Scott's Aviation Weather Blog
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Anybody who has known me since the 2001 timeframe, knows that I have been pushing the use of thermodynamic diagrams such as the Skew-T log P diagram. It is such a versatile tool to assess many adverse weather elements. In particular, altitudes favorable...
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A question I often get via e-mail and during my online aviation weather training is, "Am I required to get a formal Flight Service Station briefing?" According to the NTSB, the simple answer is NO. From the October 12, 2005 safety recommendation...
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The Columbia, SC NWS forecast office is hosting the annual sub-regional aviation workshop on Thursday, February 26th in Columbia, SC. I'll be speaking at this workshop at 2:30 pm. It is open to general all aviation pilots. For those that are interested...
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During most of the winter I hear a lot of pilots (and CFIs) strongly encourage other pilots to stay on the ground during the winter unless it's crystal clear along the entire route. There are many safe flights pilots can take during the winter even...
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I know this discussion you are about to read might ruffle some tail feathers. The subject of declaring an emergency always seems to conjure up a heated discussion (almost as much as the definition of known icing conditions). First, having and emergency...
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I just read through Tom Horne's article in the December issue of AOPA Pilot about icing facts and myths. Of course, I have a couple comments about one of his "Facts." Tom says: "Climb if you encounter freezing rain. There are above...
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First thing to understand is that not all mountain waves are turbulent. In fact, in the east, most are non-turbulent lee waves. Second thing to understand is that there needs to be an unstable layer near the surface and a stable layer above the ridges...
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The forecaster at the Tallahassee Weather Forecast Office (WFO) had a bit of trouble really representing the VLIFR event that was about to take place. As you can see from the METARs below, there were several special observations or SPECI (including the...
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I know most readers of this blog don't get the AOPA Instructor Report publication. However, I wanted to pass along some comments I made to an article written by Paul Langston entitled, "Stability is the key." Paul is an air traffic controller...
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I asked Garmin if they would be supporting the newest weather products that XM weather is now broadcasting. Here's their response... “We are investigating the possibility of displaying new XM weather products from the Aviator Pro package; however...
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As of 0000 UTC November 5, 2008 the TAF format has changed slightly. Additionally, for 32 high-impact airports, the TAF now extends out to 30 hours (vs 24 hours). This additional 6 hours forced a change to the format of the TAF as shown below. KELM 051724Z...
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Here's a pilot that experienced moderate to severe turbulence, moderate rime icing and low level wind shear on short final...and he still had time to file that pilot report! More than likely he filed the report after landing at ABQ. Oh, he was also...
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Another product that was added to the Aviator level service is severe weather watch boxes from the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, Oklahoma. Here's an example of how it will appear on the WxWorx on Wings software. This is a nice addition...
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Here's an interesting graph from a study done by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) that shows the altitudes where moderate or greater (MOG) turbulence was reported in relationship to being in-cloud or in cloud-free air. Over 650...
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On July 28th, 2008, WxWorx headquartered in Huntsville, AL added several new products to the XM satellite weather broadcast. XM now has added an additional subscription level, namely, Aviator Pro. That's in addition to Aviator Lite and Aviator. Most...