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Hi All:

___Does anyone know which way the wind normally or naturally blows across Austrailia in the summer time (now)? Namely, day and night time wind strengths and directions betweeen Darwin to Adelaide N to S or S to N along the Stuart Highway - National A87?

___Thanks in advance.

___Wayne

Uhh...going somewhere?

Hi Tim:

___Just asking.

___I did some research this morning and it looks like the prevailing winds are North to South so Darwin to Adelaide is the proper direction to drive. I saw temps in the 90's for Darwin, it hit 100 in Alice Springs (about the half way mark) and low to mid-80's in Adelaide.

___Besides having to drive on the left hand side of the road, speed limits are lower around the urban centers (20 - 30 kph inner city and 60 - 70 kph suburban) and from the descriptions of A87 (Stuart Highway), it is desolate with speed limits usually at 100 kph and no minimums?

___Anyone know if A87’s asphalt is any good? It appears as if it was finally hard surfaced in the late 80's but I am wondering if it is smooth or not?

___Thanks in advance.

___Wayne

Looks like you're going to slap the Taylors on their home turf...

Hi Wayne,

Tried to post earlier but it didn't work. Here's attempt #2.

From http://www.diamantina-tour.com.au/outback_info/climate.htm:

"Seasonal variations in wind patterns are controlled by shifts in the position of the high-pressure belt (which forms part of the global sub-tropical ridge), from the southern portions of the continent in summer to the latitudes of central Australia in winter. During the warmer half of the year (October – March), the ridge is located in the south of the area; most of the prevailing winds are from the southeast quadrant. During autumn the mean position of the ridge moves north and remains over the centre of the continent for the cooler months (April to September), and winds tend to be lighter. Gale force winds (in excess of 61kph) are uncommon, being most frequent from October to December when they are observed on average one day per month. In many parts of the outback Aboriginal people call this windy season."

So in summer the winds will be blowing mostly from Adelaide towards Darwin, and you should drive North for maximum FE. (I think)

It feels very silly sitting in South Africa advising an American on the best direction to drive in a country that I've only been to once. Maybe you'd be best off calling the Australian Bureau of Meteorology: +61 3 9669 4603 or http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/contacts.shtml.

You were talking about Australia's summer time, right? It's going to be _really_ hot on that road in summer...

-Simon

Found this:http://www.forum.fjr13.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=609
And there's some useful bits here too: http://www.ayton.id.au/gary/Science/Climate/climate_australia.htm
And there was one line in this: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1903Natur..68..295C that said
The harbour opens towards the N.W., and, as will be seen from a perusal of the wind charts given in Van der Stok's work, ``Wind and Weather, Currents, Tides and Tidal Streams in the East Indian Archipelago,'' the winds during the summer blow with great persistency from the N.W., tending to pile the water up in the harbour, while in the winter time the prevailing winds are S.E., with, of course, an opposite effect.
I also found a pdf about bush fires and how the wind affects them in that general area:http://geog.tamu.edu/sarah/australia/bushfires.pdf

Hope it's of some help.

ollie

I'd email the weatherperson at some TV station at each end. They'd probably be happy to answer; more so if you'd disclose your reason for asking.

DAS

Can't tell you the condition of the motorway but the Bureau of Meteorology has average climate data, wind roses (wind maps), and other goodies on their website.

http://reg.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/index.shtml

http://reg.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/maps.shtml

http://reg.bom.gov.au/climate/current/index.shtml

http://reg.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/cmb.cgi?page=indexa&area=nat

You can find average temps, average winds at 9AM & 3PM, weather by month, winds by month, significant variances & more.

Hope this helps.

Wayne: I'll send that message to Pat Sparks when I get home tomorrow.

Hi Doug:

___View the following: Ford’ Fiesta ECOnetic triumphs in Australia (cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26325). Ford of Australia wasted a perfectly good opportunity to put this one out of reach of the Prius let alone the current 1.6L TDI Polo or the upcoming VW 1.2L SuperPolo BlueMotion. I tried to help given this is the Fiesta Econetic worth an easy 100 mpgUS out there but was rejected last month. They have some ideas for the future possibly but the Australia summer season only lasts another 3 months and I do not think they are ready for a WR drive placing them on top by the margin needed :(

___Anyway, at 75 mpg across the continent in one direction and busting the Prius, I thought Toyota of Australia would like to add a bit of bragging rights of their own so I sent in a proposal...

