Reflections on aviation weather

I am sitting here on a windy day with sustained winds about 20 mph +/- and winds gusting to about 40 mph. For the record, I did not even think about going on a scenic flight today because it is way too windy for that. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I will be able to go on a scenic flight this weekend.

In the last two years that I have been going on my scenic flights, weather has taken on a whole new meaning for me. A whole new world opened up for me. I was thinking about winds and temperatures at altitude, they are not the same as on the ground. I learned about different aviation weather reports and forecasts, and reports of other significant meteorological events of importance to pilots.

An important part of the pre-flight planning that pilots go through before going on a flight is being knowledgeable about current and forecast weather conditions along their flight route including their point of departure and their destination. When I was in ground school we spent a couple of sessions on weather and as all as the sources of aviation weather information that pilots and others use both for pre-flight planning as well as obtaining weather information enroute.

My intention was and still is, to find a way to write about some of these sources of aviation weather information that I have been using for the last couple of years. But this is proving to be a difficult task because many of these aviation weather products are written in a form of code in the form of specific abbreviations. These "codes" were a little daunting when I first encountered them, but slowly I got used to them. A couple of my aviation books have tables deciphering these codes that I still refer to from time to time.

Last night I had intended to start posting about some of the different types of aviation weather information that are freely available. I spent a couple of hours on this earlier today. However I quickly realized that it was getting way to complicated and even my eyes were starting to roll. So, I decided to regroup and spend a little more time on this, and perhaps come up with some good free sources on the internet that those of you who are interested can look at.

So for those of you came today looking for something from me on some of the specific types of aviation weather information, I'm sorry to disappoint. But having spent a couple of hours on this task this morning, I hope that I might be able to have something for you in a week or so, depending.