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Old 09-02-2007, 08:30 PM   #12
CanisLupusArctos
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Winnipesaukee
Wind being blown over the surface of water (from Black Cat to Rattlesnake) will NOT speed up over a long distance.

According to iwindsurf.com, the wind at 11am Satruday in Laconia averaged 13mph with puffs (gusts) to 26mph out of the WSW. Those kinds of winds can produce occasional 3-5 foot waves (with whitecaps).
Laconia and anywhere on the lake's NW-SE runway that is the longest, straightest part of the MOUNT's route experience very different weather at times. This can include large discrepancies in wind speed and direction as well as temperature. It can be a different world out here. (see thread called "I've never seen the lake like this.")

To illustrate this, last week there was a day when the wind howled straight up the lake all afternoon - from Rattlesnake to Black Cat - with 3 foot waves crashing up on the shore as I watched. The wind here was 18 mph gusting to 26, and at the same time the wind was not more than 7 mph at Laconia or Plymouth... on Mount Washington's summit the wind was just 3 mph at the time. If I wasn't physically here I might've thought my instruments were misreading. However, considering that I was watching my stuff starting to blow off the dock and a few leafy twigs fly past the kitchen window, I would say probably not. Just to be sure I checked those other stations again - they were all current, all reporting light winds.

Local topography has a huge effect on weather, including the bending of wind direction to its liking. It's one of the reasons the computer models have such a hard time with New England's weather - so many dominant wind directions, so much topography, not enough disk space for numbers to accurately represent it all.

Open water may not speed wind up - trees and dirt and mountains slow wind down. From here to Rattlesnake is 10 miles, straight shot. For an inland area, that's a long way for wind to go without hitting any obstructions.
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