Windy! .........not Wendy
Checking out the forecast for today and its blowing 25 knots northerly here at Camerons Bight as per the Windy and Seabreeze forecast.
But Hobart's a different story as the forecast is for Northerlies with the southerly arriving late today. Meanwhile the real time Mt Wellington reading is a 40 knt southerly!
I haven't done a thorough check with BOM etc but it goes to show that if you where planing an early morning dash around the Tasman Peninsula before the change, on this info alone, you'd be in for a nasty surprise!
Here is the BOM forecast for Tas Hobart area. So I'm wondering if those more experienced in the black art of weather watching can, in the words of an infamous politician "please explain" ? It's been southerly since 9pm and there has been no updating of the forecasts! What am I missing apart from a few brain cells from a misspent youth?
and the BOM live wind readings around the area........ Interesting.
Its a Northerly from 40 to 55 km/hr at Tasman Island.
So it may be an anomaly with the hight of Mt Wellington or i did see a while back on sea breeze wind charts, a location was 180% out in the wind reading until the wind gauge was fixed.
Hi Guitz, I'm on the side of kunyani/Mt Wellington, but with the tall trees here our own weather station reads the wind incorrectly so that won't help. Looking at a graph on the app I use, the wind direction up there is showing SSE to South from 9.30 am on the 28th Aug. That's just wrong. I wonder if it broken actually. All the other AWS stations including Hartz mountains just to the SW of kunyani are indicating N-NW-NNE and have been for hours.
The wind here at Port Huon has been up and down all day and looking at these photos from the race in Hobart today before it was abandoned it was blowing a bit up there
Regards Don
Expensive game yacht racing!
I have learned to treat any and all weather forecasts with a grain of salt. A forecast over 12 hours out and many grains of salt.
It just isn't possible yet to arrange all the variables into an eye pleasing manner and consistently get the correct answer. Forecasters in any field know they are going to be wrong, they just don't know by how much and in which direction.
My 2nd worst was a forecast of 15-20 NE on a Friday morning, not nice but doable, so about 1400 I set off to go to Broughton Is. At 1800 we had 20-25 NE so put a reef in, by the time the reef was in we needed a 2nd reef. I turned back to Pittwater. By 2100 it was 40+ NE and rose to more as the night progressed.
Apparently a tropical low off Queensland didn't do what was expected.
My worst was with a past Seabreezer on Morning Bird off Lord Howe Is. I've told this story before so skip if you have read it.
We arrived about 1600 too late to get into the lagoon so I rang the Met on the island on the satphone and he said 15kts from the south all night. We heave too a few miles to the WSW of the island heading away. By 1800 it was over 40 and it stayed over 40 gusting much higher all night. The seas were hitting MB and going off like a shot gun blast. The first time it happened I thought he mast had come down. Once I realised what it was I went back to bed. A very untidy night with little sleep for either of us.
In the morning the wind had dropped to maybe 25-30 but the seas were massive. I cocked up gybing out of the heave too and broke the boom off at the gooseneck. Much bravery by the crew at the mast and we secured everything and went into the island, now about 30 miles away, on the heady.
We went down to the met office and he said a high level low or something hadn't behaved and it hit 60 kts at the island.
No damage except for a broken boom so we rigged the trisail and came home a week later with it.
On the east coast been blowing hard n- nw all day, gusting over 45 kts,
Caravan got tipped over nearby, blocking both lanes of what they call a " highway "
Bloke on a motorbike also came off in the wind down the road,
Keep watching the boat...
