Seabreezes with a punch

[ricki]

Lots of guys ride them, this time of year that may be all there is. As the seabreeze or thermal squall cloud front marches towards the ocean, the wind usually builds. It may eventually arrive at the coast, bring strong squall winds, rain, even hail and kill the wind. Oh, there is frequently lightning, often while it is still well inland. Timing is everything, getting in and secured well before the violent winds. That is if you even bother to try using these winds, I stopped trying myself years back. Also there is that lightning reaching out well ahead of the squall to consider. I used to windsurf these afternoon thermal squall winds years back. Trouble was the useable winds sometimes kicked in when the squall line was real close to the ocean. Did it a few times kiting in the early 2000'3. Getting frequent static electricity discharges from the control bar, hair standing on end, lightning and squall winds going nuts in short order, not enough wind for much of the time, said the hell with it a coons age ago. A good reason summer is the off wind season often enough.

You don't always have a squall line associated with summer seabreezes. We get them all year, even during cold fronts provide good useable winds for hours and with no squalls. These are some seasbreezes to go looking for unlike this violent summer variety that comes with squalls. If you do have a squall line with your sea breeze though, don't ignore it. I imagine some guys even ignore them riding until the wind vanishes, through the squall winds and rain. Feel lucky? Look at the spikes in the post below this one. These are common this week.

Take a look at the following, there sort of systems aren't that unusual throughout Southern Florida, even points further north at times. This one had a microburst with straight line winds approaching hurricane force. Again, this isn't that uncommon. Lighter winds gusting to 30 to 40 mph are extremely common. Kiters get messed up in such lighter gusts fairly often too. Stuff to think about, on to the movie ...

http://vimeo.com/3057568

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[ricki]

We seem to be having something like normal daily thermal squall cycles, sea breezes in effect. There may be some short term useable wind which seems to increase in speed as the squall line moves closer to the ocean. Today there was a uniform, STRONG squall line, not unlike other days recently shown below in red.

http://www.fksa.org/albums/album432/radar_7_19_09.sized.jpg


The radar image is from about 4:50 pm. Checkout what happened at the wind meter stations around that time.

http://www.fksa.org/albums/album432/graph_iws.png
1. Around Jupiter, nice spike at around 5 pm. Look at that extended lull just before the blast came through. Not a time to be rigging bigger or trying to relaunch your kite.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album432/Mangonia_Park_graph_iws.png
2. It hit a little earlier at Magnonia a short way south but hit 55 mph. There was a lull this time but shorter in duration, making it more dangerous to the singularly tuned out and unaware kiters. Note how the sea breeze is not only turned off but totally reversed to offshore wind.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album432/wpb_graph_iws.png
3. Central WPB, note the winds go 30 mph+ for over a half hour. There was a lull again , a real short one.


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album432/boynton_Beach_graph_iws.png
4. Boynton Beach, trends continue


http://www.fksa.org/albums/album432/pte_graph_iws.png
5. All the way down to Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale, actually the spikes went all the way down to Crandon Park in Miami.

I have some photos of the system that came through yesterday. I put them up tomorrow. In some years these happen every afternoon through much of the summer. You don't want to have a kite up in this stuff, then there is all that lightning. They had hail today too, yesterday as well, some nasty funnel clouds. Lousy flying wx in otherwords.

[ricki]

Seems like old times, a strong line of afternoon thermal squalls virtually everyday. One good thing about the "old days" was that there were few landfalling hurricanes in this area. Fingers crossed for this time around.