STORM RIDERS

[ricki]

This isn't about building fear, although a healthy respect can create significant survival value. These articles are about building hazard awareness, appreciation and ideas for avoiding them.

Would you go ice kiteboarding in a spring thaw on thin ice close to a wide fissure of surface water? Some guys, say from Florida, might.

Would an experienced pilot voluntarily fly into a violent storm cloud?

Would an informed person hold a softball game for kids in an obviously threatening powerful lightning storm?

These could go on for hours. You get the idea.

We need to know weather to kiteboard, both for what to look for and what to avoid.