Weather

Broad-scale weather patterns impact the Eastern U.S. in the colder months.

The AFD is a vehicle for the forecaster to document technical reasoning behind the forecast they just issued.

While we train for the essential ability to fly approaches to minimums, that’s not always enough preparation for real-life weather, which can conjure up things that don’t fit neatly into the ceiling/visibility numbers on the charts. Sometimes it’s not clear: Am I at those minimums? Do I have the visual minimums to cancel? Should I […]

With lots of affordable rural land, an abundance of Class E airspace, and plenty of VMC weather, it goes without saying that a thriving aviation community exists in the southern United States. Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana are home to almost 87,000 pilots and countless airshows and fly-ins, and the region is of course headquarters […]

The goal of the coded form was to allow forecasters and observers to key in data quickly.

For those of us who dwell in the southern and eastern states, Seattle makes us think of craft beer, grunge music, sprawling Boeing factories, and relentless drizzle and fog. I won’t comment on Pearl Jam or what’s new at Boeing, but I can definitely help decipher the weather. Fortunately the basics are easy to understand. […]

When there’s a discrepancy, an aviation weather forecaster can make an update.

Advisory circulars from the FAA used to be sent to pilots via the U.S. mail. They were printed on blue paper and sometimes arrived with such frequency you felt like you were on Hogan’s Heroes—every message that the characters on that classic TV show got from London came on blue paper. A great many of […]

When winter arrives, it’s nice not to have to worry about big thunderstorms, high density altitudes, and being bounced all over the place flying the local pattern. But winter brings a few tradeoffs: a big increase in IMC, stratified precipitation, icing, high-level clear-air turbulence, all-day windstorms, and of course the short daylight hours. The biggest […]

EDR quantifies turbulence for a specific aircraft, and it’s not a measure of the likelihood of turbulence—just the intensity.