On 2006-07-19, Kyle Boatright wrote:
[snip]
Soooo... Do I bank on the 10 day forcast being way off base, or do I bet on
the forecast, make a drastic change in plans and head to Osh at the
beginning of the week, which looks more favorable from a weather standpoint?

As everyone else has said, the 10-day forecast is generally a steaming
pile of bovine fecal matter.

What I've done with the 10-day forecast is compare yesterday's 10-day
with today's 9-day, then wait a day and compare that with the next
day's 8-day, etc., all the way down to the the day of the trip.

I also do the same thing at AOPA's web site, which has prog charts
going out 5 days.

This gives you a trendline, indicating how stable the weather guessers
think the pattern is.

There are a few things they're particularly bad at estimating,
including the speed of frontal passage and the exact time the fog
will burn off.

There are numerous times when I've called for an outlook briefing
24 hours in advance and concluded that I'd have to wait for the
12-hour forecast for more information. And there are times when
I've gone to the airport and hung around for hours waiting for the
next weather set of weather observations (and the next, and the
next, ...).

Time to spare, go by air. I missed half of the annual Pinkneyville
fly-in this year because, even with a current instrument rating,
we couldn't get out on the Friday. Next day, the entire trip was
VMC.


Morris