Trip Planning Weather Resources

October 14, 2010

As I packed for my trip to St. Petersburg, I wanted to keep in mind the weather conditions I might encounter. Though most of my days are being spent indoors, attending sessions at the fabulous NACIS annual meeting, I like to get out for bits during the day. The resources I used to discover this information are the same ones I might use for planning a bicycle-based tour.

To start, I checked the 10-day forecast on weather.com, more importantly I also took a look at their historical data for the city. Once the page for St. Petersburg loaded, I found this information by scrolling down about halfway to the "Today's Averages & Records" box on the right. By clicking on the Historical Data link nestled next to it, I could view the monthly average high and low temperatures as well as average precipitation.

The one piece of information I would find really helpful in addition to temperature and precipitation, especially for Florida, is expected humidity levels. The higher the humidity, the lower my energy levels in general, which could impact the number of miles per day I would schedule myself to ride if I were planning a tour.

A good source for this kind of information for Canada exists at The Weather Network. If you want to get more specific, they even have a tool for choosing a specific date range to find the average temperature and precipitation information. Wind and humidity data are also available, a real plus.

Other resources for gathering weather information for a future tour include (in no particular order): weatherbase, AccuWeather, World Climate, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and Environment Canada. Some of these sites even have applications for your mobile phone so you can access this information on the road and plan accordingly if need be.

What resources do you use when planning what to pack based on weather considerations?

--

GEOPOINTS BULLETIN is written by Jennifer 'Jenn' Milyko, an Adventure Cycling cartographer, and appears weekly, highlighting curious facts, figures, and persons from the Adventure Cycling Route Network with tips and hints for personal route creation thrown in for good measure. She also wants to remind you that map corrections and comments are always welcome via the online Map Correction Form.