Snow...

....it's hard to see through, and good ol' Gulf Coast home boys like me should
not mess around with it.

Christmas Eve I was flying my daughter and grandson to Houston to visit my
mom for the holiday. We'd spent the previous day in a little town NE of
Houston. It was only about a 45 nm flight from 6R3 to Houston Hobby and good
VFR was reported and forecast, so I didn't file IFR. There was a mention
of -SN in the Hobby TAF, but heck, the ceiling was 7,000 and the vis. was 10,
so no worries, right?

Houston Approach cleared me into the Bravo and vectored me down the east side
of the county at 2,000', clear of the approaches into IAH. Over that stretch
I talked to four different TRACON frequencies.

Southeast of Hobby, the last controller for some reason had me climb from
2,000 to 2,200, saying "advise if unable." Hmm. Shortly thereafter, the
vis. started to fall as he vectored me west to put me south of Hobby, and I
had to request lower to maintain VFR. It was snowing. Another vector to the
north headed us directly towards Hobby and now the low-vis. was rapidly
becoming no-vis. As I descended to 1,500' to try to maintain VFR, I could
see the ground fine below us but I had serious doubts that I was still
legally in VMC. The controller had already instructed me to report the
airport in sight, and now he called back, sounding a little exasperated
saying, "Cessna '87Delta, airport 12 o'clock, 3 miles." Big ol' Hobby
Airport, and I couldn't see it.

Just as I hit the PTT to 'fess up and ask for a local IFR clearance, the
airport appeared, almost under my right wing. I was in good shape for long
right base to RWY 4, which is what I had been expecting, and I told the
controller I had the airport. He handed me to the tower and the landing was
uneventful.

I'm pretty mad at myself for letting this situation go as far as it did.
What fooled me most, I think, was the fact that I had been watching regional
METARs all day reporting -SN but still having vis. of 10 miles. A little
snow? No problem! This is Houston, not Minneapolis--how bad could it get?
Pretty bad, actually: the area south of Hobby was having much heavier
snowfall and it quickly knocked the vis. down to very marginal VMC at best.
Angleton, south of Houston, got 7 inches of snow that evening.

So I've learned some more lessons, I hope: 1) Do not be optimistic about
conditions involving precip., no matter what the forecast says. 2) When
things start going sour, make a new plan RIGHT NOW and tell the controller
what you need, don't passively follow vectors. 3) And (bringing back my old
personal rule) *always* file IFR cross country unless there is a very good
reason not to.
--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM