Thursday, March 29, 2012

That's wind!

A note again from Iceland, where I am staying over en route to TEDx in Maastricht next week.  One thing that is pervasive in this stark country is wind.  Here's the wind speed map from the past couple of days in my area.


It is presented in meters per second, with the bottom line being an average and the top line the peak gusts.  Around the time I was taking a walk, the gusts were hitting 26m/sec.  That's 58 miles per hour.  On the Beaufort scale, that is equivalent to "storm," well beyond a "gale" that "generally impedes progress."  It sure changes the nature of a nice walk along the cliffs.  In fact, you have to avoid the cliff edge, as people have been known to have been blown off them here.

You can understand how the grass gets laid down low:


And why lichen and heather predominate on the cliffs:


1 comment:

wrinkledman said...

Thanks for the Beaufort scale, it is poetry and science...really lovely. Iceland sounds like a world apart and is on my list.