___Even though Toyota is getting their reputation handed to them as of late thanks to “Sudden Acceleration (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25431)” and the lives it has taken, poor quality and Fit/Finish (cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25667) of which my parents Prius-III suffers :(, middling IIHS crash test results due to lack of roof crush strength testing (cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26903) and any number of law suits (cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25617&highlight=lawsuit), the 2010 Prius on a one way all highway drive with a tail wind could knock off the poor Econetic achievement and give Toyota some good publicity which they are certainly lacking as of late.

___I am still at a loss how the Econetic could beat its NEDC highway by just 2.5% as anyone driving as stupid as they want would blow that one out of the water? They took the North to South route and from my research, they had a tail/rear quartering wind for most of the way. Why Ford even bothered putting two Ford engineers, hired drivers, journalists (whoever???) behind the wheel for three + days plus the vehicle and people transport back and forth for that kind of result is saddening given all the great achievements Ford has performed lately :ccry:

___WH, those are the same maps I used the other night before sending Toyota of Australia a proposal. If I read the Wind roses correctly, it appears the north to south route from Darwin to Adelaide allows a direct/rear quartering tail wind for most of the summer. I checked local temps (hot all the way across which is perfect ;)). Winds in Darwin, Alice Springs and Adelaide showing good strong winds (10 to 15 mph) from the NNW or NW towards the SSE for most of the route. I also checked elevation profiles (highest peak on the Stuart is less than ½ a mile ASL) and it appears to be a walk in the park from my perspective.

___I also read that the A87 (Stuart Highway) is about as desolate as they come for probably 1,800 of its almost 2,000 mile length which means if the numbers are not up to snuff, we can get them back as needed. I requested to do 14 + hours at mid-speed suburban to mid-speed highway and still easily blast the Econetic across. I am only now concerned about the road surface. I saw pics of the Fiesta Econetic during the Global Challenge and one from the recent Australia Solar Car race. The Stuart highway where the Econetic snap was taken looks pretty similar to county roads in upper WI (pretty rough) whereas the Solar car pic showed a standard smooth road surface like an Interstate here in the US?

___I have three other CleanMPG Prius drivers in mind that would be a part of the two man team needed to take on the “Outback Challenge” as well ;)

___Smart-ZA, the winds appear to come from the North to the South. Can you verify through the wind maps per WH’s links. Or I do not know how to read the Roses correctly?

___Mike, is Pat a native Australian?

___I send a proposal like this out once a month and you can tell how many are actually picked up but this one is such low hanging fruit I just had to say something :)

___Along with the above, I presented that we could do something pretty spectacular in the upcoming February 2010 Camry Hybrid (they call it the Hybrid Camry down under) and while doing the weather checks, had a look around the continent just in case a future opportunity would present itself as to the direction of travel for an Australian circumnavigation WR...

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Wayne-

you're reading the roses backward. The wind rose homepage has a very good rundown, but the essentially picture the wind rose like a collection of wind socks. The big end has the wind blowing in and the smaller end the the direction it is blowing towards.

From the hi-res maps, it appears as through winds are primarily from the SE to NW with winds shifting from S to E throughout the day and land/sea breezes dominating conditions in the port cities (from the land during the day, from the sea at night).

hope that helps.

-Marc

Hi Marc:

___It does. We would start in Adelaide then :) The port cities had winds all over the place but within 50-miles of the coast, the general N to S (I mean S to N ;)) winds take over.
The branches are divided into segments of different thickness and colour, which represent wind speed ranges from that direction. Speed ranges of 10km/h are used in these wind roses. The length of each segment within a branch is proportional to the frequency of winds blowing within the corresponding range of speeds from that direction.
___Good Luck

___Wayne

Mike, is Pat a native Australian?

Yes, Remember? We met him at Prius Connection Detroit last year. He handed out boomerangs. I don't remember exactly where he lives there.