Are stormscopes/strike finders still valid instruments?

Unit74

Unit74

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Unit74
I have a line on either an Insight SF2000 or an L3 wx900 of my choosing. However, are they really worth Installing in this day and age? With FIS B, Foreflight and XM weather available, what's the point?
 
Yeah, I like mine. Came with the plane. Its a wx500 integrated into the 530. Don't think id spend the money if it weren't already in the plane though. Does give some false positives.
 
I like them quite a bit as they provide real time data on where the cell activity is around rapidly developing/changing TRs, unlike the ground based radar feeds which around heavy weather are often inaccurate due to the delays. The worst thing I found is that around really big supercells and such, the weather blocks the updates. I remember picking my way through a system with the MX-20 saying the data had not been updated in over half an hour. Even 5 minute old information is useless picking your way through a line.
 
Nexrad data, no matter where you get it from, will always be at least 6 minutes behind. That's how long it takes the radar to make a complete update (multiple sweeps at multiple levels). So six minutes plus whatever the lag time is from XM or ADS-B (don't know, but curious).

A strike finder is literally live. But also only shows lightning. A storm cell without lightning is just as dangerous. If it was free, sure. If was $$, probably not worth it with all the other resources available.

That said, I would never be close enough to a storm cell for either to make a difference in a decision.
 
I never was a fan, never bought a plane with one, but if I did it'd be pulled and on eBay on the next annual.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
Nexrad data, no matter where you get it from, will always be at least 6 minutes behind. That's how long it takes the radar to make a complete update (multiple sweeps at multiple levels). So six minutes plus whatever the lag time is from XM or ADS-B (don't know, but curious).

A strike finder is literally live. But also only shows lightning. A storm cell without lightning is just as dangerous. If it was free, sure. If was $$, probably not worth it with all the other resources available.

That said, I would never be close enough to a storm cell for either to make a difference in a decision.
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6 minute lag, is a REALLY good day for NEXRAD.
 
Man, I love my Strikefinder- that, with XM WX, makes a wonderful combination.
 
I had assumed that any cell with severe turbulence would also be generating lightning due to friction of rising and falling air. Is this not accurate?
 
Sferics devices, which detect lighting, are an excellent adjunct to radar, which detects precipitation. Having both forms of information really makes a difference in evaluating what you're looking at. That's one reason on my Garmin 510 I chose the mid-level Aviator XM weather, which includes both sferics and radar plots, rather than cheaper Aviator LT, which has only radar.
 
Ron Levy said:
Sferics devices, which detect lighting, are an excellent adjunct to radar, which detects precipitation. Having both forms of information really makes a difference in evaluating what you're looking at. That's one reason on my Garmin 510 I chose the mid-level Aviator XM weather, which includes both sferics and radar plots, rather than cheaper Aviator LT, which has only radar.
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I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying in this last sentence. First, what is a Garmin 510. Do you mean that you have an XM receiver and a separate Spherics receiving device that displays on a "Garmin 510," and that the more expensive mid-level Aviator XM service allows input from the XM receiver and a Spherics device to be displayed simultaneously?
 
The Spherics device shows you where the convective activity is. Nexrad shows you where precipitation was. I have both and would not consider getting rid of either as I fly mainly in the Southeast where thunderstorms are common. If I flew primarily in California, I wouldn't feel the need for a Stormscope. I have penetrated several lines that I would not consider based solely on Nexrad because the Stormscope indicated it was not convective. The Stormscope will display lightning during two of the three main phases of a thunderstorm: the building phase when there is no precipitation to display on Nexrad but there are dangerous updrafts; and, the mature stage, where both Nexrad and spherics display activity associated with the strong up and down drafts and hail. The dissipating stage will show precipitation on Nexrad but there will not be lightning activity and it is safe to penetrate this phase of the storm as there aren't the strong up and downdrafts with steady rain.

Both systems contribute to the understanding of what is occurring in the atmosphere. I view both as strategic tools and don't want to get within 20 NM of a thunderstorm. When storms are fast moving, their actual position relative to the aircraft can be 10+ miles different than Nexrad will display. In these situations the Stormscope provides a better indication in real time where the storm is.
 
I love mine. Real time lightning an XM make a very goog combination.
 
MajorTurbulence said:
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying in this last sentence. First, what is a Garmin 510. Do you mean that you have an XM receiver and a separate Spherics receiving device that displays on a "Garmin 510," and that the more expensive mid-level Aviator XM service allows input from the XM receiver and a Spherics device to be displayed simultaneously?
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One of the XM services is a ground based lightning detection. While it's different from the NEXRAD precip returns , it has similar time lags.
 
