Bluffdale Wind Meter Gone?

[kenonstott]

Craig has always said to watch Bluffdale wind readings as a precursor to Utah Lake blowing. Now the Bluffdale wind meter seems to be gone. It is no longer listed on the Mesowest. Is there another meter that works well. I hate to use Jordan Landfill but it does seem to work sometimes.

[KyrkWright]

I am not a wind expert (yet - I would like to be) but I have been watching the Lehi meter that is 5 miles south of the Bluffdale reader. The North pattern that flows over bluffdale seems to continue directly to this one and I have been seeing similar results on UL from watching this one as I have with the Bluffdale reader. Of course, this is only in the last week and a half or so since the Bluffdale reader went down that I have been watching this other one.

http://www.met.utah.edu/cgi-bin/roman/m ... ?stn=C7910

my $.02

Kyrk

[Kenny]

The Bluffdale meter gives you a more accurate idea if the wind is going to turn on or not at ULSSB than Lehi. There are days that the Lehi meter will show a solid north, but nothing comes up at the lake. You may have noticed that it doesn't take much of a north breeze to get the flags waving wildly in the Lehi area. There is a nice venturi right as you enter Utah Valley. Unfortunately, the wind tends to dissipate as it travels further south. So, some days the Lehi meter is helpful, other days it is misleading.

The Bluffdale meter is also used by the paragliders. I think a few friendly e-mails to Mesowest might get it up and going again if it is just a minor glitch.

If not, I would pull up a wind observation map and see what is happening valley wide.

[bigwavedave]

I use the bluffdale one all the time for paragliding as well as the one in alpine just a little further south near the freeway. That one too has been down lately. I'm hoping they'll be back!!

[mike loeser]

A website I found that shows the south end of Utah lake wind speeds is here:
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KUTLAKES1
The most recent 19 mins is shown in 1 min increments here:
http://www.whitewillows.net/WeatherLink/vws.html?
I've had bad luck this year with timing on riding at Utah lake. I've always had something else going on when the wind is blowing. I have yet to verify how accurate this site is, but according to the map the wind meter is located south of SSB. Judging from those riding last night I would say the wind is stronger than what shows.
Mike L.

[Jason Klein]

I've looked at that meter after a few sessions this yr. It seems to be pretty accurate for LB. Maybe add 2 mph to what the meter shows.

[Weston Youd]

I grew up very near to this meter (Lake Shore), and you can expect the winds to be a bit higher at ULSSB, and ULLB. As a kid we'd run down to the lake after chores in the summer to swim, and it seemed to always be a windy in the evenings even if it wasn't blowing at home. I'd agree with the theory to add a few knots to the wind speed from this would be a good idea.

[bigwavedave]

I followed up on the wind meters at the point (as I've personally been missing their use for paragliding. Below was the original message and response by UDOT. they seem to be open to trying to minimize the downtime of meters being worked on if we let them know which ones are in use by those of us who fly and possibly kiteboard/windsurf. If anyone knows of other UDOT stations that are down that would help us please let me know so we can get them on the priority list.

BWD


Thanks you very much for your reply. I am involved with not only paragliding but also windsurfing and kiteboarding/snowkiting which are all wind dependent sports and rely greatly on the use of your wind-meters and the mesonet sites. They are truly appreciated and I will update you with any other meters that may be down that any of these communities utilize regularly.
Thanks again,
Dave




--- On Wed, 7/9/08, Ralph Patterson <ralphpatterson@utah.gov> wrote:

> From: Ralph Patterson <ralphpatterson@utah.gov>
> Subject: Alpine/Bluffdale RWIS sites
> To: drggriffiths@yahoo.com
> Cc: meteo-mesowest@lists.utah.edu, u0559900@utah.edu, "Dave Kinnecom" <DKINNECOM@utah.gov>, "Jeff Williams" <JEFFWILLIAMS@utah.gov>, "Administrative Secretary" <R2ADMINISTRATIVESECRETARY@utah.gov>
> Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2008, 6:03 PM
> Dave,
> Thanks for your email, we are currently in the process of
> revamping and upgrading our entire mesonet of weather sites
> across the state. We expect that most every one of our 53
> sites will see some down time between now and the rest of
> the summer. Just and FYI... Currently the primary purpose
> of these stations is to offer support and observations for
> UDOT winter operations as well as the traveling public
> during periods of inclement weather, so the best time for
> us to upgrade or do any major repairs on the system is
> during the summer months.
>
> From your email I now understand that you and your peers
> use this station for operational flying purposes so we have
> put these two sites on top of our priority list. With that
> said we expect that the Alpine site will be down at least
> through the upcoming weekend; we anticipate that it will be
> operational by Monday. However, the Bluffdale site will be
> down longer, perhaps a couple of weeks, mainly due to badly
> needed major repairs, and to install a more robust
> communication architecture. Once we have tested the new
> instrumentation and have performed quality checking on the
> data we will put these sites back onto the Mesowest. To
> avoid any further inconvenience to you (and the flying
> community at large) please do not hesitate to give me a
> shout if there are any other sites that we own/maintain
> that may impact you, and I will make sure we minimize the
> down time. Please feel free to forward this email on to
> anyone you feel is impacted by this or simply who would be
> interested.
> Thanks,
> Ralph
>
>
> Ralph Patterson
> Meteorologist
> Weather Operations/RWIS Manager
> Traffic Operation Center
> office 801 887-3735
> fax 801 887-3797
> ralphpatterson@utah.gov


Dave Griffiths wrote:
> Hi my name is Dave Griffiths. I'm an active paraglider and use your mesonet sites (as do many other pilots) to determine whether or not to fly at the point to the mountain. Recently I've noticed that both the bluffdale and the Alpine mesonet stations have been down or not working (which happen to be the 2 most used sites to determine flyability at the point of the mountan). I'm just wondering if these will be back up anytime soon as they are a major benefit to the entire flying community. You response is appreciated.