Thunderstorm questions

[deemee boosgkee]

1) Is there anyway to tell by looking at the ground based radar if you'll be able to avoid t-storms visually or if you'll need radar or a stormscope to avoid them in flight?


2) In the northeast and mid atlantic when you get late day severe t-storms typically after a hot and humid day, how high do you usually have to fly to get a good look at the CB buildups off in the distance?

 

[rickair7777]

1) Is there anyway to tell by looking at the ground based radar if you'll be able to avoid t-storms visually or if you'll need radar or a stormscope to avoid them in flight?


2) In the northeast and mid atlantic when you get late day severe t-storms typically after a hot and humid day, how high do you usually have to fly to get a good look at the CB buildups off in the distance?

1) If you're refering to ground-based Wx radar, you can't really tell because TS activity is so dynamic...what you look at prior to departure would change by the time you got up there. ATC radar can help a little bit, but it is optimized to detect airplanes, not Wx, so all the controllers can usually do is warn you of high intensity returns in a certain location...useful to know what to avoid, but not good enough for threading the needle. An airborne feed from the ground (NEXRAD) would probably provide you with better details than ATC, but that would depend on exactly what ground facilities were present in the area you are concerned with. Personally, I wouldn't try it without on-board gear, but I have no operational experience with or feel for NEXRAD capabilities either.

 

[Alex429595]

2) In the northeast and mid atlantic when you get late day severe t-storms typically after a hot and humid day, how high do you usually have to fly to get a good look at the CB buildups off in the distance?

With regards to question number two, you are gonna need to get on top of the haze layer, wherever that may be. It can be as low as 4000 or as high as 15000+. This is if I remember Met110 correctly. I would also recommend Dennis Newton's "Severe Weather Flying."

 

[User546]

Personally, I wouldn't try it without on-board gear, but I have no operational experience with or feel for NEXRAD capabilities either.

We've recently upgraded both our 530's in our CJ2's to have the Nexrad capabilities, and so far I'm not that impressed. It certainly has its value, but I don't know that I'd stake me and my families life on it in a single-engine piston.

The pro's of it is that you can "look ahead" far beyond the range of your aircrafts wx radars, and get a good idea of whats happening up ahead, and/or if the storms are getting worse or better. However, the farther you zoom out, the "detail" of the storms of course get worse. Also, Nexrad images come in pixels, and doesn't allow for great detailing of a storm up ahead.

Couple times we've painted a storm 75-100 miles ahead with our wx radar, and got a rather different "paint" on it then what the Nexrad image was showing us. That's another problem with inflight Nexrad, the images are often 4-5 minutes old. A lot can change in a charged-up storm in 5 minutes. Completely different developments, intensity can change dramatically, etc.

And DeeMee... the first questions already been answered well, so I'll throw my .02 in on the second question. Generally a late afternoon thunderstorm is going to explode rather intensely. I wouldn't think you'd have to be more then 2 or 3,000 feet up in the air to see it nicely. It jsut depends how far away from you it is, and how high the storm has built up. But believe me, if you can see it from the ground, you'll see it nicely in the air.

 

[Hold West]

Never stake your life on a Nexrad depiction. Centers now have a system called (I think) WARP that allows the display of NEXRAD data with ATC data on the scopes. Many years ago I served on a team writing specifications for the display, and we were briefed that the Nexrad product could be up to 12 minutes old when received. This due to the scan strategy of the radar itself and processing overhead.

 

[FN FAL]

We've recently upgraded both our 530's in our CJ2's to have the Nexrad capabilities...

Garmin 530's? We're supposedly getting a big uprade soon...real time weather and the whole shebang. I can't wait. The CP is going to be e-mailing me the PDF of the opertors manual and I hear they have a simulator on their website.

Sure beats the hell out the day when dialing in radials and DME distance into an RNAV was the cat's meow.

 

[User546]

Garmin 530's?

Yeap, thats what I said. (??) We do have an FMS if that's what your asking.

Next couple weeks we're getting the paperless cockpit with the plates on the tubes. Now that'll be a nice improvement from constantly unclanking those Jepp binders every flight.

 

[great cornholio]

#1. You cant really tell what you can "see" with radar anyways ground based or on board. Radar only sees precip and will not see other things that might get in the way of "seeing" the storms. Radar will not show haze, or clouds. So you might be able to see the storms on radar before you leave the ground, but when you get in the air you might be able to see the storms with your eyes because they might be embedded in other clouds, smoke, haze, etc. Other wise just like it was said before storms change so much so fast that the only thing ground radar is good for is to get an idea of where the storms are and which way they are headed. But remember new storms can show up at any time.

#2. Depends on the day. Some days you only have to be 1000 or so others the haze goes all the up to 10000. You can usually see the storms or build ups before you get too close. Looking into the sun of course you can't see as much. And on clear not hazy days you can see the rain shaft from pretty far away too.