Glidemet

The only flight on the ladder (later update—-a couple of flights now posted from England, so it was a bit soarable, at least in places). It’s safe to say that yesterday was one of my poorer forecasts, and honestly, it was probably avoidable. Lots of top cover, in the form of both dense cirrus and areas of altocumulus castellanus, turned up, and I didn’t give enough thought to that possibility so didn’t look for it. While the airmass lower down did generally behave as expected, the sun was pretty weak in most places today putting paid to useful thermals. Still, at least it’s a nice evening for a beer and a barbeque.

Tomorrow (Sunday) generally cloudy with some showers in the north and east, and most other places cloudy (if a bit cooler than today). The southwest is the only place where there might be good conditions.

After that a low pressure system stays all too close to the UK for pretty much the week, bringing cloud and occasional rain most days  .

Interesting day today, it looked cracking through the window, if a little slow to get going, but that was just one spot and from the ladder it sounds like it wasn’t necessarily representative.

Tomorrow (Saturday) looks another interesting day too. Cumulus will start to form first in the northwest and west (i.e. Wales and the southwest), and appearing further and further southeast as time goes on, (later edit that might not be in the email) although there’ll be a fair bit of cirrus floating around, which isn’t helpful.

In the southwest expect bases to top out 3,500 ft with sea air encroaching the north of the peninsula. Wales sees bases to 3,500 ft from late morning going to over 4,500 ft in the afternoon—-good. The Northwest is a similar story but not as strong—-bases about 2,500 ft to start going to 4,000 ft in places but staying stubbornly lower in others. Northeast goes to 3,500 ft a little later.

So, midlands and the rest of the east and south, cumulus should appear to 1W by midday and 1E by early afternoon, generally at 3,500 ft at 1W (and down into Kent), going up to 4,500 ft towards Tibbenham. The cumulus will remain at roughly this height or slowly rise, and generally shouldn’t go blue or spreadout. The only thing it will probably do is overdevelop in England west of 1W (not Wales), with showers possible by evening. Winds generally light southerly but check the F214 on the morning.

Sunday, as everyone seems to know, thundery showers. However they now look much less developed, and much further east, than data I saw earlier suggested. Maybe even only up the Channel and off the east coast, and while a low was forecast to develop, current data isn’t so developmental. However it will be a warm, damp airmass, so expect low spreadout stratocumulus rather than soarable conditions. Sorry.

Next week looks rather unsettled with low pressure never far, though the odd (probably somewhat brief) window for soaring should present itself.

Just quick like. Today (Thursday! I mean Thursday!) blue to 3-3,5000 ft over most areas except the following where cumulus from late morning is more likely: northwest of a line Bath to Yeovilton to Exeter to Barnstaple, and all of Wales: bases at around 3,000 ft rising to 4,500 ft in many areas; northest England (Yorkshire up) bases to 3,500 ft (some sea air seeping in the Vale of York between the Pennines and the North York Moors), and the best conditions today will be in the northwest of England, where cumulus bases should be over 4,000 ft from noon for the rest of the afternoon. Good for places like Edensoaring (whose Twitter feed I added to the “Latest news” section on the left a week or two back).

I noticed, by spotting several gliders flying past from the vague direction of Booker, that the comp season has started. Some time today I hope to get the “latest comp news” section working again, if I can remember how to do it!

It’s grim out there. Really grim. Tomorrow is going to be quite a contrast!

Wednesday, from the Wash to Isle of Wight east, pretty nice cumulus going to 5,000 ft though it may take some time to form with areas of blue thermals at first, and some areas, around the coasts and parts of Kent, will stay blue in sea air. West of this area (including all of the north), cumulus to 3,500 ft tending to spreadout but prone to cycling, so progress with patience should be possible. Light northeasterly winds.

Thursday blue across much of the east and south, but (hopefully) north and west of the Chilterns, shallow cumulus to 4,500-5,000 ft. Rather windy at height though, 10-15 knots for much of the country but 20 knots in the southwest. Should result in blue streets though.

Friday sees a front tickling the west and quite a breeze ahead of it, but a fair hope of cumulus in the southeast. Saturday currently shows the front sliding off the north and decent day across most of the country, while Sunday looks damper.

Vague review of the weekend
Well, just a note to say sorry that Monday turned out to be rubbish, just like the forecast (rubbish, that is), with sun in the southwest and overcast elsewhere. Sunday looked alright though, as roughly hinted at on Friday. Interclub wasn’t Interscrub, so it must have been good.

