Pine Mountain weather may 5th

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Pine Mountain weather may 5th

Postby mitchriley » Sat May 05, 2018 5:53 am

Good morning everyone. Here is what I'm seeing in the models for pine mountain
Pine mountain is appropriate for all pilots who regularly fly the Santa Barbara Mountains. Just like every flight, each pilot needs to make a decision to fly based on themselves, their gear, and the conditions. There are dangerous times at Bates, More Mesa, Elings, Skyport, and Pine. We need to make good decisions! If you don't go you don't know.

GFS30
Wind South
Takeoff 5-10 mph
above 8kft 10-14 mph decreasing to 5-10 after midday
Top of lift around 9.8kft
Climbs peaking at 3 meters/s, Not a whole lot of instability
Thermal Index at about 0(negative values represent instability
High cloud cover from 50-80 percent, thickness/filtering hard to say

Nam12
Wind South
TO 5-10 mph decreasing to 0-5 by the evening
Above 8kft 5-10 mph afternoon, just a touch more before noon
Top of lift approaching 11.5kft
20-60 percent high cloud filtering
-2 thermal index through the usable lift (anything negative represents instability, in my experience -2 at Pine will give us nice big thermals going all the way up without many shears/inversions)

Nam 3 (smaller grid)
Wind South
T.O. 5-10 before noon, 10-15 during the heat of the day, 5-10 for glass off
above 8kft 10-15mpj, with one high blob over 15mph in the morning.
Top of lift around 10kft
20-60 percent high clouds
-2 thermal index through the usable lift

Discussion

strengths in the forecast(where the models agree)
Wind S 5-15 through the usable lift
High cloud cover doing some filtering

Weaknesses (where the modles disagree)
(Un)stability. The Nam modles are showing great instability, while the GFS thinks it might be stable. I like the NAM more


I think its a good day to do a season opener on Pine. Its a really fun mountain site, and a good site for pilots in our community to be familiar with. If you want smooth flying please don't expect it here, mountain thermals are not like bates(Balmer, the guy with no thumb filter). The high clouds should mellow out the heating, and if we get the NAM instability we will have great big smooth thermals. The wind looks acceptable, but I wouldn't be surprised if we get a little more on takeoff then forecasted. If people decide not to fly it may be because of wind on takeoff, although it might be quite mellow. The glassoff/evening looks like it could be really nice, with light wind.

Hope this helps.
mitchriley
 
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