It’s a bad week to be a kite in Ontario (or a windmill)
It was recently the most calm week in more than two years across Ontario. We dive into the details on that unusual statistic
Life under a high-pressure ridge can feel like a breeze, but we hardly felt a breath of wind over the past week around Ontario.
The wind is driven by pressure differences in the atmosphere, with air flowing from the sinking air around a high-pressure system to low-pressure systems in the vicinity. The temperature differences around the planet fundamentally drive this.
From May to September, Ontario averages the lowest wind speeds of the year. Ontario’s power grid reported just 190 megawatts of electricity generated by wind Tuesday morning, less than one per cent of the total power generated compared to other grid sources. During windier days and storms, wind can generate more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity for the province.
Take a look at the hourly mean wind speed across some of the major cities across Ontario for the week of Sept. 9, 2024:
Toronto: 8.7 km/h (calmest in 2+ years)
Kitchener-Waterloo: 7.1 km/h (calmest in 2+ years)
Kingston: 8.5 km/h (calmest in 2+ years)
Petawawa: 3.3 km/h (calmest in 2+ years)
Ottawa: 8.3 km/h (calmest in 2+ years)
North Bay: 7.3 km/h (calmest in 2+ years)
This week may challenge the previous week regarding abnormally light wind speeds. In contrast, some of the windiest weeks of the past couple of years feature mean wind speeds close to 30 km/h.
Some of these recently recorded wind speeds well below September averages of 10-15 km/h across southern Ontario:
What’s the minimum speed required to fly a kite?
15-20 km/h is generally the minimum threshold to fly the vast majority of kites, so the winds in recent weeks aren’t cutting it.
No uptick in wind is forecast for the next several days, with maximum wind gusts forecast below 30 km/h over the next seven days. Many hours will be below the 10 km/h threshold.
Other impacts
Light winds and stagnant air masses can contribute to elevated levels of fine particulate matter in the lowest levels of the atmosphere.
Safe Great Lakes for mariners.
Wave forecasts are highly suppressed for the next week, making for extra safe conditions on the Great Lakes basin.
(Rachel Schoutsen/The Weather Network)
Did you know?
The windiest city in Canada is none other than St. John’s, N.L., with an average wind speed of more than 23 km/h.
The lightest wind speed year-round goes to Kelowna, B.C., with just a mean wind speed of 5.4 km/h.
Thumbnail courtesy of Getty Images/Selamed Riyanto/1055714482-170667a.
