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Gorge Meteorologist Forecasts Back Today!

 
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bmmiller



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 110

PostPosted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 8:20 am    Post subject: Gorge Meteorologist Forecasts Back Today! Reply with quote

Announcing that the Gorge meteorologist forecasts are back today!

Regards,
Ben
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hilton08



Joined: 02 Apr 2000
Posts: 505

PostPosted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 9:59 am    Post subject: Thank You! Reply with quote

Great news! I especially like the forecast for Sunday.
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jota



Joined: 28 Feb 2001
Posts: 205

PostPosted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 4:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welcome back. So, wondering where the forecasters are based, are they all in New England as has been reported? I'm not judging, just wondering.

I realize most of the pertinent data is available to anyone, anywhere - except looking out the window!
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windfind



Joined: 18 Mar 1997
Posts: 1899

PostPosted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi jiota,

Good question! We have about 10 forecasters nationwide. In almost all cases forecasters either live or used to live in the area they forecast. The only major exception is Southern California. There we have 2 great consultants to help our forecasting but so far they have resisted taking on the job officially.

Two of the Gorge forecasters have lived in the Gorge and sailed here for several decades. I don't count since I rarely do Gorge forecasts but after living here a decade and doing the Hatch Bluff Report daily I have some insights into the local wind.

I also have windows that allows me to see the river from the White Salmon Bridge to past Viento but actually all the cams all the way from PDX to out east are a lot more useful than those windows for forecasting the marine layer etc. But for a NowCast, as in "its at least 4.2... time to hit the road" a window cannot be beat. But at 7AM when you are finishing up the forecast the window is pretty useless.

Funny... I used to live and forecast in the Bay Area for the first 10+ years of CotW and iwindsurf.com and found my window there useful. But now I use over 80 web cams daily to check out the Bay Area marine layer etc. and those cams are incomparably better than that window in forecasting. Instead I mostly use the GUES model illustrated below.

Also funny....I do forecasts for entities ranging from GoogleX projects to Makani Power to America's Cup races to the Rolex Cup to Philippe Kahn/Pegasus etc and the "window" issue never comes up. I think that is because no one in the world except us windsurfers care as much about wind. It truly is an addiction!

All of our forecasters nationwide are either windsurfers or kiters. No one would take a gig where they had to get up at 4-5AM every morning to forecast wind unless they were totally a wind addict.

Incidentally while we are waiting for the North Pacific High to bring wind to the Gorge check out the cool Video blogs on that high pressure: http://blog.weatherflow.com

Mike Godsey
weatherflow.com
windalert.com
iwindsurf.com
ikitesurf.com
sailflow.com
fishweather.com
USAfishing.com
windnotes.phanfare.com



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windaveski



Joined: 17 Nov 1999
Posts: 9

PostPosted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 9:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So if it is a "good question" why won't you answer it instead of dancing around it????
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windfind



Joined: 18 Mar 1997
Posts: 1899

PostPosted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 10:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

windaveski wrote:
So if it is a "good question" why won't you answer it instead of dancing around it????


Hi windaveski,

Uhh... Jiota's question was "So, wondering where the forecasters are based, are they all in New England as has been reported?"

I answered his question in my post above:

"Two of the Gorge forecasters have lived in the Gorge and sailed here for several decades. I don't count since I rarely do Gorge forecasts but after living here a decade...."

To me that does not seem like "dancing around" the question. But to make it even clearer... none of the forecasters live in New England, Two of them are long term residents of the Gorge.

However we do design and build our sensors and electronics in New England.

Mike Godsey
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