Yesterday was a very windy day in Harpswell, so I thought it would be interesting to see how it compares to other windy days in the past 3 years. We had a maximum gust of 44.1 mph, which is second only to the 47.2 mph gust we had on January 31st, 2013 (in the 3 years I have had a weather station). On average, it was only the 5th windiest day in the past 3 years, mainly because there were some calm periods.
What is a windy day? Well, there seems to be no meteorological definition, so I define it as a day with an average gust of at least 10 mph. It has to be fairly windy most of the day for this to happen, and it only happens about 8% of the time at my weather station. Yesterday, the average gust was 18.5 mph. The windiest day, on average, at my station was also January 31st, 2013, with an average of 22.7. That high number was helped by the fact that the minimum gust that day was 9.8 mph. It is a rare day that doesn't have at least one wind gust reading of zero (my station takes readings every 5 minutes); on average this only happens about once a month. The 9.8 mph minimum was the highest ever at my station. The chart below shows the readings throughout each of the 5 windiest days. January 31st, 2013 was the only day that had gusts averaging over 20 mph for the whole day. Yesterday was averaging around 25 mph through noon, but the afternoon and evening wasn't windy enough for it to join the over 20 club.
What is a windy day? Well, there seems to be no meteorological definition, so I define it as a day with an average gust of at least 10 mph. It has to be fairly windy most of the day for this to happen, and it only happens about 8% of the time at my weather station. Yesterday, the average gust was 18.5 mph. The windiest day, on average, at my station was also January 31st, 2013, with an average of 22.7. That high number was helped by the fact that the minimum gust that day was 9.8 mph. It is a rare day that doesn't have at least one wind gust reading of zero (my station takes readings every 5 minutes); on average this only happens about once a month. The 9.8 mph minimum was the highest ever at my station. The chart below shows the readings throughout each of the 5 windiest days. January 31st, 2013 was the only day that had gusts averaging over 20 mph for the whole day. Yesterday was averaging around 25 mph through noon, but the afternoon and evening wasn't windy enough for it to join the over 20 club.
It is easier to separate the days by looking at hourly averages...