Tom Leeman supplied some nice shots of some inbound squalls last Saturday afternoon. I had an incredible session that morning and had called it a day when the first small squall started to move in. Squalls seemed to head through a frequent intervals for the rest of the afternoon judging from torrential downpours a bit south in Boca Raton.
I stitched three of Tom's shots into this dramatic panorama
Tom Leeman shot the rest of these as well.
As a rule, in recent times, I've noticed the guys in Delray usually come in before squalls are on them. It is hard to judge distance in these shots but it seems likely the squall was close enough for a nasty gust front to slash out and of course they're are well within lightning range. Not sure what happened this day but no one was hurt or lost their boards that I heard about. I know after one of the early squalls the wind died off for about 1/2 hour in the post-storm.
Once again, squalls may ...
- have no significant impact on the wind
- may change the direction (like offshore) and/or drop off to almost nothing
- may explode with gusts into 40, 50, 60 mph and more with NO time for proper reaction
and you never really know which of the above will happen in advance.
Lots of guys have been killed and maimed worldwide over the years. Use your head to try avoid pain or use it as a projectile. Squalls don't care what you do, they just act.