mattcashore
Filing Flight Plan
Hi all-
New member and first post. Be gentle.
Can't figure out how to embed an image, so I'll do the best I can describing it. I had a scare some years ago flying IFR in and out of benign clouds around 8K. Popped out of one of the little guys just in time to see the 20,000-ish foot towering cumulus I was about to fly into. Yowsa. SCARY ride. It was a thunderstorm just being born so it was not yet making rain, so it did not show up on NEXRAD.
Brings me to my question: In an area of generally widespread green, ForeFlight sometimes shows echo tops of 210, 239, 225, etc. METARS in the area might show light rain, maybe 1000-foot ceilings, normal winds. Nothing scary on the surface in other words. But those echo tops nag at my brain. What do they actually mean? Is there another 20K foot monster embedded in the otherwise benign scud? I will stay away from areas that show sharp gradients from green to yellow to orange and beyond, but widespread areas of green *should* be reasonable, right??
Thanks very much!
New member and first post. Be gentle.
Can't figure out how to embed an image, so I'll do the best I can describing it. I had a scare some years ago flying IFR in and out of benign clouds around 8K. Popped out of one of the little guys just in time to see the 20,000-ish foot towering cumulus I was about to fly into. Yowsa. SCARY ride. It was a thunderstorm just being born so it was not yet making rain, so it did not show up on NEXRAD.
Brings me to my question: In an area of generally widespread green, ForeFlight sometimes shows echo tops of 210, 239, 225, etc. METARS in the area might show light rain, maybe 1000-foot ceilings, normal winds. Nothing scary on the surface in other words. But those echo tops nag at my brain. What do they actually mean? Is there another 20K foot monster embedded in the otherwise benign scud? I will stay away from areas that show sharp gradients from green to yellow to orange and beyond, but widespread areas of green *should* be reasonable, right??
Thanks very much!