$#@%! Weatherman!

tawood

tawood

En-Route
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Sep 22, 2015
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2,558
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SE Michigan
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Display name:
Tim
Just venting...
For almost a week, my instrument instructor and I have been watching the forecasts, hoping for some IFR weather. I'm finishing up my instrument training coming up on 40 total hours of IFR, and we'd like to get into some more actual weather, with possibly a real missed approach due to clouds/low ceiling, to round out my training. All week long, we've had "severe clear" kind of weather, but also all week, the weatherman has been predicting that Saturday would be IFR, with rain and low clouds.
My instructor and I planned a flight for Saturday. Then Friday afternoon, the weather-people change the forecast for Saturday, saying late on Friday it would be partly cloudy for 200 miles in all directions all day on Saturday...so we cancelled the flight training late on Friday. Instead, on Friday night my girlfriend and I planned a trip to fly Saturday to the west side of Michigan, to try renting some electric bicycles.
And now? Here I sit Saturday...too crappy to fly VFR: 500-1000 foot ceilings all across the state, steady rain. It is the weather that was exactly what my instructor and I were waiting for...and to make matters worse, starting tomorrow I'm on-call at work for almost 2 weeks, which means "no flying" for awhile. Ugh.
 
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When the weatherman calls for BKN040 10SM or better less than 12 hours out, I expect BKN040 10SM or better. Not OVC002 and 1/2SM. Pastcasts are the only accurate predictions around here. (30 miles lee from Lake Michigan)
 
I'd be happy to switch airports with you (OP). I've had the opposite problem of sitting in MVFR in my airport where my route of flight for my PP 150 mile solo XC is all severe clear...
 
It was an area forecast before they trashed it for the horrible GFA. And it happened all the time.
 
EdFred said:
It was an area forecast before they trashed it for the horrible GFA. And it happened all the time.
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The Area Forecast around here before it was killed was a daily entertainment vector for wondering how good the pot was that the NWS people were smoking in Boulder. :)
 
scottd said:
Ugh. Actually the FA was not issued by the good folks in Boulder. Try the AWC.
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LOL. Okay.

Still glad they do the soaring forecast. It’s usually a lot more accurate than whatever they’re feeding the media outlets.

It ain’t all bad out of Boulder.

One funny phenomenon about moving way out east and rural is how the forecast is so metro-centric. We can be in a full blown blizzard out here and Boulder will never notice.

It’s just kinda assumed there aren’t any humans out here. You really only notice it once you’re out here and are a weather geek.

From here to the KS/NE borders it’s kinda “if it’s going to hit I-70 or I-76 we’ll pay attention to it, otherwise y’all already know you have weather out there...” :)

The ridge line coming out of Parker to the east really changes the weather and creates both lifting and blockages that confound the poor NWS folks looking at the radar from FTG. Stuff will hammer Parker and track east and they’ll put up warnings like the world is going to end in Elbert County every time, and the ridge splits the storms almost every time and sends them either up I-76 along the river valley, or south of here out to Prospect Valley.

Of course when I used to chase, that’s where we’d go wait for the fun. I-76 or Prospect Valley. I just never lived in the areas between the city and those and saw the cool ridge line action I get to see living here now.

That meso setting up to our north was pretty typical but that one was big and well defined with a massive rain free base, as you can see from the wide angle lens on an iPhone not able to capture it from side to side. The ridge pushed it up and pushed it north, and it was easily 2000’ AGL to the bases. When the first radar rotation warning went up on it, it wasn’t doing anything at all but just turning.

As they go back downhill from here they lower in AGL height and often do pop out funnels. But almost never anywhere near the ridge. The ridge just lifts and gets them spinning as they start to suck in moisture from all directions.

I wish I had a lens wide enough to capture that inflow scud racing toward those things that’s flying directly over the house on almost all of them. You’d love that video Scott. It’s a sure sign one of those is going to become HUGE. In fact today just before that photo of the meso, on the south side of the house I was watching that thing sucking in moisture and low level scud from all compass directions from east through south and then west. Stuff was flat out racing to go into that monster.

The hail was from the southwest corner of a second smaller cell that popped along the same line 20 miles west and 15 miles north of the original photo of the big meso. Normal place for it. I was inside a Subway ordering a sandwich and not watching the radar or I would have known to get my butt out of there and back east to the house to not get the truck pelted. It dropped that load of ice exactly where it normally would have. I just wasn’t paying attention to the secondary line that was forming.

