>>An adrenaline rush on the surfboard, unpleasant hanging on the paraglider
Some people like it when the wind suddenly picks! up and noticeably increases the pressure on their own body or in the sail. Others! find the sudden increase and decrease in the force of the wind unpleasant. For many leisure activities or sports, strong gusts even pose a potential danger.
Last week we receiv the following query from a paraglider! pilot on this topic: “Today the wind was forecast to be particularly gusty, at least too sporty for us pilots. What factors make the wind gustier on one day than on others? How are the gusts calculat?” Let’s try to address this complex topic and provide answers to some of the questions.
When taking off for a paragliding flight, the wind should not be too gusty.
definition
TheAmerican Meteorological Society
defines a gust as a sudden, short increase in the instantaneous wind spe . In contrast, the average wind spe is the distance that the air travels in a certain time interval .
Note: For the majority of applications, only the horizontal wind is of interest. In aviation, however, all three spatial components of the wind are of interest, with the vertical wind being particularly interesting in connection with turbulence as a flight-threatening phenomenon. On aircraft, this can be determin using special instruments and software and, for example, the degree of turbulence can be quantifi from this.
measurement
In SwissMetNet, the meteorological measuring network of MeteoSwiss, the slovenia phone number library horizontal wind direction and spe are measur depending on the location using two different instruments: the classic cup anemometer with a wind vane and the more modern ultrasonic anemometers, which work without moving parts (
measuring instruments SwissMetNet
). The instruments are usually plac on a mast at a standardiz height of 10 meters, although this is not always possible or sensible in mountainous areas or at locations with many buildings.
The average wind spe is calculat from the average over a ten-minute interval. The maximum gust per second in this measurement interval is defin as the gust peak. All measur values are transmitt in real time to the MeteoSwiss “Data Warehouse”, where aggregat values such as hourly averages or the largest
Daily gust peak are calculat and archiv
>>>Gust peaks (thick black line) and mean wind spe (thin dash starts here poptin provides a drag-and-drop itor line, highlight in orange) at Le Bouveret (374m) at the upper end of Lake Geneva. The wind direction is visualiz as a “wind feather” above the time axis, with the orientation of the feather indicating the wind direction on the compass rose.
>Gust peaks (thick black line) and mean wind spe (thin dash awb directoryline, highlight in orange) at Le Bouveret (374m) at the upper end of Lake Geneva. The wind direction is visualiz as a “wind feather” above the time axis, with the orientation of the feather indicating the wind direction on the compass rose.
The gustiness of the wind can be nicely visualiz and interpret using the ten-minute measurements. In the example above, a time series from Sunday noon.
