Get in mind that buoy is in a bay on the lake and not exactly where we swim. I believe it is in shallower and more protected water and therefore the temp probably changes more than out where the course is.
Saturday there was a cold heavy downpour for a good hour which likely caused some of the drop. The weather has also been pretty cool the last week.
I'm sure they will mesaure the temp on course this weekend at the MOWS and we can report back what it is.
Barry Plaga has a speedsuit I can borrow and I'm encouraged by the team's recent speedsuit vs swimsuit vs tri kit test . Sorry, kinda hopping for a warming trend, Semper I and all that
I did the Dairyland swim yesterday - water temp was 76 - which I believe they measured at the edge of the water. I was somewhat warm but not uncomfortable in a full wetsuit (although periodically thought that I should test a sleeveless wetsuit this weekend). However, while I did focus on working throughout the swim, I did stop periodically and at the turn buoys to get a sense of where I was - which I think helped keep me "cooler." This is the first time I've ever swam 2.4 miles in open water so I was taking the time to "take it in" - it was in between perfectly calm and really choppy. Did it in 1:20 - HUGE for me!
x2 what Sue said. I also swam at 8:15 am in full wet suit and was comfortable the whole time, time of 1:19. Cloudy when I started so I left the mirrored goggles on shore. I had on tinted ones but as the clouds cleared, I really could have used the mirrored ones. Any thoughts on goggles?? If the start is at 7:00 am and is cloudy and I expect to be out within 1:30 and I can't sight very well when it seems dark, should I go with tinted or mirrored. Sunrise at 6:32 am on 9/11/11.
Any thoughts on sun and water reflection in the early am and which goggles to go with?
FWIW, after the rain on Saturday the water was still quite warm. I did the wetsuit swim as I was freezing before the race and wanted the wetsuit just to warm up, but I think it was actually a little warm for a wetsuit. On the second loop I was warmer than I would like to have been and I was getting real thirsty, so I took it easy and swam very comfortably. I did not hear an offical temp annoucement as all the talk was about the lighting and storms, not water temp.
Even if it's close to legal, you'll really need to be wary of the temps and the effect. I wasn't a fan of NWS at LP, but I was hot just swimming in my skinsuit.
I've been keeping a graph for the last week or so. The Low and High temps for the day are taken from the Weather Underground report of the Middleton station. For dates from 9/4/2011 on, the high and lows are taken from the weather.com prediction. The high and low water tems are taken from my eyeballing of the same graph everyone is looking at. Projected temperatures after the slash are from accuweather, but only listed if they vary by more than 2 degrees F from weather.com/
If these predictions are right, the water at least at this station will be cool enough to be wetsuit legal.
a huge drop like this is normal for this lake in Sept... the question always is which week in sept will the drop happen. Looks like it happened early and we are having a wetsuit swim this year.
a huge drop like this is normal for this lake in Sept... the question always is which week in sept will the drop happen. Looks like it happened early and we are having a wetsuit swim this year.
Damn! And I even borrowed a skin suit for this race
@Rich - yeah - looks like you are out of luck as the air temp will be in the low 70s most of the week. You'll still have 10 minutes on me out of the water though!
Yup, I've used a few different weather services, and I don't see any highs predicted over 78. Lots of lows in the 50s. (I use multiple weather services because they have different models...we learned this the hard way for my soccer club. Some models reliably predict more or less rain and hotter highs, for example, in our area.)
Comments
Saturday there was a cold heavy downpour for a good hour which likely caused some of the drop. The weather has also been pretty cool the last week.
I'm sure they will mesaure the temp on course this weekend at the MOWS and we can report back what it is.
Barry Plaga has a speedsuit I can borrow and I'm encouraged by the team's recent speedsuit vs swimsuit vs tri kit test
. Sorry, kinda hopping for a warming trend, Semper I and all that 
Any thoughts on sun and water reflection in the early am and which goggles to go with?
I've been keeping a graph for the last week or so. The Low and High temps for the day are taken from the Weather Underground report of the Middleton station. For dates from 9/4/2011 on, the high and lows are taken from the weather.com prediction. The high and low water tems are taken from my eyeballing of the same graph everyone is looking at. Projected temperatures after the slash are from accuweather, but only listed if they vary by more than 2 degrees F from weather.com/
If these predictions are right, the water at least at this station will be cool enough to be wetsuit legal.
Damn! And I even borrowed a skin suit for this race