SCPA & SBSA Discussion Board

...what was that?? I thought I heard someone say "lets go flying Tuesday"? Hmmm, maybe I'm starting to hear voices...

Well Im available. And today didnt look half Bad in OJAI... However t he tops of the clouds had East in them all day... Yet we had Light west winds in the valley. and about 9 to 10 MPH on the coast in Ventura...

SO Call me early deano

Fast Eddy

Looks like LNV thru 6000' tomorrow, and I'm coming down with a soar throat

Sorry to hear about your throat Bob, it seems to be going around. Of course, there really is only one cure for that...

Looks like the weather did a little bit and switch on us with the forecast, but it still looks like fun - saddle UP!

it is looking a bit cloudy...

Who was that fool that suggested we fly today - damn voices

The scud moved in much earlier than forecasted and squeezed the thermal faucet down to a mere drip - we got hosed! Farmer, Ty and myself made it out to East beach but the flight was pretty much a scratch and sniff fest.

Maybe a little post-frontal action after the weekend??

I was wondering how it was today. I also thought yesterday that it was setting up to be killer today, light winds etc. but I dont' know how to predict the scud stuff that came in. That was a surprise. I saw birds thermaling around town but not too high. Keep posting and keep us all in the loop. I gotta get myself into Ojai in the next couple months......gotta. Maybe Sunday will be good if the forecast sticks.......

GFS does a pretty good job with high clouds. An example (tomorrow's forecast):

I'm embarrassed to say I don't know how to read the skew t's. Is it that the red and green lines are touching between (the blue numbers) at 200 to 400 and that is the cloud layer? And I don't know how to read the altitudes off that thing. I usually read the vandenburg lapse rate....

Tony,

500 mb is 18,000 ft. Generally speaking the closer the green and red lines are to one another the damper the air.

900 mb = 3000
850mb = 5000
800mb = 6500
700mb = 10000
600mb = 14000
500mb = 18000

when the dewpoint line and the temperature line come together clouds form.

david

If it's any consolation Tony, I couldn't read 'em until after having it clarified by Bob A at the club meeting. Now, if I could just figure out which models (GFS/NAM/Opt40) to trust, or how to extrapolate between them.

And how reliable are they when the Vandenberg Balloon isn't showing?

Zippy

zippy wrote:If it's any consolation Tony, I couldn't read 'em until after having it clarified by Bob A at the club meeting. Now, if I could just figure out which models (GFS/NAM/Opt40) to trust, or how to extrapolate between them.

And how reliable are they when the Vandenberg Balloon isn't showing?

Zippy

Often times they'll indicate what model they think has the best handle on the conditions on the NWS discussion page.

Since we're on the topic, maybe someone can answer a question for me...

When one talks about the 'spread', is that the difference between Temperature and Dewpoint Temp at a certain height? --meterologists call that the dewpoint depression. Or is it the difference between the temp at the surface and the temp at some height aloft? I figure it's the latter because that's effectively the lapse rate but I've never been sure which layer of the atmosphere to look at for the 'spread'.

thanks for any feedback.

'spread' = Temperature - Dewpoint Temp at a certain height.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point_depression

In some cases if you know spread near ground you can estimate cloud base:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/estcloudbasecalc.html