Forums > Kitesurfing Queensland

Brisbane live wind on seabreeze

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Created by Dry > 9 months ago, 8 Feb 2017
Dry
5 posts
8 Feb 2017 7:57PM
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Hi all,
I'm in Brisbane, and Brighton is my local kiting spot. I'm still a bit of a drive from Brighton, so I check the live wind on seabreeze (phone app) before heading out, to make sure it's worth the drive.

There is no live wind info available for Brighton, so I usually go off Redcliffe and Brisbane Airport data (I figure Brighton is about half way between the 2, so if it's good at both, then Brighton should be O.K). However, they sometimes have huge variation between them, making it difficult to estimate Brighton wind. For example today, the live wind at Redcliffe was 22 knots, and at Brisbane airport at the same time, the wind was 6 knots.

Just wondering what other Brisbane people do? How do you know whether it's worth going or not? Does wind direction have much of an impact?

NorthernKitesAUS
QLD, 1061 posts
9 Feb 2017 9:30AM
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riddim1
QLD, 147 posts
9 Feb 2017 10:14AM
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Hello Dry,
Never go off the Brisbane Airport beacon as the device is actually surrounded by a few physical structures which mix up the reading. For kiting in the Sandgate area, you can make a 'best guess' at the wind speed by considering the banana bank and spitfire channel beacons. Redcliffe reads slightly higher as the device is actually at height (the higher the device the cleaner/faster the air is). Beacon heights and exact locations are all found on the BOM website if you get the time to have a look. Cheers

remo81
QLD, 678 posts
9 Feb 2017 11:40AM
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Go off the Cape Morton reading if you are going to kite at Brighton. lol

The airport is only accurate in a Westerly.

Dry
5 posts
9 Feb 2017 8:15PM
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That makes sense, the airport reading always seems to be much lower than the rest. I'll go off the others you suggest next time.

Good tips - thanks!

Hardcarve1
QLD, 547 posts
10 Feb 2017 7:00AM
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I tend to go by the inner beacon more generally, sure its in the middle of the bay but does tend to give the more accurate reading. Then if its blowing from the north east go to the Sandgate pool as you tend to get more clean wind than Brighton. If its southeast then Brighton it is.

KezzaK
28 posts
11 Feb 2017 8:06AM
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Great advice from all. I use a combo of all of the above. A decent SE change can be seen hiiting from gold coast all the way up.
Reading wind then matching it to who is at the beach helped me learn. Always knew it was likely to be good when the regular legends are at Brighton at same time. It was like they had extra senses or could smell the wind change coming.
As a fallback there are often posts in Brisbane Kiters FB group page and Jason from Briskites often posts a local condition update which really helps.
Goodwinds to you and all.

Nikita
QLD, 182 posts
20 Feb 2017 6:47AM
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Good question. I've tried using all of the different beacons to gauge how windy it was at Brighton or other parts of the bay. After years of trying to use different beacons, now I mainly rely on the Brisbane airport reading and it hasn't let me down yet. A lot of people will say that it under reads the wind, but it's always within a couple of knots of Brighton in my experience.
A couple of things to note - the Brisbane airport reading is usually spot on in a N to NE. The reading will be gusty in a S to SE (assume it's somewhere between the average and gust speed), but still very close to the actual wind in Brighton.

I've been to Brighton a few times where it wasn't windy, but inner beacon is reading a steady 20kn. It seems like there's a lot of wind in the bay that never makes it to shore (or at least Brighton area).



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"Brisbane live wind on seabreeze" started by Dry