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Disappointing wind KSP Punta Preta: why?
With five days gone, only one reasonable day of kiting and a dismal forecast for the next days, the Ponta Preta (Cape Verde) leg of the world championships in the wave discipline is forced to cancel the rest of the event.
This place is normally cranking. So what’s going on?
We have a kitesurf center on another Cape Verde island (Sao Vicente) and have been tracking our wind statistics against measurements and forecasts by the world’s expert climatologists.
Our suspicion: it’s because of La Nina – (a global climate pattern that normally only happens every 4-7 years, the opposite of El Nino).Last season we had strong La Nina conditions running from October into the May 2011. As a result the wind was often disappointing at the beginning of the season (many days of 11-13 knots and even some days below 11 knots during Oct-Feb).
This season we have weak La Nina conditions peaking in October and a forecast of gradually decreasing until March 2012. The wind has indeed been below par (many days with 13-15 knots in November) and has over the last week been gradually creeping up from 15 knots to 21 knots yesterday.
So perhaps a lesson for the organizers of events in the Cape Verde islands: track the long term forecasts for La Nina:
http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/cu … kLook.html
http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/cu … table.html. -
3 Svar
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Bad news but nice to know… Thanks!
And at the same time high buildings NE of PP are being built, ie disturbing the side off wind needed:-(. Just a matter of time? -
Thanks!
It was very frustrating. We were in communication with some of the KSP riders and they were complaining that they had another day with bad consitions and at the same time..
we had great wind of 17 knots all day on Salamansa in Sao Vicente – which is not far away from Sal.It’s not easy to arrange but next time a competition is held in Sal, I’m thinking of offering assistance to make a contingency plan so the organizers or riders have the possibility to get on the plane for the 30min flight to Sao Vicente (the pictures with the mountain backdrop would be amazing).
The trade wind from the NE accellerates between the two islands of Santo Antao (high mountains) and Sao Vicente (smaller mountains) and as a result, at Salamansa we can benefit from some extra wind, so it can happen to have 12 knots at kitebeach in Sal and 17 knots at Salamansa in Sao Vicente (although most days the difference is not that big).
Even if the wind is a total disaster in Sal with 7 knots, there is another beach on Sao Vicente that has an extra 5 knots due to another Venturi effect so you could easily find 14 knots there on the same day. -
hehe try setting up an event in sweden.. not a HOPE of hitting the wind : )
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