My weather pet peeves

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

Okay, so we are approaching the end of the year and it tends to bring the resolutions to do better in the new year.  Get that new exercise equipment, go on a diet or perhaps learn more about aviation weather by reading a new book called Pilot Weather: From solo to the airlines  

Anyway, thought I'd share just a few of my weather pet peeves...

1.  Lightening.  There's no E in lightning.  
2.  Turbulance.  There's no A in turbulence.  
3.  Cumulous.  There's no O in cumulus.
4.  Forcast.  There's an E in forecast.
5.  Wind sheer.  There's an A in wind shear. 
6.  The word misspelled is the most misspelled word (okay, not a weather term, but still true). 
7.  The following two statements have always been perplexing to me...
(a) "It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground."
(b) "It's never a bad decision to cancel."
So, there's no harm to making a conservative decision in marginal weather...as long as it is based on a solid analysis of the weather.  If you are finding that your conservative decisions are actually days where you could have easily flown, there's something awry.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.  If you are making less than stellar conservative decisions, one of these days, it'll bite you when actually fly and you should have stayed on the ground.  No, you don't have to beat yourself up, but make it a point to learn what happened.  Was it a bad forecast, or more likely, was it a bad understanding of the forecast?  
8. "Ice is where you find it."  As if airframe ice is always a surprise. If you really take the time to understand what conditions ice is likely, it should never be a surprise.  It is true that only 80% reports of icing occur within the boundaries of an advisory, but note that much of that 20% may not be forecast because it doesn't meet specific criteria.  For example, it may be convective icing (G-AIRMETs are nonconvective icing) or light icing (G-AIRMETs are for moderate ice).         
9. "Forecasts are just educated guesses."  Well, yes, but there's a ton of truth you can extract from those imperfect forecasts.  Most of that comes from understanding the synoptic overview or "big weather picture."  It's the consolidation of all of that guidance that truly should drive your decisions. 
10. "The datalink radar depiction could be 20 to 30 minutes old."  It could be, but that's not the norm.  It's likely no more than about 10 minutes old from what you see outside of the cockpit unless you've missed an update.  And with the twice as fast updates with SiriusXM, composite radar and lightning are usually no more than 7-8 minutes old in the worst case.  Even so, it should only be used for strategic avoidance and should never be used for tactical decisions (in the next 30 seconds to 2 minutes).

[steingar]

Little disappointed in this.  When I think about the anguish of those left behind by those who went wrong, who hit wx beyond their capabilities and for whatever reason kept going toward tragedy, those fatherless children, widowed spouses bereft friends and anguished parents, a few spelling minutiae just doesn't cut it in the Book of Steingar.

[carusoam]

Steingar,

Are you having a tough day?

The negativity in a couple of posts today isn’t your usual style.

 

Scott has been delivering high level weather understanding, for challenging weather topics, directly related to Mooney flying.

In this case, he used a human methodology of making it fun-ish... 

 

What’s up?

Best regards,

-a-

[FloridaMan]

 

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

1 hour ago, steingar said:

Little disappointed in this.  When I think about the anguish of those left behind by those who went wrong, who hit wx beyond their capabilities and for whatever reason kept going toward tragedy, those fatherless children, widowed spouses bereft friends and anguished parents, a few spelling minutiae just doesn't cut it in the Book of Steingar.

Ah, that's okay - I'm disappointed every day with something.  That's why they are MY pet peeves.  But I know the feeling.   I once had a Pilotworkshop customer purchase a workshop that I licensed them to sell and he wrote an email to me complaining that he didn't know if he could make it through the program.  Not because of the challenges of the content, but because I am from Baltimore and pronounced "across" as "acrost" or "etc" as "ac-setera" and the list went on and on.  Turned out later that I discovered he was a professional speaker (did radio commercials and such).  I put in so much effort to this program and all this guy could do was complain about my "Balmore" accent.  Ugh!

Some things drive me crazy.  But you did notice that I started with the small and meaningless stuff and worked my way to the more substantial pet peeves.  Oh, by the way, I'm still getting over having to put my 14 yr old dog down on Saturday.  Perhaps that's part of it too.    

