Any body share this view? Data analysis of wind this April and May could prove it compared to average of previous 10 years. At least Burrum windfest looked ok. Send your views. Even those who can get off work mid-week not had much. Plus seen foilers plodding along waiting for a puff.

I agree, I've gotten back into surfing. There have been heaps of waves lately!!

It's been like that for a few years now

I can only assume that you're not foiling, cause this year has been great!
Obviously coming into winter now, wind is a bit flaky, but Jan to Apr was sweet.

Here are my January to June stats since 2011. 2013 was sailed in NZ. I sail whenever possible and my only other commitment is work (no family etc.) My work hours mean I can sail most summer afternoons it is windy. From this it looks like 2016 - 2017 were good years for 1 Jan to 1 June. (For most years there was only one or two sessions between 1 June and 1 Sept)

Note: this is all normal short-board planing windsurfing - no foiling, no wallies etc.

Shifu - good indirect information to compare with wind records. Confirms what I remember. 2015 was first year I started. The year 2015 was not as good as 2016 and 2017. Nice plots.

Did I read that right? Between june and start of september only expect to sail once or twice?

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cald said..
Did I read that right? Between june and start of september only expect to sail once or twice?

Yep.

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Shifu said..

cald said..
Did I read that right? Between june and start of september only expect to sail once or twice?

Yep.

Do you sail the winter SWers? In my Scarborough days I remember some great sessions on the Western side of the point at Scarbs. Gusty and cold, but when you're wind-starved...

I go up to Bribie now for Westerlies where the wind is cleaner. Still shifty as heck though.

My winter stats. Some will do better sailing westerlies at Wellington point, but I never go there. I took out my Bowen holiday in Aug 2015. Had a lot of sailing there :) TBH this is more sailing than I thought I had.

Yep '16 n '17 was a cracker. Sailed 134 times at GB. RB n shortboard. Been all downhill since then.

this season just gone was the worst for me. Last year was second worst

Here is the entirety of my sailing so far. 30,000kms, about 28k of which sailed in SEQ (mainly Redcliffe). Winds have been a bit quiet the last few years. Hopefully a correction is on the way. From 2018 I've had better access to the water but the total kms sailed each year have been lower. More days sailing but shorter sessions = less windy weekends and more after work sessions. Wind has been less consistent the last three years.

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Shifu said..
Here is the entirety of my sailing so far. 30,000kms, about 28k of which sailed in SEQ (mainly Redcliffe). Winds have been a bit quiet the last few years. Hopefully a correction is on the way. From 2018 I've had better access to the water but the total kms sailed each year have been lower. More days sailing but shorter sessions = less windy weekends and more after work sessions. Wind has been less consistent the last three years.

30,000km.
You are shifu, real master shifu!

Been a pretty good year for me so far. 100% foiling, and most used sail would be the 4.0. Most times I'm home I've been able to sail over 75% of the days.

Another wonderfully wrong set of forecasts for SE QLD. (not actually wonderful at all). Not being overly critical ....but hang on ...forecasts are not reliable anymore.

FORECAST- Something to look at b4 casting your own disappointed view at the beach.

OK - in a moment of Covid lockdown craziness I have performed the following analysis:

I have taken hourly average wind speed data from a meteorological station based at Wynnum from 2016 to 31 July 2021. (this is the Station in Nazareth House for the Wynnum-Manly locals. Given the station is not close to the water I have set a 'threshold' sailing speed of 8 knots. I have set sailable hours to be from 9am to 7pm; if the average hourly wind speed exceeded 8 knots during this period I has assigned the hour as 'sailable' and have then performed a count on the number of occurrences We have close to complete data sets for each year 2016 - 2020.

The results are tabled below. In order to allow for seasonal variation, I have then excluded the months August - December to have a like for like comparison.

2021 - so far would appear to be windier than previous years. With 2020 being the worst year we have had for a while. Regards,
Dr J

Last winter was better than this winter all week round .
Ive only been here for two winters , that's all I got .

DrJukka - can you re-do your analysis with the months of May-June-July only please? Those three months are ones I was originally referring too.

Thinking outside the box...I wonder if the less than perfect wind conditions (i.e. consistency) has anything to do with the overgrowth of development along the coast. As the height of buildings continues to rise and close in all the spaces, I would think that the 'wind shadows' created have a lot to do with the lack of wind, especially when it is in the 15 knt range. Stronger winds push through yet the predominant wind pattern on the SE coast is that 10-15knt range.

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MarkSSC said..
Thinking outside the box...I wonder if the less than perfect wind conditions (i.e. consistency) has anything to do with the overgrowth of development along the coast. As the height of buildings continues to rise and close in all the spaces, I would think that the 'wind shadows' created have a lot to do with the lack of wind, especially when it is in the 15 knt range. Stronger winds push through yet the predominant wind pattern on the SE coast is that 10-15knt range.

The Perth/Fremantle locals say... the Fremantle Doctor used to come in 6-out-of-7 days per week, now it only comes in a few days per week.

Trev, will do. May, June & July - I typically regard as low wind months. I typically pack my gear away from Mid May until Mid August when (typically) the first of the Northerlies start.

If you send me an email address I will share the data. If someone

J

May-July summary below





And yes I double checked 2018 vs 2019 - genuine dead heatIn terms of sensitivity - if I drop the threshold to 7 knots then we get the following:

8 knots is a bit light don't you think, even foiling you would be looking at steady 12 knots.
The old saying if your not planning then your complaining. Winter in Brisbane is just awful, you can hype it up and say how good the westerlies are but they suck. I just couldn't get the motivation to get out in any of the westerlies this year to be constantly frustrated with gusty shifty cold wind. From May to August is just terrible in Brisbane and has been like that since I started in the early 80's and but for a handful of westerlies could you come off the water satisfied. Only good wind in winter is the good old SE or better still the east cost lows barreling down the coast, when was the last time we had one of those. Best to wait for September and prey we get storms, nothing better than a NE with a storm up the backside in early spring.
Sorry for the rant but for the second year in a row my FNQ trip looks to be called off due to COVID, have been going cold turkey during winter knowing a weeks worth of wind up north is equal to years wind in Brisbane is all but gone.

Hardcarve, For the record - I gave up sailing in the westerlies years ago -could not agree more - they suck. I pack my gear away in May and dust it off about now. The weather station I took the data from is located in Nazareth house - Wynnum North. While it is elevated, I suspect it is a bit sheltered. By way of example - yesterday around 3-5pm it was in the range 12-13 knots, while Hope Banks was showing a pretty solid 19-20 knots. It is also worth noting that the data is for a one hour average. So I think 8 knots at Nazareth house is probably closer to 14/15 knots on the water - this was the basis for my use of 8 knots as a 'sailable' indicator.

In reality, I was presenting a comparison of the number of days where the wind is over X to identify if one year was 'windier' than past years.

2021 actually looks a bit better than 2018 and 2017 and on par with 2019. Try Mountain Biking instead. J

All I know is during winter you just have to head north , simple as that really, it's been like this for two weeks constant now