FWIS3

I'm currently looking at some flags waving in the wind, nearly horizontally. It made me wonder, surely I can't be the first to try to correlate wind speed and flags. A quick search reveals I am not indeed.
Here's the link.

So near horizontal/horizontal is hard to gauge but it's pretty clear that it is a speed over 15m/s, which translates to 54kph or 33mph. Even if the error was wildly off, say like half that puts us at the 16mph point.

I look at the sites on weatherunderground and they are recording 3-9mph. Even further North at Fort Lauderdale Airport they only record 13mph.

I guess from a boats perspective, the flag physics model just doesn't work. For the record, the wind is quite blowy with patches that hit the whistle point in the rigging with lines banging around even though they are quite taut and displaced from the mast.

No wonder we keep getting into crazy weather. Somethings just not right here.

hmmm....

Same thing today. Flags horizontal, tree's swaying and buckling in the wind, the rigging slamming, the boats here swinging like mad and the weather station (airport) is reporting 6 knots. Others around here that are closer are reporting 0.2 knots with gusts to 2.5 wtf?

Something is really not right here and it isn't just me.

vendic wrote:Same thing today. Flags horizontal, tree's swaying and buckling in the wind, the rigging slamming, the boats here swinging like mad and the weather station (airport) is reporting 6 knots. Others around here that are closer are reporting 0.2 knots with gusts to 2.5 wtf?

Something is really not right here and it isn't just me.

Are you in a localized pocket of freak weather? For example, where I am from we have mini-tornados that will spontaneously appear apparently out of nowhere. We call them dust devils. I have seen some that are pretty powerful but they only affect a very small area.

Why yes we are. We're in a weather pattern called living on a boat, which means where ever we are, the winds are far greater!

It's been over a week of this. While I was in Virginia and driving back, the girls on the boat were subjected to strong winds. When I got back it didn't change. Palm trees are bent right now and flags are near horizontal, the rigging is rattling. W guy on a small row boat barely made head way in the wind to get to his large boat.

At least the Airport is now showing something more like it, 21 knots. The stations around us are however showing around 6 knots. It is so not 6 knots!

I'm thinking these wind speed gauges need some calibration or lubrication. Their readings are completely off.