Hello and Happy New Year! Thank you for taking the time to read the 45th issue of EZNews!
We value those members who have chosen to enable automatic renewal of their EZWxBrief membership on a monthly basis. If you haven't done so, please sign in and visit the User Profile page and click on the Renew button. By doing this, you can establish your monthly renewal with a Visa, MasterCard, or Discover credit card. This ensures that you remain connected and continue to enjoy the simplicity of EZWxBrief all year long.
Are you new to EZWxBrief?
For members new to EZWxBrief, you won't find EZWxBrief in the App Store or Google Play Store. For the best user experience, EZWxBrief is optimized to run as a progressive web app (PWA) and must be installed on your device which takes less than 10 seconds per device. Follow the instructions in this video or visit the 180+ page Pilots Guide for more information on how to install EZWxBrief as a PWA on all of your devices. For example, here's how to install EZWxBrief on your iPhone or iPad...it's that EZ!
Now open for registration - Advanced Weather Essentials for Pilots
This is your last chance to register for the next live class, ADVANCED Weather Essentials for Pilots. Registration will end on Sunday, January 12th. The class begins on Monday, January 13, 2025 and lasts for 10 weeks (there will not be a class on Monday, February 17). Early bird registration is complete and there are still a few seats remaining for the class. The price for the class is $395. Please feel free to forward this post to a friend that also may be interested in attending.
Click here to register or copy-paste the URL below into your browser's address bar.
Once your registration is complete, you should receive two emails. The first is a confirmation of the payment for your registration and a second is the Google Meet link to join each session. Please check your spam folder if they have not reached your inbox. Important: the same link will be used for each and every class.
Each class will start promptly at 8 pm eastern time on Mondays beginning on January 13, 2025. You can expect about 50-60 minutes of instruction with 10-15 minutes added to allow for questions and spillover. The sessions will be held using Google Meet and each class will be recorded and a personal link to the recording will be provided to you within 36 hours. Therefore, it is not mandatory that you attend each live class to get the most from the 10-week course. Although you can join the class on a handheld device using the Google Meet app, it is recommended that you use a laptop or desktop computer (Google Chrome is recommended).
Just to set your expectations, this class is meant to build on the Weather Essentials for Pilots 12-week class held early last year. While it is not mandatory that you previously attended this class, it is highly recommended. You can purchase the Weather Essentials for Pilots class here. Instruction will focus primarily on the briefing process so you can learn how to minimize your exposure to adverse weather and fly with more confidence. At least three of the ten classes will be full route briefings using live weather so you can gain a better understanding of how to integrate all of the available weather guidance.
In a nutshell, this 10-week course is specifically directed at certificated private/commercial pilots, flight instructors and designated pilot examiners who feel their preflight weather planning skillset is significantly lacking. It is open to pilots with and without an instrument rating. Putting it succinctly, this is designed to take the serious cross country pilot to the next level.
Buckeye Air Fair presentation
Are you planning to attend the Buckeye Air Fair in Arizona February 14th through February 16th? If so, stop by and say hello. We'll be at the SiriusXM Aviation booth (Booth #1) during the show. Dr. Scott Dennstaedt will be doing a presentation on datalink weather Friday, February 14th at 1 pm and will be happy to answer any questions you might have. We hope to see you there!
"Who's Who in Aviation & Weather" YouTube series continues...
We are looking forward to bringing you the latest news and insights from the top minds in the aviation and weather industries. With a focus on weather, each month we'll feature interviews with leading industry experts on topics such as air traffic control, flight safety, forecasting, flight instruction and more. We'll also explore the latest trends and developments in these fields, and provide you with the information you need to stay ahead of the learning curve. So join us every four to six weeks as we explore the latest news and trends in these two fascinating industries.
This past month we really enjoyed talking with Tammy Barlette who is a motivational speaker and expert in mental performance training in aviation. Now retired from the military, Lt Col Barlette has flown the T-37 Tweet, the A-10 Warthog, the MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper. We talk to her about the steps general aviation pilots can take to increase their confidence through mental performance training. You can watch this new episode here.
Stay tuned for our next live program on Thursday, January 2nd at 2 pm EST as we speak with Steven Green. Steve is a retired airline captain and the author of Pilot Competency and Capability: Responsibilities, Strategy, and Command. He has extensive experience in accident analysis and worked in ALPA’s Inflight Icing Certification Project, as well as the Ice Protection Harmonization Working Group ARAC. Next in early February, we'll be talking to Luke Alcorn who is a flight instructor and also a full-time air traffic controller at the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). We'll find out from Luke what center controllers see on their scopes as it relates to convective weather and how they can help pilots circumnavigate around adverse weather. Then in March, we look forward to chatting with Matt Johnson. Matt is an EMS helicopter pilot and DPE located in Ohio. We'll talk with him about the unique aspects of flying a helicopter in adverse weather.
