Wind forecasts

Check the Windguru website for wind forecasts. As you said in your comments, the forecasts are not so accurate on all these website. You generally need to register and to pay to have accurate data...

On Windguru, you need to proceed to a "spot search" and enter "Maputo". You'll see quite a lot of GPS points created and need to choose always the same one in order to have always the same reference. Once you've selected it, the forecasts appear for a period of 1 week.

Wind direction: basically the beach is oriented facing East / South-East. The arrow on the forecast shows the wind direction, meaning if the arrow is pointing down, the wind will come from the North. Good winds for Maputo are then North-East (arrow pointing down-left), East, South-East, South and even South-West, the best being South in the winter season (from April to August) and North-East during summer time (September to March).

If you see that the wind changes dramatically its direction every 2 hours, the wind will probably not be good at all. North wind is not good as it is off-shore wind.

Wind strenght: The interpretation of the wind strenght depends on the wind direction.

During summer time, when we have thermal winds picking-up in the afternoon, if you see wind increasing constantly between 11 am and 5 pm and turning from North to North-East during this laps of time, you are sure to have good and constant thermal wind during the whole afternoon. You need to add at least 6-7 knots to what is written, meaning that as soon as strenght's above 8 knots, you'll be able to kite.

During winter time, thermals are not working very well, meaning that even if you see the wind turning from North to North-East in the afternoon with a slight increase of strenght, the wind might stay off-shore. On the opposite, if you see South or South-East wind above 10 knots, you will be able to kite but the weather will probably be rainy...

I hope this will help you and I agree with the fact to set up a system to have real-time forecasts on our beach in Maputo!

Cheers,

Greg
MOKA team