Not necessarily Dan. In a very strong inversion, its dang hard to get ANY secondary upward motion. This particular situation you won't get mountain waves either since the atmosphere is stable near the surface. Like I mentioned in the workshop I posted, this is one of the most misunderstood forecasts in aviation. When this is coupled with a rather intense synoptic-scale event, you can at times get some of this high wind to translate down toward the surface when coupled with a precipitation event aloft; this can result in a microburst or downburst creating a significant hazard to aviation. I'll be adding a second workshop (follow-on) to discuss these kind of events that can be coupled with a strong low-level jet typically greater than 50 knots (which will likely trigger a forecast for non-convective low level wind shear).
There's nothing wrong, however, with making a decision to stay on the surface. My concern is making sure pilots understand what is actually going on in the atmosphere that ultimately will produce such a forecast.
Scott,
I'm sorry but I must disagree, and I'll use a few real-life examples.
One flight, local AWOS was reporting winds L&V @ 4.
The Winds aloft were reported at 60 knots at 3,000.
It was a quiet, clear night and every indication was that it was a good night for a local flight. I thought the Winds aloft must have been older data (I won't make that mistake again).
I described that flight in another post, but will summarize that the A36 with 3 aboard and full fuel was barely controllable -- I was moving the yoke to the stops to maintain within 30 degrees of wings level and was seeing uncommanded roll up to to 40 degrees.
Not fun.
On another night in a -35 (V tail Bonanza), winds at all airports in the area were L&V. Inbound to VVS it got rough, and I asked an airborne Helo piloted by a freind of mine what he was showing for winds -- he reported winds 20G25 at 1000 feet (they have all sorts of sweet gear).
Until I got below 500' AGL it was rodeo. Once below 500' AGL on final it smoothed out (though still gusty) and once within 50' of the surface it was like glass.
Once I rolled to a stop I sat for a while before I could even taxi.
Not fun.
The fact is for Saturday's METAR, the atmosphere was far from "stable" -- within an hour of that report winds were 18G30 at MGW and VVS, and locally the winds were as hard and varying w/n 30 degrees from south.
On another flight, winds were 8 from the south on the surface, but at 3,000 MSL it was insanely rough. I had my student climb to 3500 and it smoothed out considerably. Winds aloft were strong (>30 @3000) but not insane.
I understand how a strong flow can actually dampen wave activity along a flat plane -- however our low, regular series of ridges here conspire to do very strange things.
Hopefully someone else that flies the Alleghenies can chime in, but all the pilots I know in Western PA and WV all agree that flying gets interesting whenever winds are greater than 30 knots at ridge level.
I just wanted to be sure I wasn't going crazy....
