Weather (Atlanta)

From WindsportAtlanta.com: Wiki

While every place has weather, Atlanta and the inland Southeast have certain weather characteristics that a windsurfer should know about.

General

Atlanta, while a pleasant place to live and work, is not a place renown for its wind. A cynic once said of Atlanta, "it's where wind goes when it dies."

The winds we do get are driven primarily by two processes: the jet stream and tropical events such as depressions and storms. Generally, wind is created by either the earth's rotation (trade winds) or differences in temperature (cold fronts, tropical storms). Because of our location in the Southeast United States, a fair amount of open, surrounding land and irregular geography, especially to the west, and distance from the ocean means that a lot of the factors that make other locations (beaches, tropics, Columbia Gorge) windy simply don't exist here.

That doesn't mean its all bad. It just means that

  • windsurfers tend to become students of weather
  • windsurfers tend also to have other forms of outdoor recreation, e.g. cycling, kayaking, wake boarding, motor and dirt biking
  • windsurfers tend to make pilgrimages to windier locations such as the Outer Banks, Florida, the Gorge, etc.

Once you learn and understand what conditions make wind more likely here, you'll be happier and have more effective time on the water.

Prevailing Winds

The prevailing and upper level winds at Atlanta's latitude are from the west.

The Jet Stream

Tropical Events and Weather

Seasons

Fall

Winter

Spring

Summer