You need to look outside!

Or more like weather education. I've posted information I use to help figure out the day. Often I'll also post graphics with explanations of "why" the weather guessers think the day is good.

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Chip
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You need to look outside!

Post by Chip »

If you don't know already, Sunday turned out to be better than your weather guru's predicted. For those of you that make your decisions based on the forecasts that are posted on the SHGA site, Windsports, and elsewhere, you might want to consider looking outside once in a while. :o

By 10:30 (what would have been 11:30 only one day ago because of daylight savings time ending), cloudbase was already reaching launch height and the wind was basically on shore but not blasting as one might expect.

I showed up early in the LZ (10:00am), Phill Bloom had taken a chance on Torrey (not a bad call if the post frontal had showed up). I called him to check if he had committed to Torrey and told him he might want to reconsider seeing how the day looked like it had good potential. He said he was pretty committed and was picking Kraig Coomber up and would report later. I was building a camera mount and needed to make a few more adjustments at home with the tools that I had at the house.

By 11:30 the clouds were at least 1k over and the coverage was far from OD'ing. I called Phill and a few others to check on their where-abouts. Phill was on his way to Torrey (mistake) and others were not answering. When I arrived at the LZ by 12:10, Danny Black, Army Joe, Eric Brown and Fernando had left for Kagel. Daryl and I got Erwin to drive and left about 15 minutes later.

In the end flying was a piece of cake, cloudbase a bit higher than 5300 and consistent thermals all over the range. Good cloud development in front and if high enough you could drive out front and catch the thermals over the smaller foothills. I flew with 2 condors for about 40 minutes and thermaled with them while they were pestered by the ravens.

Oh and guess who showed up later? Phill and crew. Turns out they bailed on Torrey as it looked like the conditions weren't likely to be optimal.

Hungary Joe said it best while breaking down today.

Stop reading the computer so much and look outside once in a while. :oops:
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