With the new Xm info,I wouldn't go out and buy a storm scope/ strike finder.
 
Stormscope is also handy when flying to Mexico. No XM, no NEXRAD.
 
I had a WX-500 installed a couple years ago in the 310. I find it quite useful. Combined with ADS-B WX download and on-board radar, a great combination.

If you fly around thunderstorms, it's nice to have.
 
Unit74 said:
I have a line on either an Insight SF2000 or an L3 wx900 of my choosing. However, are they really worth Installing in this day and age? With FIS B, Foreflight and XM weather available, what's the point?
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Absolutely worth the investment. When it comes to dealing with convective activity, the hard and fast rule is that you've got to be able to see them and avoid them. If you can't see them with your eyeballs you've got to have the equipment to "see" them electronically. You can't avoid what you can't see. It's really that simple.

When it comes to dealing with convective weather, you've got three types of electronic eyeballs available to us in the cockpit - ground based radar uploaded to the cockpit (XM Weather et al), airborne weather radar, and sferics detectors (Stormscopes, Strikefinders, Honeywell LSS, et al)

These are three distinct tools with three distinct uses. Airborne wx radar essentially shows you where two things are - dirt and water. Without proper training, it can be difficult telling one from the other. With airborne weather radar you have to make an assumption that where there's enough water in the atmosphere to reflect a signal, there's also turbulence. That's frequently the case, but not always true. You can have one without the other. Also, as I mentioned, it's takes a lot of skill, training and experience to be able to interpret what you're seeing on the display. (I'd like to have the interest on the money that was spent on fuel by guys deviating around cities and mountains that they thought were cells this year alone. :rolleyes2:) Without that training, you're better off not even having the equipment on board - it can get you killed as fast as anything else when it comes to flying around in convective weather.

Sferics detectors simply indicate distance and range of electrical discharges caused by atmospheric motion. The assumption is that where there is adequate motion to cause electrical discharges there is turbulence. The big problem with this equipment is that it lacks the level of resolution that wx radar has. In 25 years of flying behind 3 different types of sferics detectors, I've yet to have been lead astray with them. However, I use them strategically, not tactically.

XM Weather Radar is good, but the problem lies with the refresh rate. There are times when things are popping that it's just not fast enough. Also, once you leave the borders of the continental 48 states, it goes away entirely. It does have some long-range strategic advantages - on board wx radar isn't much good out beyond 200 miles or so and that's less than 1/2 hour when you're in a jet. As far as I'm concerned, the single best use for XM weather (and similar products) is for long-range strategic planning. When we're on a non-stop coast to coast flight, having that information in the cockpit is very useful input when you're figuring out what you're going to be dealing with over the next several hours. However, because of the nature of the beast, XM data can become quite stale and it would be foolish to use it to deal with weather close in.

When it comes to dealing with close-in convective weather, I essentially use sferics detectors to decide what to circumnavigate and the onboard weather radar to do the circumnavigation. Why, because sferics detectors lack the necessary close-in resolution to do it comfortably.
 
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Today, descending into IMC over Alabama, a Storm Scope gave me great comfort in flying into an area of precipitation that included what looked a lot like thunderstorms on the Nexrad ADS-B, but wasn't. No lightning at all within the ~100 mile radius of detection, and indeed it turned out to be benign.

A combination of Nexrad, lightning detection, and OAT on the panel -- a big help for IMC.
 
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MajorTurbulence said:
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying in this last sentence. First, what is a Garmin 510.
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Handheld GPS with XM weather receiver. Displays weather overlaid on the moving map.
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/in-the-air/portable-gps/aera-510/prod37813.html

Do you mean that you have an XM receiver and a separate Spherics receiving device that displays on a "Garmin 510," and that the more expensive mid-level Aviator XM service allows input from the XM receiver and a Spherics device to be displayed simultaneously?
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No. The XM weather system gathers sferics information just like it gathers NEXRAD radar data and bounces it off the satellite to my 510, which displays it on a map. Having the radar and sferics data overlaid on a single map makes it much easier to comprehend and analyze. You could do the same in a plane with on-board radar and on-board sferics with any several MFD's on the market, or also with up/down-linked NEXRAD radar data and on-board sferics also feeding an MFD.