[Yetti]

My pet peeves are:

1. Growing up on Galveston bay sailing all over it and the National Weather service could not forecast the squall lines that would move through between 1 and 2 in the standard summer patterns.

2.  The new forecaster to Galveston that called the standard onshore winds that shift to offshore due to the heating of the water and land at different rates "a front line"

3.  Even though Bryan College station is on official NOAA reporting point, the forecasts are only accurate about 35% of the time.  It's due to the Brazos Valley having it's own weather patterns.  You would think they could have figured it out by now.

4. Sorry about your dog.   They are family too.

 

 

[GLJA]

Since we're on to pet peeves:
1- Socks and sandals
2- Being on an airstrip, with one AME, and waiting for him to get to your aircraft issue

3- My current government.. Yay for a Federal and Provincial election in 2019. 

[steingar]

35 minutes ago, scottd said:

Some things drive me crazy.  But you did notice that I started with the small and meaningless stuff and worked my way to the more substantial pet peeves.  Oh, by the way, I'm still getting over having to put my 14 yr old dog down on Saturday.  Perhaps that's part of it too.    

Scott, I am so sorry about your pooch.  I had to put my 14 year old boy dog Kurzon down last month and I still miss him.  He was my buddy., and was always by my side when I was home.  Didn't mean to get so negative, but I am a bit sensitive to folks bitching about spelling errors.  I am a fairly good writer.  I write fast, and I turn out fairly good copy (I honestly don't mean to brag, even if it sounds like I am).  But I am perhaps the poorest proofread I know, so those sorts of errors get into my prose and stay there because I don't detect them.  And then folks get on me for them.  It just hit me with your diatribe, because of whats at stake with aviation weather.

That said, I agree with everything your said.  Always better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than the converse.  You can never be certain where you might find ice, but it shouldn't come as a surprise to the prepared pilot.  Calling forecasts educated guesses is like calling Einstein a clever patent clerk.

And I hate it when people deny global warming.  It is at this point a very simple fact.  the Earth has gotten warmer.  Get over it.

What a warmer world will do to weather is I think up for debate, though I suspect the the educated guesses will win in the end.

 

 

[Marauder]

On a more cheery note. Had my pups ask Santa for a new Aspen and STEC 3100 for Christmas.




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[gsxrpilot]

@scottd I like the way you think. I've also been a bit of a contrarian when it comes to those adages. There have been plenty of times when friends of mine, other pilots say the weather is forecast to be bad and therefore they've scrapped their plans for flying. But I'll go up and fly anyway and it's just fine. It might be a different situation in a different area of the country. But here in Texas we have wide open spaces and weather can be seen coming from 100 miles away or more. I'll often say, I'll just go up and have a look. And every time, there is a way around the weather, or it didn't turn out to be as bad, or the ceilings are much higher and we can go under, etc. Also with lots of airports, there are lots of options for diverting, 

I've only canceled one trip that I can remember, because of weather. It was from 84R to 1T7. We had low IFR conditions in the morning. And neither 84R or 1T7 have any approaches. The only time I had available for the flight was before noon. And so we scrapped the flight as we knew we couldn't get into either airport once in the air. But if we'd taken off for some reason, we could have easily diverted to any number of other airports with good ILS or LPV approaches.

I know this is a sensitive topic for many, and I'm probably being blasphemous by talking this way. But I really hate to see pilots who have been convinced that they have to have 'personal minimums' that will never let them get off the ground at any hint of weather. 

With an instrument rating and proper currency I follow two rules: Don't fly into thunderstorms, and don't fly through ice. Other than those two, weather is not a big deal.

[Jim Peace]

5 hours ago, scottd said:

Okay, so we are approaching the end of the year and it tends to bring the resolutions to do better in the new year.  Get that new exercise equipment, go on a diet or perhaps learn more about aviation weather by reading a new book called Pilot Weather: From solo to the airlines  

Anyway, thought I'd share just a few of my weather pet peeves...

