cooperation do you need from nature? 

 Good visibility and merciful water. 



During fall and winter, fog and rain 

 limit visibilities to less than two miles 

 ten per cent of the time, and to less than 

 one-half mile four per cent of the time. 

 But September through August, morning 

 fog limits visibilities to under two miles 

 only two to eight per cent of the time, 

 and to less than one-half mile about three 

 per cent of the time. Afternoons are 

 usually clear. 



Fricke stresses that navigation 

 without radar is risky business when 

 visibilities are low, because rain and 

 fog can obscure landmarks. Unless 

 your boat is fitted with a radar reflec- 

 tor to warn traffic of your position, 

 Fricke says that you should "pull over 

 and anchor" if a fog catches you in the 

 sounds or inlets. 



Waves 



Waves are normally amicable to 

 boaters and sailors spring through fall. 

 Gauges along the beaches from 

 Currituck to Sunset Beach measure 

 summertime waves of three feet or less 

 as much as 80 per cent of the time. 



In open seas, waves are three feet or 

 less about 35 per cent of the time in 

 waters north of Cape Hatteras, and 

 about 45 per cent of the time in waters 

 to the south. Seas are usually much 

 more choppy in fall than in summer. 



Inland waters also tend to have 

 waves of three feet or less in summer, 

 although the sounds, because of their 

 shallowness, sometimes become es- 

 pecially choppy under a stiff wind. 



"In the sounds, a wind blowing for a 

 long period of time will tend to lower 

 the level of the water at one end of the 

 sound, and raise it at another," Fricke 

 explains. "If you're at the up-wind 

 part, you can go aground." These 

 "wind-tides" can be as much as two 

 feet in the sounds, he says. 



Hang gliding 



The same winds that built Jockey's 

 Ridge into the East Coast's largest live 

 sand dune lift hang gliders aloft almost 

 all year. 



Hang gliding is best when winds 

 striking a face of the ridge are forced 

 into a vertical flow, providing lift for 

 the kite. The ridge's orientation makes 

 any but a northerly or northwesterly 

 wind navigable. 



John Harris, a veteran flier and part- 

 owner of Kitty Hawk Kites, says that 

 "one of the best things about the 



weather here is that the coastal winds 

 are generally smooth." 



The waters surrounding Hatteras 

 temper the winds and make flying less 

 work than in the mountains, Harris 

 says. He recommends that beginners 

 fly when winds are flowing between 

 five and 15 mph. Experienced pilots 

 can safely negotiate winds of up to 30 

 mph. Wind-speed data taken at Cape 

 Hatteras indicate that conditions are 



Maybe you're on vacation, and your 

 hot-line to the real world is temporarily 

 off the hook. You'd rather not 

 punctuate your day with news and 

 weather broadcasts. Or, maybe you're 

 just curious: Can a do-it-yourselfer 

 keep up with the weather? 



According to Albert Hinn, 

 meteorologist in charge at the National 

 Weather Service's office in 

 Wilmington, "You can tune out the 

 world and still tune in to the weather." 



Hinn says that tuning in requires 

 alertness and a little basic knowledge. 

 To orient the novice to a study of 

 coastal weather, Hinn describes the 

 "typical summer day on the North 

 Carolina coast." 



Bermuda high 



This typical day gets its sweet dis- 

 position from the Bermuda High, an 

 area of high pressure centered approx- 

 imately over Bermuda. The influence 

 of this high creeps northward up the 

 coast, during the summer. In spring 

 and early summer, the high brings 

 warm, slightly hazy air and breezes out 

 of the southwest. By late summer and 

 early fall, the high has moved far 

 enough north to bathe the coast in an 

 easterly flow of sparkling air from the 

 Atlantic. 



Occassionally, this fair-weather pat- 

 tern is over-powered by major weather 

 systems, usually moving in from the 

 west. If the day begins with clouds, or 

 is heavily overcast by mid-morning, 

 you can expect that such a system is 

 passing through, possibly with a load 

 of rain. 



So the typical beach day, thanks to 

 the Bermuda High, dawns sunny, with 

 a slight breeze — the sort of morning 

 sailors and beachcombers cherish. 

 What happens next depends largely on 

 local conditions and a phenomenon 



good for flying at least 50 per cent of 

 the time from March through Septem- 

 ber. Early afternoon is usually the best 

 time to fly, but gliders can often find 

 good, breezes in the morning and even- 

 ing as well. 



Harris adds that, although winter 

 days are often too blustery or wet for 

 flying, almost every week of the year 

 has at least one day suitable for hang- 

 gliding. 



known as the sea breeze. As the sun 

 heats the land mass back of the beach, 

 air over the land also warms. The air 

 rises as it's heated, leaving a ground- 

 floor vacancy that cooler air from off 

 shore rushes in to fill. This rush is 

 called the sea breeze. Through the day, 

 as the heating becomes more intense, 

 the exchange of air is more rapid and 

 the sea breeze is stronger. Toward 

 noon, the water is choppy and a few 

 billowy clouds ride landward on the 

 breeze. 



Sweeping the state's southern 

 beaches, the sea breeze helps keep 

 ocean-side temperatures in the 80s, 

 even though the mercury may be 

 shooting into the 90s just a few miles 

 inland. 



On days when the heating and con- 

 vection of air are especially intense, 

 this sea breeze can build into a stiff 

 wind by mid-afternoon. 



But the Outer Banks are a notable 

 exception to this pattern. As Hinn ex- 

 plains it, "On the Outer Banks you 

 don't get much of a sea breeze because 

 you're surrounded by water. It's aw- 

 fully hard for air to really heat up and 

 get that kind of reaction." 



Water - cooled 



The Outer Banks get their air con- 

 ditioning in another way. The waters 

 that surround the islands temper the 

 heat and keep the average daytime 

 highs in the mid-80s most of the sum- 

 mer. 



"With our sounds and the ocean, it 

 doesn't get as hot here," says Lucy 

 Stowe, the principal assistant at the 

 National Weather Service's office in 

 Cape Hatteras. Because of the marine 

 environment, she says, spring on the 

 islands is brief, winters are warmer 

 than on the mainland, and storms are 

 less intense. 



How the weather works 