And yes, the XM data has time lags, so make darn sure you aren't cutting close to it in the direction it's moving (and the Garmin has an "animate" mode which allows you to see the movement) or between cells that may be merging or next to cells which may be growing.
 
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Ron Levy said:
Handheld GPS with XM weather receiver. Displays weather overlaid on the moving map.
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/in-the-air/portable-gps/aera-510/prod37813.html

No. The XM weather system gathers sferics information just like it gathers NEXRAD radar data and bounces it off the satellite to my 510, which displays it on a map. Having the radar and sferics data overlaid on a single map makes it much easier to comprehend and analyze. You could do the same in a plane with on-board radar and on-board sferics with any several MFD's on the market, or also with up/down-linked NEXRAD radar data and on-board sferics also feeding an MFD.

And yes, the XM data has time lags, so make darn sure you aren't cutting close to it in the direction it's moving (and the Garmin has an "animate" mode which allows you to see the movement) or between cells that may be merging or next to cells which may be growing.
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Thanks for the explanations.
 
Dead Stick said:
Absolutely worth the investment.
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When it comes to dealing with close-in convective weather, I essentially use spherics detectors to decide what to circumnavigate and the onboard weather radar to do the circumnavigation. Why, because spherics detectors lack the necessary close-in resolution to do it comfortably.
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I don't have on board radar, but I love my WX500 stormscope. While my experience is limited to only 5 years, and after learning some of its nuances, it has helped avoid several thunderstorm encounters and enabled me to get through when things began to suddenly start popping. While I do recall one instance where a discharge was detected anew immediately in front of my path where no turbulence was perceived, there was another instance on final approach path to ARB, when a discharge was just displayed over me. In this case, almost simultaneously, tower called out a windshear alert where there was now a mild downburst. I was able to continue to fly the glide path while having to increase climb power and angle of attack. Interesting phenomena but in this case not too strong to overcome the ability of my 180hp Archer, and an interesting occurrence of a more precise display of the accuracy of the stormscope.
 
Just keep in mind that if buying one used, Understand what is required for skin mapping etc for the particular system you are looking at, and whether you have someone lined up who can do that work. Its not always easy to make these things function.
 
MajorTurbulence said:
I don't have on board radar, but I love my WX500 stormscope. While my experience is limited to only 5 years, and after learning some of its nuances, it has helped avoid several thunderstorm encounters and enabled me to get through when things began to suddenly start popping.
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At the same time, the absence of sferics indications is not by itself sufficient to conclude that it's safe to punch through a given built-up cumulus cloud.

I was headed south down V1 one night some years back in my Cheetah, with no radar or sferics (XM hadn't been invented yet, and I didn't have a stormscope in that plane). I was up at about 9000 to stay above the lower later, but there was an east-west line of built-up cumulus down south of Norfolk VA. ATC was seeing moderate precip on their radar, and I just didn't like the look of them in the moonlight, so I chose to go east about 30 miles out of my way to go around the end of the line -- nice, smooth ride all the way around and then rejoining V1 near the NC/SC line.

OTOH, the Baron behind me at 11,000 was offered the same routing, but said "I'm not seeing anything on my stormscope, so I'll just continue through it down V1." When he popped out the other side of the clouds, he told the controller that's the worst he'd ever been beat up by turbulence.

So, I'll stick with obtaining and integrating all the data I can get (including radar and sfercs, as well as the "storm cell" indications and echo tops data you can get on XM) rather than relying on any one indicator -- even radar.
 
Ron Levy said:
At the same time, the absence of sferics indications is not by itself sufficient to conclude that it's safe to punch through a given built-up cumulus cloud.

I was headed south down V1 one night some years back in my Cheetah, with no radar or sferics (XM hadn't been invented yet, and I didn't have a stormscope in that plane). I was up at about 9000 to stay above the lower later, but there was an east-west line of built-up cumulus down south of Norfolk VA. ATC was seeing moderate precip on their radar, and I just didn't like the look of them in the moonlight, so I chose to go east about 30 miles out of my way to go around the end of the line -- nice, smooth ride all the way around and then rejoining V1 near the NC/SC line.

OTOH, the Baron behind me at 11,000 was offered the same routing, but said "I'm not seeing anything on my stormscope, so I'll just continue through it down V1." When he popped out the other side of the clouds, he told the controller that's the worst he'd ever been beat up by turbulence.

