Blog: The Wall: Great or Hate?

windfind · Joined: 18 Mar 1997 Posts: 1901

Hi Gang,

The Wall can be a frustrating place to try to sail especially in recent years. Sometimes it is pure heaven with huge glassy swells from Washington to Oregon with the sensors reading in the upper 20's to low 30's.

But too often the sensors are reading in the upper 20's to low 30's and you find unreliable on and off winds on the entire Washington side of the river like you see in the photos below.

This blog reflects 3 years of my driving around the entire Wall area on bad days studying the on the water wind patterns vs. overall wind pattern vs. topography.

This is a somewhat complex blog but time spent reading it may save you a lot of frustrating driving time.

http://blog.weatherflow.com/west-coast-wind-blog-the-wall-wind-direction-and-2-venturis/

Mike Godsey
iwindsurf.com/ikitesurf.com
Weatheflow.com

windfind · Joined: 18 Mar 1997 Posts: 1901

Hi Gang,

Well yesterday was a day where The Wall and even Rufus was about as bad as it gets. The wind was way too WNW to even NW so most of the time the bulk of the wind skipped right over The Wall to Rufus zone.

Below is an animation of another bad day at The Wall to further illustrate how the venturis mentioned in the blog link above can cause deceptive sensor winds.

The animation looks at the winds from the surface to 3000 feet. You can see why the turbines atop the hills are facing the wrong direction on a bad day.

Mike Godsey
iwindsurf.com/ikitesurf.com
Weatheflow.com

philodog · Joined: 28 Apr 2000 Posts: 209

Thanks Mike, great info. Especially the surrounding wind sensors. I`m looking forward to checking these out the next time it is goodWall/badWall. One thing I`ve noticed is that once it goes bad Wall it never turns back to good Wall that day.

riggs · Joined: 11 Jul 2001 Posts: 9

The Wall (good/bad indicators)

White caps in the pond on the right past Celilo, (good).

Old Glory flying perpendicular to I-84, (bad).

Glassy water on the Washington side of the river, looking from the Maryhill Bridge, (bad).

John Day Dam gusting to 20, (bad) and gusting to 30, (good),

Riggs

windfind · Joined: 18 Mar 1997 Posts: 1901

Thanks riggs,

I would add that if you are coming to The Wall on the WA. side take the Stonehedge Rd. since you can see the telltale slick on the WA. side from there. That gives you the option of diverting to Roos or Rufus.

Below is another image showing BAD WALL sign. Note how the Maryhill and the M40 sensors are reading SW in the low to mid 30's. This looks like an epic day but looking at all the surrounding sensors, in red diamonds, you can see the overall WEST flow that means the 2 venturi effects illustrated in the blog above are producing the SW wind at the sensor.

Remember this is NOT a sensor problem. Both sensors are reading the actual wind at their locations. It is just that most of that SW wind is not making it through the narrows of The Wall to the launch sites.

If most of the sensors in the red diamonds were reading SW or WSW then the sensors would be dead accurate and The Wall would have an epic day!

Mike Godsey
iwindsurf.com/ikitesurf.com
Weatheflow.com

ldhr · Joined: 10 Apr 2000 Posts: 121

Is there a magic number for sw degrees?
Like - if it's between 2xx and 2xx degrees it should be good but above this range (northerly) or below(too southerly)?

paulxgrim · Joined: 27 Jul 2001 Posts: 11

Another telltale is to check out the wind at Avery if you are driving the WA side of the river. Avery and The Wall are similarly affected by wind direction. If Avery is holey looking with lots of cats paws and the cottonwood tress along Hwy 14 by Cascade Winery are showing some north, then it's probably not good. You might even be able to read the signs using the Avery cam in hi-rez mode.

I do think The Wall is adversely affected by too much south as well, where Avery is not.