SES Soaring Forecast Page

Plan your own Record & Badge Tasks to be flown at SES.

"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." --Nils Bohr, Nobel laureate in Physics

How to Use this Page and its Purpose

The goal of this site is to create 1 page that can be checked to get all the data you need before going to the gliderport. Your help would be greatly appreciated! Please help me add useful data that you know about as well as information on how to interpret it. I update this continuously - your links and advice will make a difference. Tell me what you find useful. You may need to "reload" this page in order to get the images to update.

One useful hint on using this page: Instead of clicking directly on the links often it is very helpful to open each link in a new window (This is especially useful for larger images and when the frames get in the way.) Right Click on the link and use the "Open In New Window" option. After viewing you can then close those new windows and return to the original window with this page. (Some friendly apple head is going to have to tell me the Mac Equivalent of the right click - is it "alt+click"?).

Use this information at your own risk- not a substitute for an official Aviation Weather Briefing.

Educational Resources for Soaring Weather
I suggest that you read anything you can get your hands on. Look over the data and make a prediction of the day before you fly, then compare this to what really happens. Most of the linked resources are not explained in too much depth by me because a lot of in-depth instructions and details are available from most of those sites. A good example is Unisys Weather which has a lot of details on how to read their graphics. Also explore the University web sites which have tutorials. I have added a ranking system of asterisks next to the titles of the links I have found most useful up to 4 "*".

For thermal forecasting the Thermal Index, RAOB Soundings and other Upper Air Soundings are the most useful tools, start with these. Many links have become a bit obsolete since the Blipmaps and XC Skies have appeared. Many of the other instability indexes are listed but are usually harder to apply.

**** Advice on Forecasting Advice on Forecasting from Dennis Eckert

*** An Introduction to the Meteorology of Soaring Flight An Introduction to the Meteorology of Soaring Flight from Neil Parker

*** Thermal Soaring Forecasting Thermal Soaring Forecasting.ppt from Michael F. Stringfellow

Plymouth State University Meteorology Cloud Boutique

**** Books

Available through the SSA or Bob Wander's Soaring Books & Supplies:
"Cross Country Soaring" by Helmut Reichmann
"Meteorology and Flight, a pilots guide to weather" by Tom Bradbury. From the UK with the major emphasis on soaring weather.
"Practical Wave Flying" by Mark Palmer. Lenticular Publishing, Englewood Colorado.
"Aviation Weather" by FAA/NOAA US GPO, reprinted by ASA.
"The Handbook of Soaring Meteorology" by Lindsey

"Soaring Flight Manual" by SSA
"Understanding Flying Weather" - Soaring weather from soup to nuts, written and illustrated by Piggott
"Understanding the Sky" by Pagen - Well illustrated non-technical guide to soaring weather. Highly recommended by Bob Wander.
"Soar Sierra" by John Joss 1976, the Soaring Press. Chapter 1 "Mountain Meteorology, know before you go!" by Doug Armstrong & Chris Hill. An excellent book.

Other Weather Links

Unisys Weather is one of the best sources for weather graphics.

adds - Aviation Digital Data Service, NOAA, the winds forecast is an especially good resource as well as the forecast cloud cover and Satellite animations.

Weather A user submitted list of sites.
WeatherBank Offers custom forecasting for a charge and other services free.
Winds and Temperatures Aloft National Weather Service

Buckeye Wx - Ohio State University.

FSU - Florida State University - weather data
Plymouth State College

WWW Virtual Library - University Weather Servers

Weather Calculator1 Weather Calculator 2 Unit conversions and other related stuff.

Clouds and Storms
NOAA
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." Dan Quayle.

Northern Illinois / Southern Wisconsin Soaring Weather

http://www.mountain-wave-project.com/ Mountain Wave Project with a experimental Wave-Forecast for Europe and information on record flights over the Andes.
Morning Glory Surfing a mile high, 1000 km wave of Northern Australia. "If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure." Dan Quayle

Soaring Weather Related Programs
Soarcast from Kilo Delta Software, I am very pleased with my test, and encourage you to try it as well. This software can use a variety of sources for soundings, including Forecast soundings from FSL.

instraob.exe 15 June 98.[this version is out of date and we await and update] Raob plotting program for Microsoft Windows, Version 1.05 by: Jim Bobo (321 kbytes) FREE Download - however you must pull your data from WeatherBank.
www.raob.com sells a Rawinsonde & Radiosonde SkewT Analysis Program, seems good, but I have not used it myself yet, hope to soon. Interestingly I have been told that it is now capable of prediciting Mountain Wave lift too.

A weather related poem that I wrote some years ago.

SES homepage ... Plan your own Record & Badge Tasks to be flown at SES.

Current UTC/Zulu/GMT Time UTC=Eastern Standard Time (EST) +5, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) +4 . . . "The gods too are fond of a joke." - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Credits: Sam Zimmerman, Richard Kellerman, Walter Rogers, Greg Chisholm, "The Good Tim" (Larsen), Dennis Eckert, Jack Glendening, Jim Davis © 2000 Southern Eagles Soaring . . All data and images are © their respective sources. ..thanks to Futurama for Bender! . . . url=https://southerneaglessoaring.com/storms.html "Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research." - Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)

Comments & Suggestions are welcome gmail
Last modified June 4, 2014 21:17 visitors - counter starting 11/20/2006