FLYING Magazine Pilot Proficiency Weather

Know Your Convective Outflow Boundaries

Pay particular attention to those strong, gusty winds before attempting a landing at an airport when storms are approaching.

Thursday, September 19, 2024 at 12:50 PM ET

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As a thunderstorm evolves, it will bring in warm, moist air to feed the intense updraft providing fuel for it to intensify. [iStock]

Key Takeaways:

Convective outflow boundaries, or gust fronts, are mesoscale cold fronts formed by cold air from thunderstorm downdrafts spreading laterally.
These low-level phenomena can produce severe turbulence, dangerous wind shear, and strong winds, especially when moving in advance of the associated convection.
Pilots should actively recognize and characterize gust fronts using METARs, ground-based radar (mindful of potential overshooting), and visible satellite imagery, as datalink weather often filters them out.

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Surface analysis charts are issued every three hours by meteorologists at the Weather Prediction Center (WPC). On some you may have seen a tan dashed line with a label “OUTFLOW BNDRY” nearby. This is what meteorologists call a convective outflow boundary.

This Article First Appeared in FLYING Magazine

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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.