Wave action PIREP...

My guess is that they were encountering mountain waves that resulted in 1.5K' altitude deviations. Except that's not a mountainous area, nor is it east of one as I'd expect. They're about 75nm southeast of a low ridge that, as Tony said, ends at Birmingham. Yet these were at significant altitude, so I don't see how they could be caused by that ridge anyway. Educate me, please!:yes:
 
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Isn't flight level 370 awfully high for wave action to be reported?
 
scottd said:
Not *mountain* waves. These waves have nothing to do with terrain as I suspect that most pilots would assume when reading such a pilot report.
Click to expand...
So are thinking of wave-like (i.e. smooth) updrafts and downdrafts from airmass 'mountains' or just some kind of convective related turbulence and vertical motion?

Wish I knew how to see winds aloft and radar images from yesterday... d
 
Thanks for that. Very interesting google read and all new for this amateur.

So I take it that there is a wind shear between the stable upper air and the unstable/convective air below. The updrafts punching up into the moving stable air above can form mountain-like barriers to the stable air winds and you can get smooth ups and downs as well as a lot of very turbulent ups, downs, and every which ways. To be avoided if you can detect them.
 
cool i figured they just mis-reported the wave. you're right though i see a lot of wave patterns in clouds far away from the mountains, like over central iowa.
 
we used to see wave bars a lot, more than i notice them here in kansas. of course i spent a lot more time outside when i lived in iowa. we also would often see wave clouds across northern IL and WI on the satellite that appeared to be triggered by the mississippi river valley. always wished we had a motorglider to go investigate some gravity waves. definitely cool stuff.
 
This post is ironic. As I was driving to work early this morning in south eastern PA I looked to the east and saw some uber alto clouds that made me really take notice it was otherwise clear but I swore they were lennies and I just could not figure out if they were or what formed them. Always facinating stuff thanks Scott.
 
Scott,
Would you please give the Dispatchers at UAL a class on this ? They like to flight plan us RIGHT through this stuff ALL the time ! Unfortunately since a great deal of my flying is international not all these tools exist.
Art
 
What an ST:TNG nerd I am...

The topic title plus the PIREP made me think of the Soliton Wave episode, where the Enterprise "surfed" ahead of a wave, achieving warp speeds unattainable by normal propulsion.
 
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