1.  Lightening.  There's no E in lightning.  
2.  Turbulance.  There's no A in turbulence.  
3.  Cumulous.  There's no O in cumulus.
4.  Forcast.  There's an E in forecast.
5.  Wind sheer.  There's an A in wind shear. 
6.  The word misspelled is the most misspelled word (okay, not a weather term, but still true). 
7.  The following two statements have always been perplexing to me...
(a) "It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground."
(b) "It's never a bad decision to cancel."
 

while chatting about spelling what about  yaw dampner

[bonal]

Sorry to both you and Steingar about losing your pups. They truly are amazing wonderful creatures our Magneto is only around two and God willing we will have him for many years to come.

 

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

Even as a blind dog for the last 7 yrs she always managed to find her way back to my home office and faithfully laid next to me every day as I worked. She had the most unique personality. Unfortunately, my pup had a stroke last week and developed a vestibular or cerebellar dysfunction (a form of vertigo). She tried very hard to be a normal dog again and I was rooting for her every minute.  But it was a bit too much for her and she had a horrible quality of life. The most difficult decision I’ve had to make. 

And the very next morning this “double rainbow” of sorts appeared deep in my house pointing right to the place where she laid every day letting me know she was at peace and doing okay. 

 

[Steve_B]

So sorry to hear of your loss.  Toughest decision someone can make but based on the situation, you made the right one.

I know what your going through as we have had to make the same decision around the holidays a few years ago. For us it was two Goldens within a month of each other (one had cancer the other was 14 and old age issues).  I second guessed that decision for a few months.

-Steve

[steingar]

My Kurzon in better days.  In reference to what Paul was saying, I've cancelled plenty of trips due to forecast.  One has to be far more careful about wx when one is a VFR only pilot.  Better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air and all that.  Thankfully I've not been in that particular boat, and I am in no big hurry to step in.

[Marauder]

Hey! Turn around you two!




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[bradp]

Scott - 

I have become an avid reader of the forecast discussions and they often talk about where models converge or diverge in terms of probablility / certainty.  To which models are they referring and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? 

Also did my first trip out of the country last weekend to the Bahamas and was scheduled to come home when a low pressure system was moving across the SE US last Sat.  Without my usual sources for forecasts and preflight decision making out that way, unfamiliarity with local weather patterns (generally good but a few cold fronts moved in succession bringing convection), and an over ocean IFR/IMC portion without availability On-board strategic weather data,  I felt a little out of my comfort zone and decided to delay by 24 hrs (who wouldn’t want an extra day of vacation?).   I probably would have made that flight on the planned day if I had confidence in what I would encounter- but that went away without data and information.   I was also doing my first international trip, first open water crossing, and had my family on board so I wanted to be purposefully conservative and have a super easy weather trip.  Next day was pretty much gorgeous high pressure west of the Florida coast and a  easy flight to NC.  

What I did find was that the windy app was a great source for visualization and their use of the ECMWF worked fantastically well - down to the hour - for frontal and convective passage.  Any opinion about this as another tool in the tool bag? 

Thanks much. 

 

Brad

[Browncbr1]

Scott, I’ve lurked your threads and I just want to say I really appreciate all that you have brought to the forum.   For the last two years, since someone on here posted a link to the Log t skew p iPhone app, I’ve found that to be a critical tool for transforming my understanding and expectations of weather.   Your discussions have really done well to help us learn and improve ourselves.   Don’t stop!    I never understood the orange curves until you brought them up in your recent turbulence thread, which was timely, as these occluded fronts have been whizzing around these days.  

Thanks

craig

Edited December 20, 2018 by Browncbr1

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

3 hours ago, bradp said:

I have become an avid reader of the forecast discussions and they often talk about where models converge or diverge in terms of probablility / certainty.  To which models are they referring and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? 

Also did my first trip out of the country last weekend to the Bahamas and was scheduled to come home when a low pressure system was moving across the SE US last Sat.  Without my usual sources for forecasts and preflight decision making out that way, unfamiliarity with local weather patterns (generally good but a few cold fronts moved in succession bringing convection), and an over ocean IFR/IMC portion without availability On-board strategic weather data,  I felt a little out of my comfort zone and decided to delay by 24 hrs (who wouldn’t want an extra day of vacation?).   I probably would have made that flight on the planned day if I had confidence in what I would encounter- but that went away without data and information.   I was also doing my first international trip, first open water crossing, and had my family on board so I wanted to be purposefully conservative and have a super easy weather trip.  Next day was pretty much gorgeous high pressure west of the Florida coast and a  easy flight to NC.  

