32nd America's Cup Official Website - Unexpected weather in Valencia

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Valencia - 18.04.2006

Unexpected weather in Valencia

Among the many advantages of the Meteorological Data System (MDS), is that it constantly monitors the race course area off Valencia. Day or night, every day of the year, data is collected from the weather buoys dotted around the race course.

Indeed, from a weather point of view, this is now perhaps the most intensely studied body of water in the world. The teams use the data generated by the MDS to aid in designing their boats and to pick the windshifts during racing.

MDS: 18.04.06

For the rest of us, the MDS data sometimes reveals some unexpected weather phenomena. This past Easter weekend was one of those occasions, when some of the buoys registered winds gusting over 60-knots.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Last year, the MDS graphs showed a short burst of wind approaching 80-knots. And in 2004, one of the MDS boat drivers saw a waterspout forming near the race course area and managed to snap off a couple of photos on his camera phone.

MDS: 13.11.05

Waterspouts are like mini-tornados over the sea. Although very small in area, they generate very intense winds – as the MDS data shows. Notice that at the same time weather buoy BO 044 was reading 78.4 knots, the other buoys, close by, were showing wind speed from 7.0 to 14.3 knots. While teams are often looking to find their own gust of wind during racing, that might be a little too extreme!

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