So, I'll stick with obtaining and integrating all the data I can get (including radar and sfercs, as well as the "storm cell" indications and echo tops data you can get on XM) rather than relying on any one indicator -- even radar.
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I concur completely with your summary statements as one should not be relying on isolated information to penetrate areas of thunderstorms when other information is available, not excluding your eyeballs. While I do not recall experiencing areas of significant turbulence in the absence of discharge data in my airplane, one could get a new discharge right where you happen to be, as in my experience above while on final to ARB. I would like to hear from others with personal experience in aircraft where the surface mapping has been done properly and the sherics device was working in an otherwise normal manner, as the breadth of my own experience is limited. Your anecdote about the Baron would seem to indicate they thought their stormscope was functioning.
 
MajorTurbulence said:
I concur completely with your summary statements as one should not be relying on isolated information to penetrate areas of thunderstorms when other information is available, not excluding your eyeballs. While I do not recall experiencing areas of significant turbulence in the absence of discharge data in my airplane,
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I do -- more times than I can count, both in clouds and out. While it's hard to imagine lightning discharge without significant turbulence, its not at all hard to imagine significant turbulence without lightning discharge.

one could get a new discharge right where you happen to be, as in my experience above while on final to ARB. I would like to hear from others with personal experience in aircraft where the surface mapping has been done properly and the sherics device was working in an otherwise normal manner, as the breadth of my own experience is limited. Your anecdote about the Baron would seem to indicate they thought their stormscope was functioning.
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I have no doubt the Baron's stormscope was functioning properly, but it's only an electrical discharge detector, not a turbulence detector, and you can get severe or even extreme turbulence without electrical discharge.
 
Ron Levy said:
I do -- more times than I can count, both in clouds and out. While it's hard to imagine lightning discharge without significant turbulence, its not at all hard to imagine significant turbulence without lightning discharge.

I have no doubt the Baron's stormscope was functioning properly, but it's only an electrical discharge detector, not a turbulence detector, and you can get severe or even extreme turbulence without electrical discharge.
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Of course you are right. I don't bother to turn the stormscope display on without visible moisture and forecast thunderstorms or cumulus clouds even though there may be plenty of turbulence at times. I am talking about my experiences when conditions were right for thunderstorm formation. But, I am happy to defer to you and others with greater experience and to learn about those situations where a stormscope is fallible. But if a stormscope would not display discharges with an active or incipient thunderstorm close by, as with your Baron example, I would like to know that.
 
In thousands of hours of flying a single engine piston with Stormscope, many in the FL area and most around the east coast in general, I have had to dodge a lot of convective activity on the display. FWIW, by simply flying to "avoid the dots", I have rarely experienced any significant turbulence, despite encountering moderate rain in many cases.
Now I also have ADS-B and can see the NextGen data, so I have the best of both worlds. I think having both inputs is invaluable for safe IFR flying in convection-prone areas/seasons.
 
I have been using a Strikefinder or later model Stormscope since 1990. I find them to be exceedingly useful. Has kept me out of a lot of bumps but more importantly they allow me to keep moving on days when others call it a day.
 
MajorTurbulence said:
Of course you are right. I don't bother to turn the stormscope display on without visible moisture and forecast thunderstorms or cumulus clouds even though there may be plenty of turbulence at times. I am talking about my experiences when conditions were right for thunderstorm formation. But, I am happy to defer to you and others with greater experience and to learn about those situations where a stormscope is fallible. But if a stormscope would not display discharges with an active or incipient thunderstorm close by, as with your Baron example, I would like to know that.
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You can get significant turbulence in towering cumulus before the lightning starts. Don't think for an instant that you can safely or smoothly fly into a towering cumulus cloud just because there is no lightning activity. In that regard the stormscope is not "fallible", since it is, as I said before, only a lightning detector, not a turbulence detector, so failure to detect turbulence not associated with lightning would not be considered a fallibility of that unit.
 
Based on many years of owning and flying a Stormscope, and lots of reading (e.g. here), my understanding and experience is that it detects not only the visible "lightning bolts" that we associate with a developed thunderstorm, but also smaller static discharges, typically invisible to the naked eye, which are associated with turbulence due to strong shearing action between adjacent air layers. Therefore, by steering away from all displayed dots (i.e. discharges), you are pretty much guaranteed a turbulence-free ride. That has been my experience, as I noted in my post above, so either I have been incredibly lucky, or there is some substance to the theory. As I posted above, I no longer have to rely on the Stormscope alone, since I now also have NextGen via ADS-B, so the combination is even more powerful. Of course, when VMC, experienced eyeballs can do a pretty good job too, esp. in conjunction with the electronic tools.
 
