Wind In Maalaea HI
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I live and work on a boat in Maalaea Maui Hawaii. Our bay sits between two mountains, one being Haleakala. The models always use the mountains as a block for the wind and show it calmer than it actually is. It easily blows 10-20kts daily and the majority of the time it’s shown in the app to be blowing 5-10kts. Is it possible to get a wind reading device in the bay so that boaters, businesses and visitors could get an actual true reading of the wind? I guess this is really a question for Windy developers. #windy #maalaea #accurate
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@Canli You could use the high-resolution model (NAM), but the global models will continue to handle this poorly because they don't resolve that low spot from Kahului to Maalaea very well. The NAM will still struggle, but will be better than the other models.
Unfortunately there aren't many high-resolution options available for Hawaii in general even if Windy were interested in pulling in another source.
As for getting an actual weather station in the bay, you would likely need to somehow convince NOAA to place a buoy out there. Onshore MADIS stations P36, 005HE, and KPDH1 may be helpful. I thought Windy pulled in MADIS already so I'm not sure why these don't show up.
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@Canli
Global models with medium resolution are not very accurate for predicting the wind and wind gusts at your boat location close to a high mountain. It would need a high resolution model.
The best solution for you would be that Windy show the HRRR-Hawaï model. But this model which is available over USA is still experimental.
https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hawaii/
The Observation vs forecast feature applied to local weather stations don’t find a model really better than the 4 others.
