aviation weather

For some, flying is just braving the traffic pattern or short, local flights. But serious long-distance flying or commercial operations will eventually bring you to the heart of the Great Plains. Meteorology captivated me because of the incredibly turbulent and strange weather in this area. I chased tornadoes for 15 years and forecasted weather for […]

The Colorado Division of Aeronautics has announced that 52 new aviation weather cameras installed in partnership with the FAA’s Alaska Weather Camera Program are now operational. The cameras are located on 13 AWOS stations in Colorado and designed to provide a way for pilots to get a near-real-time visual picture of weather conditions in the […]

Most everyone appreciates pilot reports. Two of the most important are turbulence and icing. But both require a degree of judgment with respect to the severity. It’s great to hear from a pilot 50 miles ahead of you that the ride is “smooth.” But what if he says that it’s moderate chop? Is his “moderate” […]

Honeywell announced on Thursday that it has received a Technical Standard Order (TSO) from the FAA for its IntuVue RDR-7000 weather radar system. The IntuVue RDR-7000 offers weather detection, analysis and avoidance capabilities such as automated 3D volumetric scanning up to 60,000 feet and out to 320 nautical miles, turbulence detection out to 60 nautical […]

Mother Nature is infinitely complex as is the weather that comes with it. After 40 years of flying and some good meteorology training (courtesy of the Swedish Air Force) I’m still occasionally baffled on how things play out. Here are a few examples where the unsuspecting pilot can get surprised. Temperature Changes You’re planning a […]

Since the mid‑1970s, satellite imagery has made its way into everything from television weather‑casts to flight weather briefings. We see them constantly. When a hurricane is approaching the coast, viewers are presented with satellite images. When the local news shows the forecast, a satellite image is almost always used. This technology has grown progressively more […]

The FAA has signed an agreement with the State of Colorado Division of Aeronautics to install cameras on 13 AWOS stations in the state as part of the agency’s weather camera safety program. Under the $226,000 reimbursable agreement, the FAA will assist with camera installations and the state of Colorado will own and maintain the […]

Thunderstorms are the nemesis of general aviation. We can’t penetrate them nor fly over them. Fortunately, we have several sophisticated tools at our disposal to help in the preflight planning to make that all important go/no go decision before we head into the murk. Their sophistication is remarkable, and we need to choose those that […]

Until 2004, Flight Service conducted most preflight briefings. Then self‑briefing arrived. By 2017, 96 percent of all pilots self‑briefed and 83 percent of flight plans were filed online. But many of us don’t know how to get a thorough self‑briefing. Between 2010 and 2013, the NTSB could find not weather briefing records in 32 percent […]

Weather articles typically focus on big weather makers like fronts, systems, thunderstorms, and the weather they all produce. But atmospheric stability is a less‑talked‑about process that works in the background and “primes” the atmosphere in many ways. While you might dodge thunderstorms and fly past frontal zones, stability (and the lack of it) is embedded […]