What I did find was that the windy app was a great source for visualization and their use of the ECMWF worked fantastically well - down to the hour - for frontal and convective passage.  Any opinion about this as another tool in the tool bag? 

The AFDs are great to read, but they are highly technical at times since they are meant to be a forecaster-to-forecaster discussion.  Forecasting is not blacks and whites, it's always shades of grays...so forecasters have to quantify their uncertainty.  Much of this is by comparing the solutions from various forecast models, GFS, GEMS, NAM, RAP, HRRR, CMC, ECMWF, UKMET, SREF, etc.  When I was working as a research meteorologist, my specialty was numerical weather prediction modeling.  So, I know a fair amount about this. 

My favorite to read is the Model Diagnostic Discussion from the WPC.  There's one meteorologist that looks at all of the models and tries to sort out what models are doing well and what models are not...then he/she writes up the discussion and forecasters all over the U.S. will take some time and read it.  Kind of prevents forecasters all doing the same thing.  Now, they are free to disagree, but most of the time, this person is an expert at this and usually gets it right.  But as with anything, some of the model preferences may also come down to geographic location.  Often, they will suggest a blend of two or more models.   

Models have known biases and a good forecaster can correct for it.  Sometimes all the models have a good handle on a weather system, but it's timing differences that can matter significantly.  Much of the modeling is going towards ensemble forecasts that produce means, medians and standard deviations.  Again, the forecaster is looking to see consensus and blending models through ensemble forecasts can produce a better result.  

Windy app has some good visualizations.  Some of this is very gee-wiz kind of stuff that has little or no meaning to pilots other than to wow us. But deep down, there are some pretty nice features...many of which we are planning to develop (albeit, different) into the WeatherSpork app.   

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

1 hour ago, Browncbr1 said:

Scott, I’ve lurked your threads and I just want to say I really appreciate all that you have brought to the forum.   For the last two years, since someone on here posted a link to the Log t skew p iPhone app, I’ve found that to be a critical tool for transforming my understanding and expectations of weather.   Your discussions have really done well to help us learn and improve ourselves.   Don’t stop!    I never understood the orange curves until you brought them up in your recent turbulence thread, which was timely, as these occluded fronts have been whizzing around these days.  

Craig,

Thanks for the kind words.  Next lesson is that it's the SkewTLogPro app.   Chad Sandstedt did a great job developing that app (although many folks think I developed it...similar looking last names I guess).  He's not a Skew-T expert at all so I'm not looking for much more significant stuff to come out of it.  In WeatherSpork we will be growing our own Skew-T and I've got some really useful stuff planned for it.  It'll be the coolest depiction of a Skew-T ever.  I would also direct you to the WeatherSpork YouTube channel...subscribe to the channel and you'll also get some great education there as well.  Not all of it is about WeatherSpork. 

If there's a specific weather topic you'd like to discuss, feel free to bring it up here and tag me and I'll do my best to weigh in on it (without writing a dissertation on the subject...extremely busy these days with developing the app and finishing up my PhD).    

[Yetti]

5 hours ago, bradp said:

What I did find was that the windy app was a great source for visualization and their use of the ECMWF worked fantastically well - down to the hour - for frontal and convective passage.  Any opinion about this as another tool in the tool bag? 

Huge fan of Windy.com  Like you have got it down to 45 minutes to flying between storms on working our way away from the coast.  It is even good at forecasting the local Brazos valley fog that the NWS struggles to know about.   Here is a fun one for tonight.  The NWS is the forcasting a line of storms to come through Houston between midnight and 5 am. light hail so some convection.Windy is saying not going to happen.   It will be a good test.

