Founded with an organization meeting at Barclay Bay on April 27, 2006, our informal group works with the Lucky Peak management and the Corps of Engineers to protect local recreational access and what other projects prove worthy. We've held work parties in 2006, 2007 and June, 2008, to help enhance the Barclay Bay beach.
The Upper TV weather page has NOAA observations for Caldwell, Boise and Mountain Home, and the links you need to know where to go sailing locally, designed for fast compilation of the best weather information.
The latest version of the sailors email list is the Boise Sailors Association Google Group. Follow the link and sign up. Drop me an email (change the "at" to @ and take out the underscores) if you don't get fast enough response to a subscription request.
With the snowkite team, it's now year-round fun, but the journal here is focused on the liquid sailing. Back before popular demand this time!
| Assorted April | Apr 3 ICR | 11 Chilly ICR | 25 Weedy ICR | |||
| And May! | 9 Water temps | 14 MHR G40 | 16 LP opener | 17 Perfect | ||
| 18 Holier | 19 | 20 Holy Cow! | 21 Lowell goes off | 22 Twice | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 25 | 27 | 28 | 29 Skunk | 30 | 31 Ironman |
| June 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Big wind day | 5 | 6 CJ | 7 RCR |
| 8 | 9 | 10 Chaser | 11 | 12 | 13 MW back | 14 |
| 15 Light | 16 OK | 17 Still fun | 18 | 19 | 20 Windy | 21 Classic |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 PM east | 27 stuck NW | 28 Cleanup |
| 29 Another classic | 30 Flukey | July 1 T-storm | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 something | 11 on | 12 on |
| 13 on | 14 on | 15 on | 16 off | 17 back on | 18 on? | 19 best in a while |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 Finally!! | 30 | 31 Best in a while | Aug 1 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 | 5 Another good | 6 Excellent | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 Kiter wars | 12 | 13 | 14 v. windy | 15 bust | 16 6.0 type |
| 17 perfect | 18 better | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 Good |
| 24 Wow | 25 | 26 | 27 Chilly wow | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 31 | Sept 1 Some NW | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Nicely | 6 Barely |
| 7 | 8 Not bad | 9 Late arrival | 10 W all over | 11 | 12 Short but good | 13 two |
| 14 three | 15 Lots of fun | 16 More big | 17 Swell | 18 Still going | 19 Super-good | 20 t-stormy |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 Lit up | 25 2x2 | 26 | 27 Swimmingly |
| 28 Repeat | 29 Great day | 30 Greater | Oct 1 Beautiful | 2 Nope | 3 Flying Friday | 4 T-storm |
| 5 | 6 | 7 One more go | 8 | 9 Freeze (&Indian Cr. &CJ | 10 Snow! | 11 Freezing fog |
 |
| Classic morning wind at Lucky Peak, June 18, 2003. Brian Kerr riding, photo courtesy of Chris Lee. |
The best on-line prediction seems to be the Unisys meteogram, giving a 60 hour forecast. It takes a bit of study to understand it; the main trick is that the times are UTC, 6 hours ahead of MDT. So 1200 UTC is 0600 MDT, just before sunrise.
For current observations, high pressure is good. SE wind at the airport, and E in Mountain Home and Caldwell is the prime indicator, the stronger the better. Caldwell seems the least reliable indicator, Mountain Home may be the best. Forecast "hot" weather (with the threshold getting lower later in the season) is good, any hint of W or NW flow is bad. The Lucky Peak nursery RAWS is up-canyon and will still show NW/NNW flow but double digit wind speed on a good day.
Snowkite Solider and Gear Daddy LLC promote backcountry snowkiting in Idaho.
What this (sub)site is about, what's new about it, more reference links.
If you'd like to send me a sailing report, and you like mailto links, here's a mailto link for me (remove the _ chars and replace 'at' with @).
There's a new surface map with current wind analysis that shows all of SW Idaho and E Oregon succinctly.
Air Sports Net has a nice graphical treatment of NOAA's forecast models.
The NOAA pages with local observations I use:
Boise observations
Mtn Home observations
Caldwell observations
The Boise, ID National Weather Service page has links to these and much, much more, along with the current forecast.
The two meteograms:
Unisys'
60 hour forecast for Boise (the "NGM" model), and
NOAA's ETA Model.
NOAA has a great site with access to Remote Automated Weather Station (RAWS) data, and out of the Missoula office, an interactive map of Pacific NW weather stations.
The Bureau of Reclamation has a teacup diagram online, showing the status of the Boise and Payette river watersheds succinctly.
The Navy's sunrise tables calculate times of sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, and the beginning and end of twilight, for one year, for any location in the world. Neat trick.
Windance has an index of Gorge weather resources including George McLean's forecast and various web cams.
Hatch Cam has views of the Hatchery, Swell City and Rowena.
Wind-surf.net has an easy-to-read graphical forecast for the Gorge, 3 snapshots a day.
iWindsurf reports for sailing spots around the world. Excellent coverage with public and private sensors, pretty good forecasts. All but the public sensors and wind archives now require a paid subscription, though.
I made photo travelogues of three trips to the Gorge back in 2001: Number one, two, and three.
The Magic Windsurfers have a website now with sailing reports, photos and the like.
My 1998-2007 indexes and daily reports are in cold storage, but available as PKZIP files. Send me an email if you want some of that old stuff.
Tom von Alten tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org