The wind forecasts you hear on the radio or TV are for the general area. As many a boater knows, the wind does different things on the surfaces of our lakes. It even does different things from shore to shore, and in the middle. It's like forecasting wind for the White Mountains. Wind does not distribute itself evenly over the peaks, either. It could be doing one thing over Cannon Mountain, and something completely different over the Franconia Ridge just "across the street."
Same on the lakes. The computer models assume a certain type of terrain in their equations. The terrain in the weather computer models is not very high resolution. The little geographic nooks, bumps and squiggly shore lines of our lakes (all of which have extremely localized effects on wind) do not show up at all in the computer models.
Best advice: Know the localized weather effects for your favorite locations, for certain types of wind. Then, when the general forecast says the wind will be northwest at 15-20 mph, you know what that will mean for your particular location.
|