FLYING Magazine News Pilot Proficiency Weather

How to Decipher Flight-Level Weather

Here are some tips for finding the smoothest air to fly in.

Friday, November 01, 2024 at 09:32 AM ET

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Most pilots have access to a ton of weather guidance, but if you are routinely flying in the flight levels, here’s one more product to add to your list—constant pressure charts. [iStock]

Key Takeaways:

Constant pressure charts provide crucial upper-air weather guidance for pilots flying at flight levels, offering insights beyond surface charts for both flight optimization and hazard avoidance.
These charts depict geopotential height variations for a constant pressure level, with "upper-level lows" (troughs) indicating colder, denser air and "upper-level highs" (ridges) indicating warmer, less dense air; the 500 mb chart is particularly diagnostic for overall atmospheric conditions.
Pilots can use constant pressure charts to anticipate adverse weather, as troughs often signal turbulence, icing, and convection, and specific patterns like split-flow or sharp V-shaped meridional flow indicate potential for moderate to severe clear air turbulence due to wind shear.

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Understanding the big weather picture is key to making good operational decisions. Most pilots have access to a ton of weather guidance, but if you are routinely flying in the flight levels, here’s one more product to add to your list—constant pressure charts.

Constant pressure charts not only help you with the quantitative aspects of your flight, such as finding the best altitude to minimize your headwind component, but they also help you with a few qualitative aspects, such as minimizing your exposure to uncomfortable clear air turbulence if you know what to look for.

Scott Dennstaedt, Ph.D

Scott resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, and flies regularly throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast U.S. He is a CFI and former NWS meteorologist. Scott is the author of "The Skew-T log (p) and Me: A Primer for Pilots" and the founder of EZWxBrief.