| UK wind
forecasts
Geoff Graham, ex-professional
meteorologist (are we allowed to call you a weather man, Geoff?) sent me a note of
another website where useful wind forecasts can be found - useful to us
model flyers basically meaning the 10m charts which give an indication
of wind velocity 10m above ground. As Geoff has suggested to me, the
charts are probably a little easier for most of us amateurs to
understand than on some other sites.
 Certainly,
the site is easy to use. The home screen is very plain, as you see here.
It consists of a bar across the top listing all the various charts
available and a column of dates down the left-hand side covering about
five days from the current date with six-hourly intervals. All you have
to do is click on the particular chart you want to view - be it 10m
wind, precipitation, relative humidity or a host of others - and the
main panel comes up with a description of what the chart sets out. Next,
click on the day and time for which you wish to see the forecast and the
screen then sends you to the selected chart for the selected period.
 On
the right, for instance, is the screen I got on selecting the 10m chart
for Tuesday 21st August, the base time shown indicating the time that
the forecast was made, I think!
I wish the site carried an
explanation of the symbols on the chart, however, but I couldn't find
one. From what I recall of Geoff's earlier explanation when he
introduced us to some very interesting Europe-wide charts which you can read about from
the archive, the shaft of the little arrows
indicates the direction from which the wind is blowing, whilst the
feathering shows the wind velocity - each full feather indicating a
speed of 10 knots and a half-feather, 5 knots. The colouring of the
arrows again indicates wind velocity as shown on the scale bottom left
of the chart, but allows you to more easily see
the area covered by a given wind velocity - just look for the areas
covered with green or light blue arrows for trouble-free flying, for
instance and hope it's where you're intending to fly!
http://expert.weatheronline.co.uk/uv10_frame.htm |
If YOU have a personal web
site of model flight interest for us to enjoy or have come across one
that you found of particular value or interest (including commercial
sites), then please let me have the URL and we can feature it here.
There's so much good stuff out there, but it's so easy to miss it!
Here is one amazing personal website, absolutely
jam-packed with interesting material. John's site is based around
r/c flying in West Cumbria, UK, and is mainly concerned with fixed-wing,
but with an increasing interest in electric flight and a small coverage
of model helicopter flying.
