In my 22 years with the TB20 I have cancelled maybe 5 trips due to too much crosswind, and at least 4 of those were in the last 12 months.
Could also be that the average direction is changing and the runway orientations are no longer as suitable as they used to be.
I can’t answer that question because I didn’t check if there’s data recorded somewhere for particular runways but in Croatia we have recorded prevailing winds change across last few years. In general (especially visible in Adriatics area), there’s much more days with southern winds (actually southeast called jugo) than northern (northeast – bora) than it used to be. In March this year there was exactly zero days with bora and jugo practically blowing constantly while in the past at least three periods (usually lasting 3-5 days) of bora was minimum for this month while jugo usually didn’t blow at all.
I was asking myself the same yesterday while approaching an alternate airport (destination was closed) with such an incredible crosswind that I viewed the runway approaching through the side window. And the wind didn’t get weaker towards the ground.
Yesterday was exceptionally windy over Spain, I had 73 knots in FL100 decreasing to 45 in FL50 but this wind kept up until ground. I was quite surprised.
Overhead Biarritz I heard the controller very concerned about gusting cross winds up to 35 knots from the side. But I had more.
From RTEirean:
http://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2024/0404/1117988-storms-ireland-storminess/
Here in NE Scotland there has been far more easterly wind in the last 2 years.
In addition to the potential change in direction, there’s also the increased general weather activity and extreme events (if extreme events are more frequent, “active” non-extreme events are more frequent as well, but it they don’t make the news because few people cancel their road trips because of crosswinds).
This is likely to have huge implications if it turns out to be long-term.
Whether it is going to be long term or not I do not know. My observation is that around 2001-2003 when I was working for a company doing renewables, our wind measurement results and meteo data were driving us to a conservative ROI estimate. 20 years later the wind farms in Hungary turned to produce much more energy than we were anticipating at that time.
The other not so scientific observation is that when I was into windsurfing we almost never had a good wind.
Now that I am flying, there are many more days good for windsurfing (which I’ve given up :) )
I’ve noticed the same in the last year here in Madagascar, but at the moment I blame it on El Niño. The wind change has produced different weather patterns and even cyclones seem to have different paths the past season.
The other not so scientific observation is that when I was into windsurfing we almost never had a good wind.
Now that I am flying, there are many more days good for windsurfing (which I’ve given up :) )
Same here 👍🏻😃
