Springtime is when Mother Nature is at her most neurotic. If you’ve spent any time in the Midwest, you know what I’m talking about. One minute she’s serving up warm sunrays and gentle breezes, and hours later, you’re running for cover as tornado sirens blare. Growing up in the 1970s, I remember Disney explaining that springtime rain was a gentle, rejuvenating event. Like in the movie Bambi: “Drip, drip, drop little April showers, what can compare to your beautiful sound.”
East of the Rockies, that’s simply false advertising. When Mother Nature sends the rain, she sends it in torrents. And sometimes, she throws in a tornado, ice, wind shear, and unpredictable surface winds.
In early April, I had three successive trips planned that featured every weather event that Mother Nature could conjure up. For ten straight days, I had my head buried in ForeFlight, Windy, and aviationweather.gov, attempting to thread the needle for my departures and arrivals. On the first trip, I waited out a fast-moving cold front that started out as an impenetrable 300-nm long line of thunderstorms and ended with icing through the lower flight levels. The worst icing was easy to circumvent, and the flight was uneventful.
The second trip was scheduled just ahead of another strong cold front. Cloud bases were in the marginal VFR range as warm, moist air was being pulled from the Gulf. Moderate turbulence started at 3,000 and went well into the flight levels. Everyone – not just the American Airlines pilots – was complaining and looking for a smooth slice of air. At the surface, winds were predictably gusty but violently indecisive. Surface winds at my destination in Kansas City were variable from 170 to 230 at speeds ranging from 15 kts to well over 30 kts. That approach and landing had my full attention.
The last trip was to coincide with the arrival of yet another fast-moving system that brought multiple lines of thunderstorms, wind, and LIFR conditions. I scrubbed the flight and joined my meeting via Zoom instead. In the hours after I made the no-go call, I couldn’t help myself but watch the airborne aircraft along my proposed route of flight and wonder. Did they have some special weather insight I didn’t? Are the weather conditions what they expected? Do they wish they were on the ground?
Regardless of the equipment we fly, no single factor impacts our flying more than weather. But how do we gain scenario-based knowledge about weather? Getting out there and flying in it plays a big part. As you gain hours in the left seat, you get better at understanding weather systems and interpreting weather data. But it is only one ingredient in managing adverse weather risks. Aviation weather is a lifelong study that requires continuing education.
During our primary training, there’s a lot of focus on skills and procedures, but not on weather training. Sure, there’s always the exception to the rule, but most of us received our PPL with dismal weather knowledge. As we progressed through our ratings and to more sophisticated aircraft, aviation weather training was secondary. If that was NOT true, we would not see weather-related crashes in the numbers that we do across the GA fleet. According to an NTSB safety study, “It appears that pilots generally require formal training to obtain weather knowledge and cannot be expected to acquire it on their own as they simply gain more flight experience.” Even with all of the fantastic tools we have onboard – and they are truly game-changing – nothing replaces a solid foundation of weather intelligence.
As we move through Mother Nature’s season of neurosis, commit to upping your weather knowledge game. You obviously know avoiding thunderstorms is mandatory. But how should you deviate? Can you “read” the environment to know how a system will play out? What sources do you trust, and which ones are simply algorithmic crystal balls with pretty graphics?
Just like you train and practice to keep your skills sharp, do the same for your weather intelligence. There is no shortage of great weather books, including “Flying America’s Weather” by Tom Horne; Scott Dennstaedt’s “Pilot Weather: From Solo to the Airlines.” If you plan to go to Oshkosh this year, make it a priority to attend one or more weather seminars. There is probably no one place on Earth where there will be such a large number of aviation meteorology experts on hand.
Finally, if you belong to an aircraft type club or one of the major aviation associations, check out their video libraries and resources. Spend a few minutes per week banking some weather knowledge. It could very well help you make the right call when Mother Nature’s crazy train is bearing down on you. Be safe.
