Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Will the weather EVER get better?

This map was found at NOAA's website where you can select progostic charts to view current and forecasted movement of weather fronts

First- read the below
Chapter 10 of the Pilot's handbook of aeronautical knowledge please
Chapter 5.1.2.4.1 and 5.1.2.4.2 of the Aviation Weather Resources on Isobars and Pressure Fronts


Second - apply it to today's weather
The above picture is reflects what the Isobars are doing today . You can see that the Isobars = lines of equal pressure (the gray solid lines- eplained in Ch10-pg11) near California are very spread apart letting us know that we should not expect a lot of wind and it is reflected in the weather observations below.
The METARs
KRHV 292047Z 12008KT 10SM FEW025 BKN046 OVC120 09/04 A3027
KSNS 292053Z 00000KT 10SM BKN047 BKN085 11/02 A3029
A cold front approaching (explained Ch10 p18) you can tell by the blue lines that have the triangles - we can expect there to be rain showers and poor visibility as the cold air pushes the warm air up.


If you are living in the bay area you may be saying this is all too obvious to you but reading the charts and information available can help you plan for when you CAN fly next.
AOPA article about weather http://youtube.com/watch?v=ngRq82c8Baw (must be member to view)

Extra credit
Does the Jet Stream affect our weather read this from Nova