindsurf has some pretty detailed forecast pressure
gradients, and "Air Sports Weather" has a very cool bar graph 3 day
forecast, that's close more often than it's wrong.
Most of my forecasts are experiential though.
I've sailed for so long, that I've noticed certain patterns create
certain winds. I think you'd find most of the longtime members here
could give an equally good forecast, for example, if you were
a Kiter and you followed Marty Lowe around, I think you'd do
pretty well.

The simple wind generator is always a front coming through though.
South before the front, and North after. The Drier the better. Then there
are pretty standard thermals when there are no fronts. The DC Thermal
is pretty predictable (look for a 30 degree temp differential in Provo
the night before to the day of, and you've got pretty good potential)
Rush tends to thermal North most spring, summer and fall days with
no fronts coming, though again Summer has less temp differential as
the heat pump (desert to the West, GLS to the East, and a nice
aluvial venturi in between) has less to work with. I remember a
weather discussion I was having a couple pf years ago with my counterpart in the Gorge. He said "In the Gorge, in the Summer,
if you just predict wind, you'll be right 70% of the time". It's not
quite that simple here, but Rush comes close. Now you know
our secret ;*).

Naturally these
are also affected by the Jet, storms, different seasons, where highs
and lows are located......... For example, it's my experience that a high
centered over Nevada, will bump the late PM Utah lake thermal
(prevailing North) just enough in the Fall to provide steady planers
in the 8.5 range (Windsurf sail).

Weather here is somewhat complicated (at least for me) due to
the topography. An indepth discussion of what causes wind where
would take a long time. Check the "Local Sites" page here for some
additional insight http://www.utahwindriders.org/wind/htm/local.htm
It's old, but most of it is still good.

The support here has always been good, and I appreciate it. I've been
know to seriously blow a forecast on occasion, and it's rare that I take
much abuse for it.

So for all the support, my thanks,

-Craig

By the way, Craig, what sights do you monitor in making your projections? I would love to hear some narrative on Utah specific weather as Jeff Renner has done for Washington.

Thanks,
Charles

[Charles Ryon]

Craig,

While the weather in the grand schema may be relatively simple to understand in a conceptual sense, the local contexts will always make it complicated. Thanks for discussion, it definitely cleared up a couple things for me.

Charles