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Two different versions of the operational setup of HIRLAM (High-Resolution Limited-Area Model) at the Finnish Meteorological Institute are exploited in order to verify wind forecasts in the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. Two cases of interest are studied in detail by also making use of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)-Pennsylvania State University mesoscale model (MM5) and a nonhydrostatic version of HIRLAM. Simulations are carried out in both models applied at three horizontal resolutions. The model' sea-land distributions play an essential role in the interpretation of the accuracy of wind speed forecasting. Considering wind direction, all experiments display similar systematic discrepancies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]