Weather Forecast Resources

azpilot

azpilot

Line Up and Wait
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Jul 27, 2015
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azpilot
What do you all use for weather forecasting resources? Most of my flights have primarily been local (PHX area). We are pretty spoiled here because the weather is usually fantastic. Through all of my flight training, I only had one flight cancelled. It was supposed to be my first solo. My instructor called it off because we had a 10 knot cross wind.

Anyway... I typically check aviationweather.gov and look at the METAR's, TAF's and Area Forecast depending on where I am going. I also really like to use weather underground, as they publish a radar image and give the METAR for the airport in question. The Prog charts give a good forward looking picture, but it only really shows you a day ahead tops. What is a good resource for looking two or three or more days ahead for a broad area?
 
 
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Aerovie is incredible. It combines many aviation products in an intuitive way.
 
I am excited to check out the information that others have already posted. I live in North Dakota and our weather is even worse than our reputation for bad weather. We have many awesome days but spring in particular is unpredictable and therefore a real challenge for flying.

Here are some tools I have found useful and free:

Storm app on my iPhone, which shows weather underground information and has a pretty good interface. Hourly and daily forecasts are great for general flight planning. The winds in particular seem to be pretty accurate for what to expect.

Another iPhone app is MyRadar. Good for radar, airmets, etc. I don't use it as much as I could but it is the nicest presentation of this information in a free app that I've seen.

AeroWeather app for metar and taf. Lots of airports of your choosing all shown together gives you a good picture of what's really happening. Quick check of TAFs for airports en route and destination.

I use low level prog charts on the web a lot for general planning, as in making an early drive or fly decision. But that's mostly going to tell you IFR or VFR conditions. It might be VFR because the 25G40 winds blew all the clouds away. So you need more than the prog chart to know if flying is a good idea or not.

In the air I have been using ForeFlight (not free of course) and my Stratux, which is neat because I can get my home metar long before I can pick up the AWOS on the radio and see any potential IFR situations along my route before the clouds are in sight.

I'm nowhere near any mountains so I can't help there. Obviously weather works differently in mountains than here across the prairie.
 
tuwood said:
Aerovie is incredible. It combines many aviation products in an intuitive way.
Click to expand...

+ 1

I travel long distances in my airplane and used to use a bunch of different site like GeorgeC but Im pretty much doing it all with Aerovie now. It really covers just about anything you could want from basic stuff to convection, icing, turbulence, you name it. Getting better (and easier to use) all the time too.
 
DUATS (http://www.duats.com) is free and my go to resource for Wx planning. I also use aviation weather FAA website. Plus I can brief and file a flight plan (IFR/VFR) on DUATs. I showed a pilot friend these the other day and he was surprised and never saw these before. I told him that he needs to ask the CFII about it as well. Surprised Wx not being focus in IFR training by my friend CFII as it is super important and my CFII constantly asks me to do a briefing before we fly.
 
Here's a question: I've been watching Sporty's Advanced Weather Flying DVD series, and discovered that the 500mb chart has some useful information for pilots, such as helping you find a cutoff low (a/k/a closed low aloft). Does anyone here use them? If so, where do you find them? I would have thought they would be easy to find on aviationweather.gov but they are not.
 
I have watched spring and summer so far. They're a little bit campy, good Richard Collins material. For the price, I recommend them. If they were more expensive, I would hesitate, but for $50 they're a great value. I easily learned $12.50 worth from each of the spring and summer videos.
 
tuwood said:
Aerovie is incredible. It combines many aviation products in an intuitive way.
Click to expand...

Is there a free version of this or just the $7 a month option? (which I wouldn't mind paying if it is really good).
 
I get a briefing from Flight Service first and then use Duats or Aviationweather.gov to follow up.
 
Walk outside look cardinal directions. That's my method.
 
I look at the weather.com and aviationweather.gov radar and forecast. Call flight service and get a briefing and a forecast from them. Get pilot reports. It can be hard to get around in the winter. Summer is better. Best thing is to have a couple of days leeway so I can wait it out. That happens maybe 1 in 10 trips.
 
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