Direction Suggestion for Riding Great Rivers South and Northern Tier Section 7

[Jerryfromalameda]

I'm thinking about riding the length of the Mississippi next year.  Does the wind tend to blow from the north or the south?  Does the wind direction change from season to season?  is there a best time of year for the ride?  Thanks for any help. 

[John Nettles]

Check out WeatherSpark.com and it will give you the climate averages for most anyplace in the world.  Best, John

[Pat Lamb]

In addition to weatherspark.com that John mentioned, you might want to look at the wind roses collected at:
https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/downloads/climate/windrose/
Do note that the long leg is the direction the wind is coming from, not blowing towards.  E.g., Memphis, TN in the spring the wind generally comes out of the south, but in the fall veers to coming from the northeast.

I'd suggest timing and routing your trip to avoid the heat of summer near the Gulf coast, unless you (really) like (really) hot and (really really) muggy.  Leave New Orleans in April/May, or start south around the first of September.

The downside of that approach is that the weather seems to be dominated by fronts in the spring and fall.  Before the front comes through, you'll get 24 hours of increasingly stiff south winds.  Then you have a few hours of thunderstorms (some may be severe), and 24 hours of north winds.  Either way, you'll have a day of headwinds per front.