Castleton
Castleton is a paragliding flying site at 174 m elevation, in the Garden Route region of ZA. This page consolidates multi-model weather forecasts, the GO / CAUTION / NO-GO flyability score, the vertical windgram and the thermal emagram so pilots can plan their flight in one place.
Weather model and forecast. For Castleton, ParaRidge auto-selects the best-available model (HRDPS, GDPS or GFS in North America; AROME, ICON-D2 or ECMWF in Europe), then surfaces hourly forecasts for today and the next four days. The windgram stacks the vertical wind profile of every hour into one chart; the emagram reveals cloud base, thermal ceiling and the instability band — the three pieces of information needed to estimate whether the day is flyable and how long the thermals will last.
How to read the GO / CAUTION / NO-GO verdict. ParaRidge cross-references the forecast wind direction against the launch's orientation window, the wind speed against the safety limit, and the gust speed against the maximum threshold. GO means every check passes; CAUTION that at least one threshold is borderline (you stay pilot in command); NO-GO that the direction is wrong or the wind exceeds the window. The reasons are always spelled out — no opaque score, no magic. At Castleton as anywhere else, the final go decision remains the pilot's, after local briefing and direct observation.
Current wind at Plettenberg Bay Airfield (station 5 km away): 8 km/h WNW, gusts 12 km/h — read at 03:13 UTC, data by winds.mobi.