aviation weather

When the jet age arrived in 1959, little was known about wind shear. Aviation was focused on thunderstorm avoidance. In Joseph George’s compilation of Eastern Air Line’s forecasting techniques from that era, we find thunderstorms described in terms of turbulence, icing, and hail hazards. As jet aircraft were equipped with radar, it was assumed that […]

There’s an old Buddhist saying that the fool sees only the form, while the enlightened person sees the essence. It’s strange to think that religion could give us any insight into aviation weather. But in the same way that gods tend to be elusive, many of the important details in the atmosphere are unseeable and […]

Most pilots venture into windy conditions with enough skills and smarts to know how to either avoid or cope with them. But wind-related accidents are still commonplace, so clearly we don’t always get it right. One reason for this may be fairly simple: With the exception of blowing snow, tornadoes, dust devils and some cloud […]

Radar, whether we’re talking air traffic control, thunderstorm detection, navigation, or even air combat, is a technology that has shaped the history of flight in countless ways. The word “radar” is an acronym (RAdio Detection And Ranging) and was coined in 1939 by the United States Army Signal Corps as it worked on these systems […]

Part of being able to forecast comes from reading the sky, because so much of what’s taking place in the atmosphere can be seen visually. When I worked the forecast counter in the Air Force, I occasionally stepped over to the window for a quick look while filling out the weather briefing forms. The pilots […]

The number of pilots using aviation apps for getting preflight weather information continues to rise while calls to Flight Service specialists decrease, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s (AOPA) 2021 Weather Survey. The organization also found that less than one-third of survey respondents reported familiarity with FAA Advisory Circular 91-92 (PDF), which discusses […]

The clock read a few minutes past noon when I pulled through my control tower’s entry gate. As always on my way into work, I took in the weather conditions, mentally prepping for the day ahead. A scattered cloud deck mottled the blue above. What drew my eye most, though, was a pocket of cumulus […]

The FAA is installing 23 weather-camera sites in Hawaii in an extension of a program started in Alaska and expanded to Colorado last year. Each site can carry four cameras and will provide “near-real-time” weather imagery to go with automated weather reports. The cameras will be on the FAA’s weather cam site by June of […]

We have all come to fear and respect thunderstorms. Probably the one element that visibly strikes fear in pilots and passengers alike is the lightning associated with thunderstorms. When not in IMC, it’s easy to see where the lightning is emanating from, and if you are a safe distance away. However, once in the clouds, […]

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) has released a new weather product as part of a series of upgrades to its flight-planning tools. According to the organization, AOPA Weather is designed to provide “national and airport-specific data in a mobile-friendly format” with features such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) charts, AIRMETs/SIGMETs, the […]