Beach to Battleship

Yikes! As of this morning, the forecast on Accuweather has changed DRAMATICALLY for race day. They're now saying the morning low on race morning will be 37 with a "realfeel" of 27! They're also calling for a daytime high of only 60. This will be colder than last year ... and last year was record cold!

The Weather Channel website differs significantly, showing a range from 51 to 71. I hope they're right, but they rarely are.

Predicting weather a week ahead of time is like reading tea leaves, only less precise. About Thursday it will start to be more accurate.

Well if it continues it's normal trend, it will be overcast with possible light showers and middle to upper 60's. Its been like that, except a day here and there, for about a month it seems like. The days its been sunny, its been 80 or better but windy.

Yahoo weather said, when I looked yesterday, sunny and 71 with a low of 55 for race day. They have been right on par with what the weather has actually done.

But Jay is correct, this is eastern NC and the weather changes by the hour. I'm glad I'm local so I don't have to drag a bunch of extra crap around to be prepared for anything.

Accuweather has now whipped back in the other direction ... calling for an overnight low of 54 with a "real feel" of 58. That's a far cry from where they were yesterday. They're pushing the daytime high back into the 70s, too.

Psycholist

I know you did the race last year. If weather forcasts don't change to much and it is about 50 deg when getting out the water what do you wear on the bike? I know you did and are doing a relay so you do not have to worry about being wet starting out on the bike, but I also know you are not going to be wearing some big wind jacket that is flapping in the wind.
I thought of trying to get arm warmers on and maybe going ala Tour de France style and shoving a newspaper between me and my wet tri suit. I can easily toss it later at an aid station.
What do you thin or anyone else who is going to be racing.

For an alternative and usually extremely reliable weather forecasting site, go to the National Weather Service's fire weather forecast site:

http://fire.boi.noaa.gov/FIREWX/RDUFWFILM.html

Also, try this one, which is the NOAA/National Weather Service site for Wilmington (this will also have links to surf forecasts):

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.ph ... 7.9113&e=1

The first link takes you directly to Wilmington's fire weather forecast, and the local info will be at the top of the page. Scroll down for other localities in the area. I use this site all the time in my work as a fire ecologist, and it is almost always spot on. But as with all forecasts, I'd give it more weight once we get to within 72 hours of race time. There are several bits of information that are handled with more precision here than on the generic weather sites. You'll get forecasts for the coming week, with predicted lows and highs (nothing new there), but you'll also get % chance of precip, type of precip, predicted duration of precip, and min/max relative humidity (this one is a very good number to know, as it will play hell with us under the wrong scenarios). All of these data are usually very close to the predicted on the given day.

You also get really good info on winds on the fire weather site - in the list of items that you'll see, look for the listing for "wind20ft." This is the predicted windspeed and direction for winds within 20 feet of the ground. Don't pay attention to the listing on "transport winds", as this is for the windspeeds high in the atmosphere (this number will likely scare the snot out of you). And remember: wind direction is the direction that the wind will be coming FROM. The good news is that high pressure is forecast for the area through Friday, so all else equal, this should bode well for us.

Good luck to everybody, and let's hope for warm temps and no wind!

Also an ultra-reliable weather site here:
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/fin ... uery=28401

Tomassini,

That's awesome stuff. Thanks very much! I grew up in Kansas and Oklahoma. I've been a weather nut all my life. I never knew about the fire site. I did know about NOAA's site, though and visit it frequently ... for my daily rides where I live and for Wilmington for B2B.

qrkid wrote:Psycholist

I know you did the race last year. If weather forcasts don't change to much and it is about 50 deg when getting out the water what do you wear on the bike? I know you did and are doing a relay so you do not have to worry about being wet starting out on the bike, but I also know you are not going to be wearing some big wind jacket that is flapping in the wind.
I thought of trying to get arm warmers on and maybe going ala Tour de France style and shoving a newspaper between me and my wet tri suit. I can easily toss it later at an aid station.
What do you thin or anyone else who is going to be racing.

Last year I wore a very thin, sleeveless base layer made by DeFeet beneath a standard long-sleeve skinsuit. I also wore a pair of Sugoi thermal knit gloves. These are essentially liner gloves. They're light and thin, but extremely effective. I also used aero shoe covers that helped keep my feet warm, too. I have a little Sweatvac skull cap I wore on my bald head beneath my aero helmet. I was uncomfortably cold for the first half hour or so, but I was going pretty much all-out and, by 1/2 hour in, I was fine. I'd rather be too cold than be too warm and risk breaking a big sweat in that kind of cold.

I've got seven friends who are all doing IMFL on the same day. We met for lunch yesterday and they talked about what they'd do if it was really cold on race morning. Even the two who hope to be Kona qualifiers agreed they'd take the time to dry off ... it would cost them less time than if they got on the bike and got excessively cold. Apparently, they've each been in races before where they experienced uncontrollable shivering which also made for uncontrollable cycling. They also said they'd change into cycling shorts. One of them plans to do that regardless of temp.

Here's hoping we won't have to deal with an excessive chill. If it's upper 50s, I'll probably just do the skinsuit without the base layer or gloves. Have a great race!

Updated from Accuweather...

Low of 44
High of 68

Winds 5 mph, gusts up to 10 mph

BRIGHT AND SUNNY!!!

Water temperature seems to be holding right at 68. From www.wblivesurf.com (great website to check out daily photos/conditions of WB).

Perfect weather!!!

I did the race last year too and used the TdF trick w/ the newspaper. I had that newspaper in my top until the first aid station past the bike special needs.

crispcrispcrisp wrote:Updated from Accuweather...

Low of 44
High of 68

Winds 5 mph, gusts up to 10 mph

BRIGHT AND SUNNY!!!

Water temperature seems to be holding right at 68. From www.wblivesurf.com (great website to check out daily photos/conditions of WB).

Perfect weather!!!

Problem is that you need to look at the low on Friday headed in to Saturday and that is 37 feeling close to freezing, so if that holds, the air temp to start the swim will be right at 37/38

Just picked this up off of the National Weather Service forecast for Wilmington:

THE WEEKEND TEMPS WILL BE A GOOD 10 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL WITH POSSIBILITY OF SOME FROST ADVISORIES...MAINLY EARLY SAT MORNING.

Damn. Looks the high pressure that's coming in is bringing a pretty harsh dose of cold air with it, so the early morning could be pretty uncomfortable. This sounds very similar to last year, when it was damn cold in the morning, but warmed up nicely and was beautiful by mid-day. Keep those arm and leg warmers handy for the bike. Thank god I'm wearing a wetsuit this time......

rob2681 wrote:I did the race last year too and used the TdF trick w/ the newspaper. I had that newspaper in my top until the first aid station past the bike special needs.

What is the Tdf trick? Please explain.

D-Boyer wrote:

rob2681 wrote:I did the race last year too and used the TdF trick w/ the newspaper. I had that newspaper in my top until the first aid station past the bike special needs.

What is the Tdf trick? Please explain.

Put a newspaper down your top. In the tour the riders get handed newspapers by spectators at the top of mountain passes so they can put them down their shirts for the decents.