Fun stuff. I don’t chase anymore. Not nearly as useful as it was before they had Doppler deployed and figured out.
 
scottd said:
Ah, so still complaining about a forecast that doesn’t exist any more. And just to note that the FA didn’t forecast 10SM either. Things that make you go Hmmmm?
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I see you've gone to the roncachamp school of pedantry. They even botched the forecast 2 weekends ago from Louisville to Grand Rapids. Visibility and ceiling forecast vs actual were still off by an order and a half of flight rules.
 
I totally feel ya tawood. After I got my instrument rating I was all about getting some actual IMC. In CO it can be tough because too cold and ice is at least predicted. Too warm and the risk of thunderbumpers was present. So on those magic days where it was forecast to be cool stable and IFR, I would book a plane and launch. Funny thing, sky all gooey, and as soon as I’d lift off the clouds would part and it would go beautiful VFR all day.

Basically, to the VFR only guy, your welcome! I cleaned the sky for you
 
scottd said:
So, I assume that means you have a TAF at your home airport that is always way off like you suggest? If it is a TAF, they don't issue a forecast for 10SM visibility, P6SM means better than six statute miles, not 10 statute miles.

I can put you in touch with the meteorologist-in-charge of that weather forecast office if you'd like so you can complain...I'm sure they would love to hear from you since the forecasts are always that bad. I'm sure they can explain why they issue such horrible forecasts.
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I'd like his number to complain...I'm also in Michigan, and I agree: anything past 24 hours is a complete joke...I don't even see trends being predicted correctly on a regular basis.
 
scottd said:
Meteorologists are asked to forecast for an area that is 5 statute miles in radius (4.2 nm).
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Asked and accepted, actually.

So you’re saying if we lobby for say, a twenty mile TAF, there will be a significant measurable useful increase in accuracy for flight operations?

We teach in building blocks so pick ONE forecast product of any size that we could replace the TAF with that pilots would understand better.

What would you make it if you could snap your fingers and it happened tomorrow?m

What would the accuracy jump to and how many less pilots would misunderstand it? Give us a reason and we’ll all clamor for whatever you say will get those increases.

I’m kinda not buying this whole attitude that it’s the pilot’s fault if the product isn’t right for aviation.

The weather experts set the size of the forecast product they deliver. If FAA or ICAO set it, who there can argue with the science?

Someone could and still can, say no.

You guys are the ones with the satellites and the weather stations and the supercomputers. You tell us what the correct station size is.

Sell us on the benefits of it. We’d lobby for you if you’re guaranteeing it’ll be more accurate effectively for what we do.

But you have to pick one and only one to start with. The one we teach all the new pilots.
 
How much time to do have in the sim?

Real world for IFR the sim rocks
 
tawood said:
Funny that Scottd made this about TAFs...when I started the thread I wasn't talking about them either.
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That's always been his fall back. Even though AZO, BTL, GRR, JXN, and LAN will all have the same forecast for the same time period his argument is always that everywhere else in SW Michigan - especially 9D9 which sits in between all of them and has no terrain to affect the weather - is expected to be completely different and that's why TAFs are never wrong - even when they are. Even though I was using the GFA and MOS graphics and not looking at TAFs for my latest weather rodeo.

Saturday the TAFs were wrong for GRR, and I live within the surface area. But somehow they were still right if you ask him. Hell even this morning at 13Z, the GFA showed SKC for our area at this time. I'll give you a guess as to what the sky ISN'T right now.
 
scottd said:
Hmmmm? Well if the title of this thread says “weatherman” and the other post I replied to says “weatherman” you kind of understand why I felt like you were talking about the only aviation forecast remaining that’s currently issued by a human - and that would be a TAF. So I’m not really sure what forecast you were referring to that’s issued by a weatherman that forecasts ceilings. We’ve already determined that EdFred was complaining about a forecast that hasn’t been issued in about 8 months. So tell me what human generated forecast you were talking about?
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So you are blaming your own computers for your ****-poor performance? Nice...
 
And like EdFred, I compare local forecasts with TAFs with area forecasts across my route...they were universally in agreement, and universally wrong.
 
So you can cancel the seminar due to low numbers and leave me out the cost of a plane ticket?

Nah, I'm good.
 
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