How does sun heat the air?

On 12/20/2017 6:24 PM, Michael Opitz wrote:
At 17:42 20 December 2017, wrote:

Flying downwind of the Adirondacks also produces bafflingly
complex "wave" phenomena and a great many cases where thermal & wave
systems coexist, and also conditions where one can climb in clear air up
alongside convective clouds. A lot of this is very hard to explain
classically.

My take on some of this is that it is not wave really, instead it is
convergence due to the Mohawk/Hudson drainage convergence ... but without
a lot of data I can't get, hard to know.


You should come down and visit us in Freehold, NY to experience the
Hudson/Catskill convergence, plus flying in the northern Catskills. I
find it interesting and challenging, so that I'm not often bored with the
same old stuff....... Others who don't understand the mechanisms just get
frustrated a lot....

RO

To your point of local geography creating "interesting and challenging"
conditions tending toward creation of continuing mental interest/engagement
for someone sufficiently savvy to've begun the process of "sussing conditions
out," and "a lot of frustration" for those "not yet there," a coupla thoughts...

1) I suspect "interesting and challenging" is true (in U.S. latitudes, anyway)
wherever mountains poke up into moving airmasses. It's sure true along
Colorado's Front Range in any event! (Really motivated readers/SSA members can
find in "Soaring" mag's archives an article elaborating on one person's [my]
Front Range soaring knowledge "awakening" centered on this very point.)

2) Mental airmass models matter - a lot!!!

Bob W.

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