Outdoor Life - Cloud Forecasting RSS

Help Us Pick The Prize for Our Next Caption Contest!

Alex Robinson — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:33:47 -0500

So Outdoor Life is part of a cool contest operated by Crown Royal, sponsor of Field & Stream’s Hook Shots show and maker of the whiskey that comes in a purple bag. The contest is called “Pass the Crown,” and it’s a variation on the Secret Santa gift exchange anyone who’s ever worked in an office is familiar with. Are you lucky enough to have never worked in an office? Then here’s how this works:

Each day from now until Dec. 15 Crown Royal is giving away a prize to a different web site to pass along to its readers. Today is Outdoor Life’s turn, but here’s the catch. Crown’s not telling us which prize they’re giving us right away. Instead, we get a clue, embroidered on one of their famous purple bags,* and we have to guess what prize the clue refers to. Based on that guess, we then get to decide whether to keep the prize in our bag or steal one of the prizes that have already been opened by a different site. Here’s a list of the prizes that have already been opened.

This is where we need your help. Do we keep our prize, or steal one from somebody else? You’ve got until 4 PM this afternoon to weigh in. Check out our clue (below), then post your best argument for keeping the prize in our bag or for stealing a specific prize from another site in the comments section here or on our Facebook post about the contest over at facebook.com/outdoorlife. If you can convince us your argument is best, we’ll go with your suggestion. If you’re not convincing enough, we’ll make the decision ourselves.

We’ll post an update here tomorrow telling you what prize was in our bag, and whether we decided to keep it or not. Keep in mind that any of the five sites who come after us can steal our gift, so don’t get too attached to whatever we end up with!

And last, of course; how will we determine which of our readers wins the prize we end up with at the end of the contest? It’ll be a caption contest, photo and date TBD. Stay tuned!

*Crown is running this contest is to get the word out about the custom-embroidered Crown bags ($9.95), and the free personalized Crown Royal bottle labels (21 and over, only) available at CrownRoyal.com. If you’ve got a Crown-lover in your family, this would make a great gift.

Seven Things to Know About Temperature and Deer Activity

Alex Robinson — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:39:50 -0400

Fall is my favorite time of year, with the leaves changing color to brilliant yellow and crimson red and those frosty clear mornings that give way to comfortable, 60-degree days. It never gets old and it never lasts long enough. With fall comes a change of temperature and weather. It’s no secret that this has a big impact on whitetail deer activity.

After years of studying Boone and Crockett harvest data, I've been able to pattern certain trends in temperature and deer activity. Regardless of the region you hunt or time of year, here are some interesting facts about how temperature affects deer activity...

1. If your forecasted temperature is 5 to 10 degrees below your historical average, deer activity will increase by 30 to 55 percent.

2. There are dry temperatures and wet temperatures. Deer prefer humidity between 40 and 50 percent. If it’s 70 degrees out and the humidity is 70 percent, there won’t be much daylight activity even if you’re 5 degrees below average temperature as stated above. 

3. Watch your morning and evening temperatures in conjunction with the dew point. If they’re within 3 degrees or less of each other, records show a harvest increase and activity spikes.  

4. In early season, you will see scrape activity begin or increase on days that have lows in the 40-degree range or less for 3 or more consecutive days. 

5. Days after two or more consecutive hard frosts (27 degrees or lower) will see an increase in feeding and browsing, especially on food plots. 

6. Watch your weather forecast temperatures, if you see a quick rise in temperature forecast (10 degrees or more in 24 hours), hunt the PM before the increase, there's a good chance a front is passing and the barometer is rising. 

7. Logic tells us that on warm days it's better to hunt cover areas, closer to bedding and water sources. On Cool days, hunt food sources, transition zones and scrape and rub lines.

I hope some of these tips will help you afield. Follow temperature forecasts and deer activity predictions for your area on OutdoorLife.com/weather.

Photo: Chauncey Davis

Whitetail Tips: How Cloud Cover Affects Deer Movement

Alex Robinson — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:38:32 -0400

Last week we talked about wind direction, wind speed and their effects on deer activity. With that in mind, we can now apply cloud types. We will keep it simple and talk about the most common ones. These are divided into low, middle and high cloud types. Each one is affected differently by the wind.

Low Clouds
Let’s start with low, which run from ground level to around 6000’. Stratus and Nimbostratus my personal favorites, both resemble fog and are sometimes accompanied by drizzle or light rain! With an east quadrant wind it will rain, with a west quadrant it will be overcast. Both are excellent for whitetail hunting. The common middle clouds, lets say 6000 feet to more than 12,000 feet above ground are altocumulus and altostratus again wind direction affects the incoming weather.

With altocumulus you can expect overcast conditions unless the wind shifts to a south to NE direction. If it does it will almost always rain in 24 hours. Deer know this too, and the pm or am hunting period coming up is going to be very good if you have the correct stand placement for the wind. Altostratus usually will bring continuous rain, if it’s blowing from an easterly direction you have about 10-15 hours. Movement will be good before and after this cloud type.

High Clouds
Now let’s get a look at two common high cloud types, cirrus and cumulous. The first is considered a fair weather cloud and is associated with high pressure systems. Cumulous clouds are also considered a fair weather cloud unless they contain or build vertically then you have a chance of thunderstorms. Both of these clouds types can and will produce rain if the wind shifts to NE to south, usually within 24 hours! By knowing this we can predict deer activity. Here’s an example: Let’s say you see alto cumulous clouds and you have an east wind. I would try and get out within the next 12 hours and hunt because deer will be moving. Now it clears out, the wind shifts clockwise to a westerly direction and you have cirrus clouds. I know the barometer is rising and I would hunt this window also, especially during morning hours after an evening storm.

There are many more cloud types and wind direction combinations and I’m just scratching the surface, but this is the basis in which cloud forecasting was built around on Outdoor Life weather. To find the weather forecast and deer movement predictions where you hunt go to OL Weather.

OL Weather: A Weather Report for Outdoorsmen

EricAichele — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:56:58 -0400

When I first began developing the idea for a weather site, I asked myself: "What kind of weather information is absolutely essential for sportsmen?"

All of us look forward to those magical days when the woods come alive with bucks chasing does or turkeys gobbling from their roosts, or those amazing times when, no matter what you throw, every cast draws a strike. The only problem: No one could predict when those magical hunting and fishing days would occur…until now.

CLICK HERE FOR OL WEATHER >>

After years of studying records and cross-referencing them to weather, moon and solar activity, I have partnered with Outdoor Life to develop a tool to predict exactly when the best days to be afield will be. Thousands of harvest and catch records were cross-referenced to site- and time-specific barometer, temperature, wind, sky cover and moon-phase data to determine the whitetail, turkey and fish forecasts you see here. Combining these tools can even further enhance your chances for success.

The best thing about our weather forecasts is that they’re built upon solid data that relates directly to your area of outdoor interest. And our 5-day forecasts are the most accurate, because we’ve based them upon thousands of cross-referenced data entries.

Fishermen will find our water temperature charts, relating specifically to individual species, invaluable in determining which days (and what hours of those days) will produce the best action.

Hunters can rely on our forecasts to tell them the absolute best days and times to be on stand because we’ve done all of the homework for them, comparing thousands of record-book entries for trophy deer and turkeys, then cross-referencing them with the actual weather conditions that occurred when those trophies were taken.

The unique result is the most useful and reliable weather forecasts anyone has ever produced specifically for hunters and fishermen.

Got a question about how all of this works? No problem. Simply post your question in our Answer’s Tool and we will be happy to try to answer it.

Want to help build our database to make it even bigger? Add your harvest information, and you’ll be automatically entered to possibly win some great outdoor prizes.

Got a comment about our site or a story to tell about how our information helped you in the field? Come join in our lively comments section.

So bookmark this page and use our information. We believe you’ll find it to be the most useful hunting and fishing tool you can find anywhere.