Gusty.......

[Neil]

Over the last few days, it's been a bit windy. More than that, there seems to be a considerable difference in average wind speed and gust speed. At Dun Laoghaire at the moment:


Date 17/04/2013
Time: 18:01:00 hrs BST
Tide Height: 4.357 m
Swell Height: 0.239 m at 66.5 s
Temperature: 13.3 °C
Wind Bearing: 204°
Wind Direction: SSW
Wind Speed: 15.4 kts
Wind Speed Beaufort: 4
Wind Gust: 33.6 kts
Wind Gusts Beaufort: 8
Humidity: 58 %
Dew Point: 5.1 °C
Wind Chill: 11.9 °C
Pressure: 989.7 hPa
Rainfall: 0.9 mm
Sun Hours: 05:06:00 hrs:mm
Sun Radiation: 58.0 W/m2

Can't say I've noticed such a difference before - what gives?

 

[Lakesailor]

That is quite normal for the Lakes. Gusts are usually X2 wind speed. http://www.xcweather.co.uk/forecast/windermere

 

[Neil]

Gusting to F10 in the wee hours - tree and power lines down in the vicinity. I do hope my little boat is alright on it's new swinging mooring. I also hope nobody was caught out in it. I also hope that this isn't an augury for the coming summer.....

 

[Three kings]

Just a few hundred metres from you Neil, we recorded 56 knots at about 2am last night in the marina. Slept well though, but that was most likely due to a nice bottle of Chilean.

 

[macd]

Generally speaking, gustiness is associated with vertical instability in the atmosphere, so more likely with broken cumulus than stratus cloud cover. With the latter, peak wind speeds depart much less from the mean. For the same reasons gustiness is associated with typical UK April weather...the showery, blustery, cold front stuff.

Forecasts will often speak of "a stable air mass" or an "unstable" one in giving the general synopsis. The former suggests little gustiness, the latter more. Local effects around headlands, valley mouths, etc obviously may still apply.