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Writer's pictureDr. Scott Dennstaedt

December 2021 EZNews



Hello and welcome to the 8th edition of EZNews!


We really appreciate all of those subscribers that have recently joined, renewed their membership or signed up for auto-renewal. We made a single release this past month that included several bug fixes and improvements to the user interface. See below for more information. Remember, with the EZWxBrief progressive web app, there's no need to download a new version, just restart the app and the updates will be immediately available.


If you are new to EZWxBrief, we have created a YouTube video that provides a 13-minute overview of the basic features of the EZWxBrief progressive web app. We think this video should get you pointed in the right direction so you can begin enjoying the simplicity of EZWxBrief.


As always, if you have any questions about using EZWxBrief or run into an issue or bug, the best way to reach us is to send an email through our Contact Us page on the EZWxBrief website. This is so we can consolidate all of your feedback, questions and comments into our support tracking software. Please understand that we do not offer telephone support. Our support team usually responds to email support requests within 24 hours, but often much sooner. We appreciate your help and feedback and look forward to hearing from you!


EZWxBrief customer referral program


We know that EZWxBrief can’t grow unless our customers stand behind the product. If you really like EZWxBrief, please let other pilots know about this potentially life-saving app. For each person you refer and pays to join as a new member, we will extend your membership for a month. You can find all the details about our referral program in this earlier post. We hope that you can help us grow our membership to remain the gold standard for aviation weather and training in the coming months and years.


EZWxBrief is a progressive web app


One of the first questions new users have is that they can't find EZWxBrief on the App Store or Google Play Store. EZWxBrief is a progressive web app (PWA) and not a native app. It literally takes less time to install EZWxBrief as a PWA than it does searching for and installing any other native app from the App Store. In just a matter of a few seconds, the app can be installed on any devices including laptops and desktop computers as long as you are running Safari or Google Chrome (Mozilla's Firefox is no longer supporting PWAs). Moreover, the EZWxBrief PWA takes up no space on your device like you typically experience with many native apps. Important: When you initially bring up EZWxBrief in a browser to install the PWA, please always use https://ezwxbrief.com and not www.ezwxbrief.com.


To learn how to install EZWxBrief as a PWA, sign in to the app, click or tap on the Start button and then select View the Pilots Guide from the Quick Start menu. Near the beginning of the Pilots Guide you'll see instructions on how to install EZWxBrief as a progressive web app on various devices.

The gift that just keeps on giving!


With the holidays right around the corner, why not give them the gift of knowledge. See the limited time cyber special offer below. Order the new gold standard and best selling book for aviation weather by purchasing Pilot Weather: From Solo to the Airlines for yourself or perhaps for your CFI or other aspiring pilot. The book is authored by Dr. Scott Dennstaedt and Captain Doug Morris who are both meteorologists, experienced aviators and flight instructors. Scott and Doug's unique qualifications and experience provides a much more practical element to increasing your knowledge of aviation weather.

You can purchase the 400-page soft cover book. Just visit the authors' Pilot Weather Book website and enter promo code cyber2021 when viewing the shopping cart to save $10. Or purchase the full color eBook version (Please note: the free Javelin eReader is required to view the eBook) and enter the promo code cyber2021ebook to save $10. Both of these offers are available through December 14, 2021, so don't delay. Please understand that due to the extra delay introduced by the United States Postal Service (USPS), orders placed after December 14th will not likely arrive by Christmas Day. Currently delivery times have been running 7 to 10 business days.


Tis the season...for turbulence


As convective SIGMETs morph into SIGMETs for widespread, non-convective severe turbulence over the next month, it's time to prepare for mountain wave turbulence. Most mountain wave activity occurs during the cold season when conditions are ripe for mountain waves to form. This means that from October through April there's plenty of environmental opportunity for the evolution of mountain waves.


The EZRoute Profile in EZWxBrief provides an accurate depiction of turbulence along the proposed route of flight. For example, the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) issued this SIGMET for severe turbulence below FL180 as shown on the EZMap SIGMETs layer. While this SIGMET specifically warns of clear air turbulence due to strong low-level winds moving over rough terrain, there is also a mountain wave component to this not called out in the SIGMET.

This severe low-level turbulence event shows up nicely as depicted in red on the EZRoute Profile view for a southwesterly route from Glacier Park International Airport (KGPI) in northwestern Montana to Cheyenne Regional Airport in southeast Wyoming. Notice below there are three selections to include CAT for clear air turbulence, MWT for mountain wave turbulence and Combined which provide the worst case scenario combining both CAT and MWT onto the same view. The image below shows only CAT (red arrow) and shows an EDR value of 55 which is a sign of very severe turbulence.


When MWT is selected as shown below, you notice the that the low-level severe turbulence is in the moderate (tan) range over the same region with severe turbulence (red) showing up in the upper flight levels.



When combining the two (below), you get a more comprehensive picture of the expected turbulence along this route. However, it is always a good idea to understand the reasons for the turbulence by selecting CAT or MWT individually. This should match well with SIGMETs you may see.



Why wasn't a SIGMET issued for the turbulence in the upper flight levels? Hard to say for sure, but the forecaster at the AWC may have thought it was not widespread enough, or perhaps not severe enough (the EDR value shown in EZWxBrief is 37 and right on the edge of moderate to severe conditions).


What's new with EZWxBrief?


There have been no major changes for this release. Version 1.0.7 was released on November 19th. We had a lot of requests to add a favorites (list) icon on the static imagery page. That's now available which will reduce the number of clicks or taps to bring up the favorites panel. Now airports without an ICAO identifier (e.g., 1H2) can be viewed on the EZMap Station Markers layer. In the route editor you will still enter these as 3-character identifiers. This also applies for the EZAirport LAMP forecast page for non-ICAO airports with a LAMP forecast. Lastly, when entering a route, you can no longer enter duplicate waypoints in the route. For example, the route KCLT CTF FLO FLO KSAV will now display an error message. Similarly, the departure and destination airports must be different if the route of flight is blank. You can, however, create a round-robin flight such as KCLT CAE KCLT.



Most pilots are weatherwise, but some are otherwise™


Dr. Scott Dennstaedt

Weather Systems Engineer

Founder, EZWxBrief

CFI & former NWS meteorologist






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