Victoria, ‘The Place to Be’ in Australia was hit by wild winter weather in the last week of June 2014.
Melbourne residents and visitors were slammed with hostile gale force winds, freezing air temperatures, heavy rains and even long anticipated snow showers in the mountains.
This wet and windy weather was causing chaos across Victoria, including traffic accidents, Yarra River flooding, blackouts, etc.
On another note, some adrenalin seeking individuals found a way to enjoy the wind. A number of extreme sports enthusiasts used the storm as an opportunity to surf in Port Phillip Bay (and avoid driving for at least 1.5 hours to get to the closest surf beach on the coast). Some other ones attempted to rig their windsurfing or kitesurfing gear and sail on the stormy water. Let’s hope all of them returned home safe!
Enjoy these beautiful and breath-taking photos uploaded on Twitter and keep on reading to find out tips on how to predict the wind and understand wind observations – will come handy next time you go outdoors!
#Photo | Surfer jumps off pier into Port Phillip Bay, taking advantage of waves during storm in Melbourne, Aus. (AFP) pic.twitter.com/jmoVaHbmOu
— Amy Feldtmann (@AmyFeldtmann) June 29, 2014
Incredibly wild weather today in Melbourne! Nice sunset though after the wind and rain eased off enough to ride! pic.twitter.com/m6AjiTZ1ED — geoffelwood (@geoffelwood) June 24, 2014
What a #windy day in #Melbourne… Beaches under water. Palm leaves on the streets. Rainbow on a gloomy day. #weather pic.twitter.com/qiyNIOH6EV
— Vic Wind (@VicWindApp) June 24, 2014
How to read Vic Wind App charts and maps like a pro?
If you compare our interactive wind maps on a stormy and on a calm day, you can easily see how different they look: dark colors vs. bright colors, long arrows vs. short, etc. All these graphical design elements make sure that you effortlessly pick wind and weather trends and successfully utilise observations and forecasts when planning outdoor activities.
Let’s start with the **Port Phillip map** (or **Vic Coast map** if you live or work in country Victoria)
Once you open the wind map, you can within seconds realise where it is windy, where it is not and how the wind strength might travel over time.
Keen windsurfers in St Kilda may not need to travel down South by much to catch stronger wind, if they see that the stations in the direction where the wind is coming from show more knots (e.g. if St Kilda is showing 18 knots southerly wind and Fawkner is showing 25 knots, then it is very likely that the wind in St Kilda will pick up in due course).
Click on your favorite wind station and you’ll be taken to a graph showing wind behavior for the last 24 hours. That’s where you realise that you made the right choice going out for a sail at a particular time of the day or that you missed out on a decent hour with favorable winds for windsurfing or kitesurfing – life is tough!
Hints:
- You can zoom in the default map, tap on the Settings button located in the top left corner and select “Save View” so that that preferred location on the map would appear next time you open Vic Wind App.
- You can drag the Observations and Air Temperature table.
- If you see Observations and Air Temperature table showing “Refresh” in red, tap the Refresh button in the top right corner to display newly generated data from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). You may need to refresh several times as scheduled readings may be uploaded by BoM slightly later than anticipated.
Vic Wind App Forecasts section: **Melbourne Wind Forecast** and **Victoria Wind Forecast**
What we love about these wind forecasting maps is the simplicity in visualising trends by simply dragging your finger along the timeline at the bottom of the page. You can see wind dancing in front of your eyes!
Arrows show the direction of the wind. The longer they are – the stronger the wind. You will also notice that the longer arrows are displayed in darker blue backgrounds which also show that the wind is stronger than in other locations (see below how stormy it was in Melbourne on Tuesday, 24 June). Colors go from dark blue (xx – xx knots), lighter shades of blue (vary from xx to xx knots) to green, yellow or even white (meaning 0 knots).
Don’t forget to refresh the page and zoom in and out to your preferred destination in Melbourne or wider state of Victoria.
Please follow Vic Wind on Twitter or like us on Facebook for some more updates about the weather, wind and its greatest fans. Feel free to drop a line if you have any questions about the Vic Wind App.