I thought GFA meant............

[pdw]

Lost Lake ... is it Nipawin showing you freezing fog to the "south" Friday night ?

[Rowdy]

I saw this consistently in the prairie region GFA when I was in the island/gods lake area for two seperate seasons. WX WELL below what was forecasted. It also seemed to interest me that NOBODY out there was making proper Pireps. Thankfully, on floats, one can sit it out on a lake for a few hours to wait for improvement. For all the wheeled VFR and IFR machines going to uncontrolled airports and aerodromes it looks like a mess! I saw one GFA showing Broken 2000ft P6SM for the area and based on GPS, known points and n accurate altimeter found it to be 400ft and 2nm in BR and RA right near one of the reporting stations!

The Western and the Northern ones were usually vastly closer to what was observed, with some slight variances. Perhaps it's time a bunch of us started making a point of putting out PIREPS for all our fellow winged (and even you fling) friends. A professional courtesy perhaps...

[Lost Lake]

pdw. Can't remember where, but it was south of lake athabasca. The bigger point is not only this incident, but the repeated difference in ceilings and weather from the GFA or TAF to the METAR.

Rowdy, you're right about Pireps, if there's anyone else to talk to.

[All Sides]

Lost Lake I have noticed a deterioration in the GFA's and TAF's over the years too. I fly my tours in the arctic in the winter months, we cover relatively large distances and have to rely on them too. I agree it is a major problem and they are far too often inaccurate. I am thinking that it is all the government cut backs that are taking it's toll on the accuraccy of them.

It used to be that you could walk into a FSS station at an airport serviced by one for a full briefing, this is going the way of the dodo bird. Nav Canada is cutting back and laying off staff all over Canada, I believe this is having an impact on gathering information. Part of the reason is we can (and often do) get all our weather over the internet, therefore the reasoning is that we don't need wx briefers anymore. If you are on the west coast, you are briefed by someone in Kamloops, the western arctic it is Edmonton, and eastern arctic is North Bay. To me that is a problem, you have wx briefers over a 1000 miles away calling the wx over vast areas.

Transport Canada, Nav Canada and the Coast Guard are having their budgets slashed which are having huge implications to safety in the aviation sector, particularily in the north.

Things are not going to improve......

[Rowdy]

Transport Canada, Nav Canada and the Coast Guard are having their budgets slashed which are having huge implications to safety in the aviation sector, particularily in the north.

Things are not going to improve......

All of these costs cut so we can boost failing big businesses, provide tax cuts for the upper end and fund the current governments atrocious plans.

Arent we STILL paying off the fast ferries in BC? How about all of the failed replacement projects for the various branches of our forces? Where did all that money go

[kevenv]

Transport Canada, Nav Canada and the Coast Guard are having their budgets slashed which are having huge implications to safety in the aviation sector, particularily in the north.

All of these costs cut so we can boost failing big businesses, provide tax cuts for the upper end and fund the current governments atrocious plans.

Who exactly is cutting NavCanada's budget?

[Beefitarian]

Where did all that money go

I suspect a bunch went here..
http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/995885/ ... -expansion

[pdw]

pdw. Can't remember where, but it was south of lake athabasca. The bigger point is not only this incident, but the repeated difference in ceilings and weather from the GFA or TAF to the METAR.

Rowdy, you're right about Pireps, if there's anyone else to talk to.

WX history shows the very warm air drawn toward northern SK out of the southwest prairies (5degC) earlier in the day, ... so was maybe a bit of a TROWAL happening there toward lower elevation into northern SK (also the lowest pressure) with a -15 to -20C coldfront (maybe a bit occluded?) lifting the heavier stream of moisture. I think there's been evidence of a few of those type lately much stronger than expected ... so it's very credible that more Pireps could be one answer to improving forecast accurracy if that's what weather planners are asking for.

Can a Pirep from these more-sparsely 'stationed' regions be welcome from a ground location, say the licensed pilot at a strip void of a Metar (and far away from the nearest one) observing temps/winds/pressure/humidity and SKY condition .. prior to the flight (in flightplanning) or otherwise ?

[All Sides]

Arent we STILL paying off the fast ferries in BC? How about all of the failed replacement projects for the various branches of our forces? Where did all that money go

Probably and we are about to put the same government in that had the fast ferries built.....

[Lost Lake]

WX history shows the very warm air drawn toward northern SK out of the southwest prairies (5degC) earlier in the day, ... so was maybe a bit of a TROWAL happening there toward lower elevation into northern SK (also the lowest pressure) with a -15 to -20C coldfront (maybe a bit occluded?) lifting the heavier stream of moisture. I think there's been evidence of a few of those type lately much stronger than expected ... so it's very credible that more Pireps could be one answer to improving forecast accurracy if that's what weather planners are asking for.

pdw. I thought your avitar rung a bell.Ii read your posts on snow lake thread. To answer your question about that particular night, there was a metatarsal upslope drift over northern siberia. during the space shuttle blast off, one of the flux capacitors accidently discharged before hitting 99 miles per hour This caused a linear inversion of the troposphere, resulting in an adabatic shift in the SPADE over Alaska. Mout Mckinly was experiencing an adiabatic wind shift over the peak when the adabatic wave hit it. This resulted in a shift in the earths magnetic field, albeit temporarily, shifting the polar caps by 100 miles south. This resulted in a tilt moving the TROWEL 200 miles north of the forecast region for approximately 14.2 minutes. Newtons laws ofs of gravity shifted the planet back to it's original plane of rotation, which reslulted in weather patterns returning to normal patterns.

Hope this answers your question.

[Salt]

"Newtons laws ofs of gravity shifted the planet back to it's original plane of rotation, which reslulted in weather patterns returning to normal patterns"

+1!

[pdw]

Hope this answers your question.

Well no, but since you gave me your pirep "my windshield iced up" and your approximate location it got real easy to redo the surface analysis from weather history to figure out what made it so much worse than expected. It reaffirms the great value a pirep can be to another flight in the case of the large, more widespread, discrepancy that occasionally sets up between forecasts.

[Beefitarian]

Actually Lost what I said was.

"Mmmmm, this bread puddin' is extra runny tonight."

[Lost Lake]

Actually Lost what I said was.

"Mmmmm, this bread puddin' is extra runny tonight."

If ya dinay eat your meat, how can ya can have any puddin!!!!

[pdw]

This resulted in a tilt moving the TROWEL 200 miles north of the forecast region ....

The "trowal" is situated north - south, "moving" EAST ahead of the real cold air underpinning the southflow above it very strongly from westnorthwest (against the retreating air ahead of the LO) at the time of the flight. The main trough itself looks to be detaching from that LO (north, L. Athabasca) yet still has the same southeast "tilt" into MB and thus is as south of your position approximately as forecast. This warm/wet flow accelerating from the south is lifted entirely above the surface (was it a headwind to your destination ?) allowing supercooled precipitation to progress further "north" (faster) than expected ..."200 miles north" ... directly toward the lower pressure, and met along the southbound flightpath.

Thanks for simplifying .... joking aside ... I'm pretty sure that's about right

[Lost Lake]

pdw. It was just an isolated local phenomenon. Happens over the north frequently especially in the vicinity of large bodies of water, frozen or otherwise. My rant is about the inacurate GFA's being published.