Monday
Back | HomeYesterday, at a LAA/OUGC weekend for Explorer Scouts hosted by Windrushers, I was given this for helping out:
Which made me very happy 
. (No, it doesn’t take much.)
Also happy to see a 650 on the ladder today, though I’d have thought it would have been quicker to have flown it the other way round and have the wind behind at the end of the day (comments?). Interesting that bases were so high in East Anglia—-higher than I expected. The BL top was higher over there, but surface temps and dewpoints were forecast to be about the same as the rest of the south, so I thought bases wouldn’t be any higher.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) sees the thick frontal cloud currently over Ireland and Scotland just creeping into the far west later in the day, but the rest of England and Wales will remain in good air. Cumulus will appear first in the west at 3,000 ft at 11am, with bases popping steadily eastwards to reach the prime meridian by around 1pm but will not appear any further with East Anglia probably staying blue to around 4,000 ft all day. It’ll be blue but working beforehand for the brave.
Bases will eventually go to 4,000 ft in Devon, Wales, and the northwest, stepping up to 4,500 ft from Yorkshire to the Solent and getting on for 5,000 ft along the prime meridian by 4pm.
The approaching Atlantic low tightens the pressure gradient bringing the wind to 10-15 knots from the south at the surface, and some 25 knots at height (a bit lower in East Anglia). It’ll be noticeably warm at the surface in those southerly winds.
Wednesday will be cloudy and a bit wet in the central England in the early morning from a crossing front which stalls somewhat over eastern England in the afternoon. Northern Wales and northwest England looks showery while southwestern England should get something useful in the afternoon. Thursday looks rather showery everywhere but there will probably be some good bits in there. Friday sees a little high pressure which should dry things out nicely and so the day looks promising.
Saturday, however, looks shocking as a tight little low arrives over the southwest bringing cloud and plenty of rain to everyone. This system looks identical across the big three models and most of the GFS ensembles so probability is, sadly, high. Sunday sees the low going nowhere—-dire.
In Other News
Cambridge Instruments’ ownership has been sorted out and they are now back in business.
Don’t believe everything you read on the web. The situation at Cambrige/R Track is not as rosy as the web site would have us believe. Under R Tracks ownership, there have been no changes or upgrades to the 302 vario for six years! Looking at the Company profile I do not see any reason why this should improve.
Dickie
“I’d have thought it would have been quicker to have flown it the other way round and have the wind behind at the end of the day (comments?)”
I considered E->W->E but a) I thought it might be a little more spreadout early on in E. Anglia, b) I could see a clearance in the cirrus on the sat. animation, so wanted to go to meet it rather than sit under the top cover going downwind, c) the blips showed a later start to the E and d) I wanted to run the seabreeze which would have formed in the afternoon. In the event, there was good cu. all the way to the coast with not much evidence of any sea air penetration except for a few fronds over Ipswich. Oh, and e) I wasn’t sure whether the western part of the task area would get more persistent top cover later on, so planned to come back from the good weather, even though it was into-wind.
The thermals were really crankshafty today with quite short duration bubbles. The clouds were a bit confusing as there was some shear which made the cloud body move off in different direction to the drift underneath, plus the wind came round from c.220degs at 3K to c.250degs at 5K. All excuses, I know but I found it pretty hard work and am pleased I didn’t give up!