[ArtVandelay]

Huge fan of Windy.com  Like you have got it down to 45 minutes to flying between storms on working our way away from the coast.  It is even good at forecasting the local Brazos valley fog that the NWS struggles to know about.   Here is a fun one for tonight.  The NWS is the forcasting a line of storms to come through Houston between midnight and 5 am. light hail so some convection.Windy is saying not going to happen.   It will be a good test.

Windy can used different models for the forecasts, try switching models.

[Browncbr1]

10 hours ago, scottd said:

Craig,

Thanks for the kind words.  Next lesson is that it's the SkewTLogPro app.   Chad Sandstedt did a great job developing that app (although many folks think I developed it...similar looking last names I guess).  He's not a Skew-T expert at all so I'm not looking for much more significant stuff to come out of it.  In WeatherSpork we will be growing our own Skew-T and I've got some really useful stuff planned for it.  It'll be the coolest depiction of a Skew-T ever.  I would also direct you to the WeatherSpork YouTube channel...subscribe to the channel and you'll also get some great education there as well.  Not all of it is about WeatherSpork. 

If there's a specific weather topic you'd like to discuss, feel free to bring it up here and tag me and I'll do my best to weigh in on it (without writing a dissertation on the subject...extremely busy these days with developing the app and finishing up my PhD).    

I’ll checkout the weatherspork app. Thanks

i think that live discussions would be helpful.  For example, maybe analysis and discussion about the current low that is moving across the SE and up the Atlantic.  Maybe planning a hypothetical route across actual developing conditions that we can all watch unfold.

thanks again

craig

[Yetti]

7 hours ago, ArtVandelay said:

Windy can used different models for the forecasts, try switching models.

Yep found that 6 months ago.    Score another win for windy.   their model got it way more correct that NWS forecast that all the news people were saying.   This is all we got for Houston proper.  Which is not what they were saying.

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

11 hours ago, Yetti said:

Here is a fun one for tonight.  The NWS is the forcasting a line of storms to come through Houston between midnight and 5 am. light hail so some convection.Windy is saying not going to happen.   It will be a good test.

What forecast are you using from the NWS?  Here's the aviation forecast.  Says nothing about hail or thunderstorms.  After 06Z the possibility of showers in the vicinity until 12Z.  

KHOU 192336Z 2000/2024 31006KT P6SM SCT015 
      TEMPO 2002/2006 BKN015 
     FM200600 32007KT P6SM VCSH SCT007 OVC015 
     FM201200 31015G25KT P6SM SCT250 

Appears to be an excellent forecast with some light rain around 10Z or so.  

KHOU 200953Z 29006KT 8SM -RA BKN014 BKN026 OVC035 13/12 A2979 RMK AO2 RAB07 SLP093 P0002 T01280117
KHOU 200907Z 29005KT 7SM -RA BKN014 BKN022 OVC038 13/12 A2979 RMK AO2 RAB07 P0000 T01280117

And at IAH light rain from 07Z to 11Z.  Again a pretty darn good forecast from the NWS.  

KIAH 201053Z 31008KT 10SM -RA SCT010 BKN050 OVC080 13/12 A2980 RMK AO2 RAB36 SLP093 P0001 T01280122
KIAH 201038Z 31008KT 10SM -RA SCT015 BKN055 OVC120 13/13 A2980 RMK AO2 RAB36 P0000 T01330128
KIAH 200853Z 29005KT 10SM -RA FEW009 BKN025 OVC050 12/12 A2979 RMK AO2 RAB05 SLP088 BKN025 V SCT P0001 60005 T01220122 53002
KIAH 200843Z 29005KT 10SM -RA FEW005 BKN025 BKN060 OVC130 12/12 A2979 RMK AO2 RAB05 P0000 T01220122
KIAH 200653Z 30003KT 10SM -RA MIFG BKN018 BKN040 OVC080 12/12 A2978 RMK AO2 RAB48 SLP086 P0000 T01220122

KIAH 192336Z 2000/2106 00000KT P6SM SCT013 
      TEMPO 2002/2006 BKN015 
     FM200600 31006KT P6SM VCSH SCT007 OVC015 
     FM201200 32015G25KT P6SM SCT250 
     FM210200 31010KT P6SM SKC