Odd at Rufus today.....

[dhanson928]

About 4;00 this afternoon I was looking for wind and cool water. Saw it had just "Kicked" on the Marker 41 readout of Iwindsurf, the direction SSW...so I thought...."Hey, the Wall" and headed that way...Nothing much actually going on, however...a couple of bigger sails and boards out of the RV Park by Maryhill, otherwise no one around...Turned around just before the boat ramp launch and was going to go back west...No kites out at Rufus, even. Got to the Bridge and it looked windy again, so I swung east, thinking..."ain't been to Rufus in a few years, maybe there"....Rigged my 4.2 and had a few wrestling match reaches....all the while watching what was going on around...Weird...
Almost dead north (or NNW) on the Washington wind farm machines...but when I slogged back to my van and checked the readout from Iwindsurf marker 41, it said it had been SSW and strong for the whole time I was swimming, waterstarting, going over the bars, and falling over backwards...Even the few kites who showed...they were all over the map...
Strange winds there today...not anything like what that graph was showing, but in retrospect, not that unusual for that section of the River, I guess. The water felt great.

[isobars]

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. I had been elbowing myself in the ears for not going to Rufus yesterday once I realized that the wind forecast further east, where I live, wasn’t going to happen. The puzzling relationship between the Wall/Maryhill data vs wind on the water (WOW) has often left me cold about driving the extra distance when Roosevelt/Arlington fail to launch. Any explanations/translations for how to relate WOW to the Maryhill/Wall sensors would probably help a lot of readers. We know that NW = Ripslog = KOD (you’ll figure that out), but what about the nuances?

For example, back when there was a sensor at Roosevelt, the local kiters learned not to launch until the Rosey sensor wind strength rose to Arlington sensor wind speeds, because until then the wind hugged the water too much for good kiting. Now all we have is one sensor, and its direction data is bamfoozled (screw spellcheck) by the cliff towering above it.

[ImmigrantJesus]

I have dubbed the wind at Maryhill the most consistent and best in the Gorge - purely due to the fact of how it shows on iWindsurf (what seems like every day)
I friend told me it was not necessarily what it appeared to be...
I never get out there because I can usually find wind elsewhere.
THANK YOU for shedding some light on the realities of what is going on there.
It would sure be nice if someone could clear this mystery up for all of us.

[scottwerden]

[isobars]