High winds aloft....

[GHA]

Love this blog, usually fairly technical but not too much...
Detecting Fast Winds Aloft

Though surprising little interest in understanding the weather here considering it's such a vital part of what we like to do

 

[Yngmar]

A key point to understanding more about wind and weather is realizing they are three-dimensional, despite the 2D representations at sea/ground level we're usually shown on the weather forecast.

Windy.com has a nice "Airgram" view of the winds at all altitudes. And you can select the altitude on the side bar for the map view.

The tricky bit is figuring out when those high winds do come down to visit us at sea level and cause a sudden change in wind direction! And even the forecasters get that one wrong a lot, but at least you can be prepared if you know what might happen with the weather if they got it wrong.

 

[Stemar]

IIRC, high winds aloft mean a strong likelihood of some pretty fierce gusts.

 

[GHA]

Least the GFS et al forecasts are mostly pretty good these days, for more days than they used to be.