Cold front and scattered thunderstorms

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Josh Whitman

Filing Flight Plan
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Josh Whitman
Update: I canceled the flights in favor of driving. I'd still love to hear feedback and will update with the actual weather outcome. I'd rather be disappointed by choosing not to fly when I could have, than be flying when I shouldn't.

Original Post:

I have two flights scheduled this weekend and the weather is looking worse and worse. I'm leaning heavily towards canceling the flights unless some miraculous weather changes occur in the next 24 hours. The forecast calls for a cold front closing in and scattered storms across northern GA.

One flight is Friday, and one Saturday. The original plan was to take off from KCCO 1400Z on 5/10, fly to KSGJ, pick up a family member and fly back same day. I'd then repeat the trip on 5/11 to return the family member to KSGJ and return home. Flying is only an after thought, as the trip was already planned and the family member was and still is able to drive if need be. I made that clear so that there is no pressure that we must fly. That being said, if I complete the flight Friday, I would potentially need to drive the family member back home Saturday and drive back (12 hour round trip) if weather is too imposing, so I'd like to avoid that altogether by making a good decision about Saturday ahead of time. Another reason I'm leaning heavily towards not flying.

So to the weather:

A cold front is forecast to move in to North GA around the proposed arrival time back to KCCO on Friday and stall out over the area.
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The convective forecast shows 60%-79% probability near my estimated time back to KCCO
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Saturday looks even worse with an increased chance of precip and convective activity around the expected departure (1700Z) and arrival back at KCCO.
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I am an instrument rated private pilot with a low 79 hours total time including just under 5 in IMC. The proposed flights are in a DA40 with G1000/GFC700, no integrated WX, only ADS-B-in via ForeFlight/Stratux. While I'm waiting until Friday to make a final decision, I'm leaning heavily towards canceling the flights and going another day. While I've been reassured that ATC won't intentionally vector me into any cells I know my ADS-B weather is far from reliable so I'm not interested at all in being in IMC in any of this.

Even if I do ultimately decide not to go, which is looking more and more likely, I'm going to watch the weather through the period and see how things would have panned out.
 
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Those aren’t conditions for any IMC flying beyond a 5 second cloud bust.

If it were possible to fly, I’d be IFR but only to relieve cloud clearance requirements. I’d be above cloud base flying cloud canyons... unless the buildups towered above me which is what that day looks like in the forecast.

Good day to watch from a safe perch and see how it turns out.


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Bill Watson said:
Those aren’t conditions for any IMC flying beyond a 5 second cloud bust.

If it were possible to fly, I’d be IFR but only to relieve cloud clearance requirements. I’d be above cloud base flying cloud canyons... unless the buildups towered above me which is what that day looks like in the forecast.

Good day to watch from a safe perch and see how it turns out.


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Thank you for the input. It doesn't seem advisable. While I'm eager to put my instrument rating to use I'm not about to jump in from the deep end.
 
If you scrap the trip I’d take the time to go up in some hard IMC with your CFI so you can get more IMC experience.
I’m an newly minted IFR pilot as well. Just went up for my first day in IMC on my own. Fortunately my training we did a lot of IMC work. But the only time I was not IMC for the approaches I did was after the FAF. Never got on top of it.
Problem with the frontal crap is the expected turbulence might be hard on a passenger
 
Canceling is probably prudent, especially as you have other options. However, it is just a forecast and only one part of the puzzle-- things could change and the local/en route weather might be flyable for the route despite the predicted wide ranging convective and TS activity. I highly recommend adding WeatherSpork to your weather toolkit. I find it invaluable in making this type of go/no-go decision.
 
I make this trip all the time. KBHM to KSGJ. I’ve been to Newnan a few times, too. No way I would cancel based on this forecast. PM me if you want to talk about it.


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Josh Whitman said:
I am an instrument rated private pilot with a low 79 hours total time including just under 5 in IMC.
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Thanks for the post. Those overall forecasts can often paint a scary picture.. realistically weather won't be great for flying, conditions will be ripe for thunderstorm development, etc. But, it also likely won't be an apocalyptic event where the south and south east of the country will be shrouded in t-storms for that entire hatched region. If you give yourself options and outs these trips can be done.. **HOWEVER, with 79 total time and only 5 in IMC (likely most with an instructor) I would not be making this trip if I were you. Especially if its your first, or one of your first, managing potentially deadly weather.. and since you don't have FIKI, radar, or Nexrad you'll be flying with less than the full set of tools you'd need to really execute this trip as safely as possible. Personally I haven't had the best luck with the Foreflight ADS-B weather outside of it giving me the little VFR/IFR flags for the airports. If you go into a cloud you will have no idea what the precip levels are in there, lightning activity, etc... Someone who's done this trip many times, or has a lot of time flying and navigating weather, or with at least Nexrad, could probably do this safely though

drjcustis said:
No way I would cancel based on this forecast.
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Yeah the big picture things often seem scary, the actual route of flight may be totally fine, heck it may even be VMC despite being in that hatched region of the map
 
could be some hard actual,would like to have a few more actual IMC hours,before attempting the flight.
 
