Whidbey Mystery Wind Explained

[Chris Klohn]

Hi Dave,

I just finished copying the .zip historical data for five reporting stations on Whidbey Island into the NOAA search format. Some of the stations have been keeping hourly records on windspeed since 1984! I set the search trigger threshold for a minimum of steady 20 knots of wind 4 hours per day or greater. In 2012 there were 104 days on Whidbey Island that met the aforementioned criteria.

I then broke down the direction of the days from 130 degrees to 200 degrees and 200 degrees to 300 degrees. There were 36 sailable "Westerly" days at Joseph Whidbey and 68 sailable "South Easterly" days at Ebey landing in 2012.

I also looked at all of the data for this Fall, September 1st - December 1st, while I was overseas working. It sounds like you guys haven't been getting much wind locally. Using the same search criteria above there were 21 days in that three month stretch where the wind average 20 knots or more for 4 hours or greater on Whidbey Island. 16 of those days were "South Easterly" and 5 of those days "Westerly".

The one thing the search criteria doesn't show is whether or not the wind blew during daylight hours. If you cut all of the numbers in half it still gives you an average of one sailable day per week 12 months of the year on Whidbey.

The real interesting thing is when you start adjusting the average windspeed over that four hour block in the search criteria. Out of the 104 days in 2012 more than 80 days averaged 30 knots or more for that 4 hour block. This explains why the locals think 4.7 is a big sail for winter sailing down there.

The mystery of the sideways growing trees is starting to make sense

Cheers,

Chris

[Alton]

Chris - Fascinating. Can you post the URL (web address) from where you downloaded the NOAA data from?

[C36]

Thanks for the data Chris and for addressing the issue of 'daylight' wind (fresh in my mind after last weekend) - although something closer to 1/3 might be a better proxy for winter months.

[Chris Klohn]

Hi Alton,

Here's the main one that let's you go through the data on any NOAA station, http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/histsearch.php?station=sisw1 . NOAA changed over all of their data to searchable numerical format in 2003. You can drag zipped files from other stations into their searchable format if the data is compatible. More your area of expertise I would imagine There's tons of great info with a little research. I try to look at the barometric pressure tendencies along with the wind.

Cheers,

Chris

[Chris Klohn]

8-) Thanks for the data Chris and for addressing the issue of 'daylight' wind (fresh in my mind after last weekend) - although something closer to 1/3 might be a better proxy for winter months.

Agreed on the 1/3 for the winter months. November - March are the most consistent months averaging 12 days or more of 20 knots plus wind. They also have the least amount of daylight Still, much, much better than anything local when you plug in the historical data at Sand Heads, Saturna, East Point, etc.

Cheers,

Chris

[Chris Klohn]

Hey Dave,

While Whidbey is great for consistency compared to local conditions it doesn't have a thing on Solander Island off the North West coast of Vancouver Island. Historically, that is the windiest place in North America at Sea Level. The average daily windspeed is 23.8 knots or greater………..365 days per year! Now if you could only drive out onto the Brooks Peninsula

Cheers,

Chris