> How to watch <
The program will be hosted live on EZWxBrief's YouTube channel. If you cannot attend live, the episodes are recorded and will become available on the same channel shortly after the live broadcast ends. You can also find them in the Who's Who in Aviation & Weather playlist. The exact date and time for future episodes will be announced through this blog and will appear on the EZWxBrief YouTube community page.
Skew-T log (p) diagram options
Due to the recent retirement of NOAA's interactive site, rucoundings.noaa.gov discussed in this blog post, the most frequently asked question over the last eight weeks has been, "What other options are available to build a Skew-T log (p) diagram for an airport?" Listed in The Skew-T log (p) and Me: A Primer for Pilots softcover and eBook are several websites that provide access to Skew-T diagrams. Listed are several sites that provide access to the latest radiosonde observations (RAOBs) that include -
These sites above are strictly to display the temperature, humidity and wind data as a function of pressure from the latest weather balloon launches throughout the U.S. and neighboring countries. There are dozens of websites and apps that provide access to forecast soundings through data from numerical prediction models. A few of these include -
All of these require that you first choose a forecast model such as the Global Forecast System (GFS). Once the model's forecast map is rendered in the window, simply click on the map and the Skew-T diagram for that time and location will be displayed. All three of these sources provided the capability to step back and forth through different valid times based on the model selected. In some cases, the website provides the ability to enter a latitude/longitude or airport identifier as shown below for Tropical Tidbits.
Another website that has gotten a fair amount of recent press is https://flytheweather.com. The interface is a bit clunky, but you have two options that include generating forecast soundings for an airport (Single Location) or along a direct great circle route of flight (Flight Plan).
For the former, you can enter an airport identifier in the upper-left field labeled Departure/Single along with a departure date and time and click on the Single Location button to generate the forecast sounding for that airport at the time selected. For more than just a single forecast at the departure date/time selected, you can also modify the field that is labeled Number of Charts. This will allow you to generate the diagram for the selected departure date/time plus hourly "forecasts" for the number of charts entered.
The second option is to generate a series of diagrams along a particular route. After entering departure and destination airport identifiers along with a departure time, you must also enter the estimated time in route (duration) in hours and minutes. Then when clicking on the Flight Plan button it will generate the forecast soundings that correspond to the departure airport valid at the departure time and at the destination airport at the expected arrival time. To see other equidistant points along the route, you can modify the Number of Charts field which will generate forecast soundings at these points along with the departure and destination airports. For example, entering 6 will provide forecast soundings for the departure and destination airports along with four other equidistant points as shown below.
There are some concerns with this site. All of the temperature, dewpoint and wind data is provided through the https://open-meteo.com API. There is no way to determine which numerical weather prediction model is being used and if the "forecast" sounding is truly a forecast or the analysis from the model.
More importantly, the diagrams for airports or locations along the route include a gray mask at the base of the diagram that represents the elevation of the airport or location. For example, in the forecast sounding above, the airport represented is KTRK (Truckee, California). Truckee's elevation is 5,895 ft MSL based on this site's tabular display (note that the surveyed airport elevation for KTRK is actually 5904.3 ft). So this mask extends from the base of the diagram up to approximately 6,000 feet. Some forecast models (such as the GFS) will provide temperature, dewpoint and wind data below the airport's elevation down to 1000 mb. This elevation mask is designed to "cover up" that data that is essentially below the elevation of the airport.
However, the surface-based parcel lapse rate shown in purple is using the temperature and dewpoint based on the 1000 mb level and not the "surface" conditions. This will result in an incorrect parcel lapse rate and an incorrect lifted condensation level (LCL). This may also provide an incorrect surface-based Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) and surface-based Convective Inhibition (CIN) if they are based on the incorrect surface-based parcel lapse rate.
Finally, EZWxBrief is developing a feature that will provide the Skew-T diagrams once again in the Airport Wx view. This will likely be released sometime during late Spring 2025 and will contain features extremely useful to pilots not found on any of these other sites.
EZWxBrief v2 news
EZWxBrief v2.0.3 is the current version. There have been no new releases at this point in time. However, we have extended the GFS static weather imagery to 7 days so that it coincides with the extended-range prog charts and the 12-hour Probability of Precipitation (PoP) forecasts.
Most pilots are weatherwise, but some are otherwise™
Dr. Scott Dennstaedt
Weather Systems Engineer
Founder, EZWxBrief™
CFI & former NWS meteorologist
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