Josh Whitman said:
I have two flights scheduled this weekend and the weather is looking worse and worse.
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I feel your pain...needed to fly Charlotte NC to Crossville TN this weekend.... Not gonna happen...now I'm looking at a 12 hour round trip in the 4-Runner rather than 1/4 that time in the Mooney...UGH!:confused:
 
I am planning to fly from RDU to KJAX Sunday morning. I haven’t taken a hard look at the forecast because it’s just getting reasonably accurate about now, but I know there is a big convective system bearing down on the area.

I may leave a day early if it helps but will definitely start the flight. It will be IFR independent of conditions but my modus operandi on convective southern days is fly IFR but to stay visual as much as possible. Asking for and getting deviations to stay out of ALL convective buildups unless the time inside is clearly limited because I can see where I will pop out before going in (you’d be surprised how often that situation presents itself). Flying in IMC is still part of the plan because there is often spent cumulus or stratus hanging around large convective systems. But the inside of growing white fluffies is not a place I choose to fly.

With that approach, I can almost always make my destination if I give myself some time flexibility and am willing to make major deviations. But it took awhile to build up to that kind of flying. Like 15+ years and 3,000 hours of CC in SELs. A couple thousand of glider CC really helps with reading the weather.




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This is just an advisory that there might be convective activity. Hatched region indicates a *chance* of TS. Solid red indicates a higher likelihood. If everyone stopped flying in the hatched area, there will be no airplanes flying on Friday in the lower half of the U.S. That is clearly not a realistic scenario. I would make the decision based on the reported weather conditions as the front draws closer. Right now that cold front is in IN-IL-OH. Current reports show marginal VFR and rain. There are no thunderstorms reported, even though the 12-hr prog chart for that area showed a large swath of hatched red area. Its no guarantee that you can make your trip, but it is also not a sure thing that it is clearly a no-go. This is not the same as a convective sigmet.
 

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Went KRYY, KFIN today. Had to thread a few rain storms, but was uneventful VFR. nice out of north Georgia, rain south of Macon. Had to stay well west of course line. High as 11,500 and down to 3,000. Lots of help from Valdosta approach and Jax center. Forecast was way worse than actual.
 
Why wife ran CC so I should have figured that out. Sorry.

Are folks concerned about flying tougher IMC in a rental? I’ve heard most say they wouldn’t fly across open water like Lake Michigan SEL period (own or rent) and similar for terrain at night. What about IMC and a rental?
 
You made a great judgement call based on your personal minimums, not somebody else's. There is no exact formula for determining that answer. While we can identify some of the data used in basing our decisions (newly minted IFR pilot, 75 hours Instrument, A/C capability etc) and at the end, we make our Go/NO go decisions using a host of information. As you gain experience, your minimums will increase as well as your confidence. Way to stick to your guns!
 
Terry M - 3CK (Chicago) said:
Are folks concerned about flying tougher IMC in a rental? I’ve heard most say they wouldn’t fly across open water like Lake Michigan SEL period (own or rent) and similar for terrain at night. What about IMC and a rental?
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Rented vs. owned wouldn’t enter my mind when planning a trip other than for some restrictions a rental company may place on the use of the aircraft (such as no IMC).

To me, the general lack of equipment and/or capability in many light airplanes is more of the debilitating factor when dealing with Midwest weather ownership of the airplane is.
 
Terry M - 3CK (Chicago) said:
Are folks concerned about flying tougher IMC in a rental? I’ve heard most say they wouldn’t fly across open water like Lake Michigan SEL period (own or rent) and similar for terrain at night. What about IMC and a rental?
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I've flown IMC in a rental and flew a warrior across lake Michigan leaving Oshkosh. Had life vest and flew as high as we could go. Kept an eye our for boats too because we wouldn't last long in that cold water.
 
I I flew into Saint Augustine on Thursday. Flew out of Saint Augustine Sunday morning. Both times it was vfr, scattered clouds at 2000. I did file IFR both times and needed it to deal with the weather in Charleston. Coming back home to Newbern, I did have to deviate around thunderstorms in and around the Myrtle Beach area. It added 10 minutes to my trip. I landed a visual approach at Newbern after descending through the cloud deck. On a sidenote Myrtle Beach approach went off the air due to a lightning strike on their transmitter.
 
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