Yes, that is the question I am frequently asked, and this is the answer.

The days of waiting for the trees to ruffle to decide whether to go to the beach are long gone. Even environment Canada plays a minor part in wind prediction nowadays, and this is true for the Okanagan Valley. I’m going to share with you the best ways to plan at least three days in advance for the Okanagan Lake around Kelowna, and both Lakes in Penticton (Skaha and Okanagan). Kamloops and the North Okanagan (Vernon), I need a local up there to assist. Nicola lake by Merrit, BC is easy, any south or west wind is usually windy, but probably gusty!

(The picture above is the Southwest coming into Kelowna taken from my backyard, we knew it was coming over three days in advance)

“The Wind Guide to the Okanagan Valley” will be it’s own entity on this site after this brief introduction. My goal is to make each and every one of you an independent wind expert, and provide some accurate forecasts in the process.

The graph below is from a custom spot on wind guru (https://www.windguru.cz/132460) and the bottom Nam12 graph is my secret weapon. It is quite frankly incredibly accurate if you know how to read it. This WG Okanagan Lake custom spot was built by somebody in Ontario quite a while ago, and in order to get the Nam 12 forecast graph you have to be a paid subscriber to windguru. Now there are plenty of sources for wind out there and someone else may have one as good as this but I haven't seen it yet. The top WG graph is OK but second best for sure.

In brief, South arrows mean Sudbury beach in Penticton. West and Southwest arrows mean Kelowna. North is always tricky in Kelowna but generally accurate for Penticton. East basically never happens. And there is so much more to know, in order to really nail down your wind plan, stay tuned.