All of the stormscopes I've used seem to be pretty good with directional indications but pretty poor on estimating range. (Ie if the discharge is stronger, it will appear on the screen "closer" to the aircraft). Is this common?
 
dans2992 said:
All of the stormscopes I've used seem to be pretty good with directional indications but pretty poor on estimating range. (Ie if the discharge is stronger, it will appear on the screen "closer" to the aircraft). Is this common?
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I certainly see that with mine, and my understanding is that it is common, at least with the earlier units. I believe Paul Ryan (Stormscope inventor/designer) considered this a "feature", in that it would warn you to not head towards the stronger stuff, even when still quite distant.
 
dans2992 said:
All of the stormscopes I've used seem to be pretty good with directional indications but pretty poor on estimating range. (Ie if the discharge is stronger, it will appear on the screen "closer" to the aircraft). Is this common?
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I've been using the wx radar/Stormscope combination for nearly 30 years and close to 12,000 hours and I've NEVER been snookered by it. The later units do a MUCH better job with the radial spread as compared to the earlier units. After thousands of hours of direct comparisons between what the stormscope was was showing and what the radar was showing I finally stopped worrying about the differences, they were always too small to be an issue at any range.

My technique doesn't vary with the type of equipment. As I have said previously, personally I use the Stormscope to determine if the area is safe to transit (NO Discharges showing on the display) and then some sort of weather radar to circumnavigate the area. The reason being is that while it's good at detecting areas of convective turbulence, a Stormscope lacks the close-in resolution to be able to pick your way safely through it. When it comes to tackling weather like this, whether your IFR in a jet or VFR in a light single you DO have to be able to see it - however, you can see it using on board avionics just as well as you can see it with your own two eyes. That is where the Stormscope / Radar combination comes into play.

You need to remember this about weather radar (airborne and ground based) - essentially all it can show you is dirt and water. If all you're seeing is dirt then you've got the tilt set too low. As for water, the assumption is made that where there's atmospheric water (rain) that's being displayed it is accompanied by turbulence. In other words, if you've got precipitation you've got turbulence and that's not always true. The sferics detectors (Stormscopes) detect electrical discharges in the atmosphere generated by turbulence - a much more reliable way to detect it. Some of the ground based dopler radars that we can receive in the cockpit are very capable at detecting turbulence, the only problem there is that by the time you actually get the updated information into the cockpit it can become "stale". Refresh rates can be problematic.

Bottom line for me is this...

1. Any time you screw around with convective turbulence you've got to be visual. However, you can see it with your avionics just as well as you can see it with your own two eyes. The operative words are SEE and AVOID.

2. Red/magenta returns whether or not associated with turbulence (as indicated by the stormscope) are always too much. Anything less, when accompanied with a "clear" Stormscope display is a just free airplane power wash. Precipitation on the radar and no "dots" on the stormscope = smooth, but wet ride. No precipitation on the radar and dots on the stormscope = bumps, you don't want to be there. Precipitation on the radar and dots on the stormscope = big bumps and you really don't want to be there.

3. I'll take a stormscope and on board wx radar as my first choice any day. If on board wx radar isn't an option then XM radar can be a workable substitute.

4. XM weather by itself is not a substitute for the stormscope / radar combination, but it's better than nothing.

5. As far as gradients within a cell go, each cell is to be treated as if the entire cell was the color of the greatest return in it. In other words, if any part of the cell contains a red or magenta return then all of that cell, even the green and yellow parts, should be considered as if it were red or magenta. This goes for airborne or XM weather.

As always, the above is just my personal opinion based upon my experience. Do not attempt this at home.
 
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RotorDude said:
Based on many years of owning and flying a Stormscope, and lots of reading (e.g. here), my understanding and experience is that it detects not only the visible "lightning bolts" that we associate with a developed thunderstorm, but also smaller static discharges, typically invisible to the naked eye, which are associated with turbulence due to strong shearing action between adjacent air layers. Therefore, by steering away from all displayed dots (i.e. discharges), you are pretty much guaranteed a turbulence-free ride. That has been my experience, as I noted in my post above, so either I have been incredibly lucky, or there is some substance to the theory. As I posted above, I no longer have to rely on the Stormscope alone, since I now also have NextGen via ADS-B, so the combination is even more powerful. Of course, when VMC, experienced eyeballs can do a pretty good job too, esp. in conjunction with the electronic tools.
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This has been my experience as well.
 
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