Conflicting Weather

NealRomeoGolf

NealRomeoGolf

En-Route
PoA Supporter
Joined
Apr 12, 2016
Messages
4,968
Location
Illinois
Display Name
Display name:
NRG
I'm a little stumped. I'm supposed to be doing my long solo XC tomorrow so I've been watching the weather like a hawk. Weather Underground calls for central Illinois to be clear skies. The TAF for KPIA that came out a few hours ago calls for the same. So then I go to the low level prog charts.....socked in with clouds and vis less than 3??? Then I go to the Area Forecast. Outlook VFR with MVFR and mist at 3am.

Is that the way of saying there may be fog tomorrow? How could they be so different between the TAF and the prog charts/area forecast? There is no mention of fog in the TAF so I'm just confused. Hoping for clear skies....
 
Yep pretty much

The 12Z prog chart has a bunch of low clouds, the 18Z does not. Looking at the Skew-T it looks like there will be a fog layer likely in the early am
 
Thanks guys. Hopefully it will stay localized away from here and I can launch on time.
 
90% of the time TAF's are just about as accurate as the weather channel.

1-800-WXBRIEF is always my first go to source, and then following up on my own with duat's or AWC.
 
SoCal RV Flyer said:
You might try this site. Not perfect, but I've found it useful to augment the usual go-to sites. Shows general cloud levels, presence of mist or haze, and wind direction. Works with airport identifier or region.

http://www.usairnet.com/cgi-bin/launch/code.cgi
Click to expand...
And it's unreliable as hell.

TAFs plus some local knowledge for extrapolation work much better. That's a misuse of TAFs, but it's the only way I've been able to reliably schedule VFR flight around marine layer.
 
So far the TAF is winning. Looks absolutely beautiful outside this morning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top