Friday wasn’t bad though was it? Some interesting comments along the lines of “better than expected”, “better than forecast” and the like. This makes me think two things: 1. Not everyone reads/heeds this forecast. That’s up to them; 2. More importantly, is a comment such as “Really go for it if you can” enough to emphasise a really good day? The furthest I’ve flown is 85 km downwind in a Ka8, so I’m not in a position to say “it’s a 750 day” or whatever. I only do the weather, not task setting. What I will say is that if you see me write something like “don’t under-set” or similar, it’s because I know that people will be commenting that they under-set later.

Flight of the Day from Friday: Andrew Clusky, for setting a task where one of the TP trigraphs is my name (ooo, but which one?!). There, said I’d be more original. Honourable mentions go to 700 km from Challock (even if they didn’t actually get back), and to Rhod Turner, for an excellent reason for setting a particular task. Someone did 960 km too.

Flight of the Day from Saturday, Paul Fritche, for going really fast in a straight line. One hundred miles an hour for sixty straight miles. Sweet.

Flights of Day from Thursday: Mike Schlotter and Trev Stuart for flying down the Jurassic coast and nipping past Exmouth to over Torbay and into South Hams. Trevor even turned a TP in Cornwall, which is something you don’t see every day. (Yes, my FoDs are basically judged on how many of my favourite places any one pilot flies over. I promise I’ll develop more imaginative criteria in the future!)

Today, Friday, as I write, the satellite pic looks superb. Mk 1 eyeball out the window agrees! Generally a fine cumulus field from Scotland to the south coast, but some sea air intrusion in north Somerset and a nice convergence line along the south coast where the sea breeze is fighting the gradient wind. Hope those who have the chance are enjoying themselves.

Saturday lots of rain in the morning clearing to frequent showers; some local soaring possible, most likely in western areas, in the afternoon. Sunday looks somewhat better as the developing low which brings the active fronts on Saturday clears into the North Sea early on, with perhaps fair cumulus to 4,000 ft locally 5,000 ft in the south. However this may overdevelop, and the north currently looks damp and cloudy (but then recently days which looked like that on forecasts have turned out OK, so do not give up hope up there!). Really the day needs a normal day-before forecast as the detail is still hard to pin down, but I don’t think that’s going to be possible from me.

Monday is still a bit wobbly in the confidence stakes, as a warm front sticking out from the next Atlantic arrival does battle with a weak high over the UK. Probably a bit cloudy in the southwest, but optimistically lets say a good 4-5,000 ft over Wales, 4,000 ft over most of England, but East Anglia gets a bit shut down with sea air coming in on a northerly.

Outlook remains a high pressure cell becoming firmly established bringing good summer weather. Not sure of the soaring potential, but it’s greater than if were looking at sustained westerlies!

Morning.

Today (Thursday), away from the southeast where a quite active occlusion is slowly clearing, rather good. Cumulus to 4,000 ft (edit at 0900: make that at least 5,000 ft, RASP is under-doing expected surface temperatures) everywhere apart from Cumbria (lower/damper), and in the far south and across through Dorset and west, where bases may be higher but more likely to just go blue (but still quite high). There’ll be a fair breeze at height, about 15 knots from the northwest, but really quite a good day.

Friday remains breezy at 15 knots or a touch more from the west, but the cumulus is going to be grand, living at 4,500-5,000 ft over pretty much all of England and Wales from early to late. Really go for it if you can; there doesn’t look much risk of spreadout or over-development.

Saturday is wiped out by cloud cover but at least looks vaguely drier than previous runs. And, looking at current run, Sunday even looks quite good away from the south coast! Given the way the GFS has been flip/flopping (that’s the official term, I kid you not), not a lot can be said with confidence about the day. (Technically speaking, the truth of the day does almost certainly lie within the bounds the GFS has presented over the last few days, but given that the “spread” is so large, an overall story cannot be easily discerned.)

(What’s going on is that a small but quite active low pressure system is going to track through on Saturday and Sunday, but the track, timing, and forecast depth are switching around a lot. That’s not surprising given that there’s not much in the way of thermal (and hence pressure) gradients at this time of year, meaning small changes in what the models see in their analysis of satellite, aircraft, surface obs etc. has a big outcome on the forecast. The low may well pass over southern England on Saturday night, which is about the least-worst outcome.)

Monday is displaying more consistency with a story of cloud and a bit of rain in west, maybe fairly good (top cover risks permitting) in the east. And after that, it’s pretty much a certainty that high pressure will become established bringing warm sunny weather.

Probably not another update until some time tomorrow.