PRACTICAL FORECASTING OF THERMAL SOARING WEATHER

Abstract

When a soaring pilot starts to venture on cross-country sojourns on a regular basis, he or she soon realizes the importance of a good weather forecast. If a badge or record is involved, selection of the right day is as important as loading the camera or winding the barograph. A simple forecast can help determine whether you should go ahead and load that film. This article describes a number of simple procedures that a pilot can use to forecast thermal soaring conditions (ridge and wave conditions are not covered here). A minimum of theory and formulae will be covered, since most of the computations are handled byusing the right charts. Nevertheless, a number of friends to whom I have described these procedures have accused me of being too much of a technician, and of turning soaring from an art to too much of a science. If you are in this camp, never fear, for Rule Number 1 of weather forecasting is that no matter how hard you try to predict the weather, it is always capable of surprises (professional meteorologists, please don't take umbrage with this statement-I speak as an amateur). More often than not, I've found the surprises to be pleasant ones.