How do you self-brief for met?

[dangrey]

I'm interested in people's personal preferences -- what do you look at for self-briefing on met? Do you use the Met Office briefing service?

[flybymike]

TV in the few days before flight. Long Tafs and met office pressure charts the day before, Tafs and actuals and met office forms 214 on day of flight. I use Avbrief for a general four day forecast a few days in advance and also for Tafs and actuals on day of flight , ( as well as for Notams etc.)

[BackPacker]

For the longer term forecast I typically take a look at the Sembach loop to get the general synopsis.

21st Operational Weather Squadron (http://131.54.120.150/index.cfm?section=dspLoop&image=21OWS_EUROPE_FITL_PROG-BRIEFING_??)

I then use the Wetterzentrale to look at the diagrams for the area(s) I'm going to fly in (see diagramme; GFS 0.5 degrees) and if necessary also the Bracknell and EWS models (see FAX) to see if there's a discrepancy between them and Sembach. Note that there's an error in the logic of the Wetterzentrale that downloads the Sembach, Bracknell and EWS synopsis charts: you need to look at the forecast date, but also the production date to see if the Wetterzentrale really grabbed the correct and full set. It happens regularly that you are presented with 2004 data, or that the Bracknell series is a mix of the 0000Z and 0600Z runs.

Wetter : Wetterzentrale : Top Karten (http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/)

Closer to the date, the TAF and METAR from any source available. For a long-distance flight I find Met'map very useful since it gives a color-coding of all airfields over a larger region, so you know where the trouble spots are, and can zoom in as necessary.

MET'MAP - ORBIFLY FLIGHT SCHOOL - IFR ET CPL AMERICAIN EN EUROPE - FAA IFR AND CPL IN EUROPE (http://www.orbifly.com/ORBITEST/metmap.php?region_choose=BNL&mode=metar&icao_choose=EHRD&lang=ENG)

Further, Meteox (or its Dutch equivalent Buienradar) is useful for those short local flights just before or after a front passage.

Meteo Weather Meteox.co.uk - Weather - European rainfall radar (http://www.meteox.co.uk/h.aspx?r=&jaar=-3&soort=loop1uur)

Upper winds are contained in the Low Level Forecast for the Netherlands. For the UK I would use the 415/416 forms and other countries present that info generally in different forms as well. My preferred stop for that kind of information is Luchtvaartmeteo.nl but that's only for Dutch pilots (have to fax or e-mail a copy your license to get an ID, or be a registered member of one of the Dutch aviation organizations.)

https://www.luchtvaartmeteo.nl/

In-flight of course there's VOLMET, ATIS and if it's not too busy any ATC frequency is happy to give you the weather for any location you need.

As an aside: I was flying back as passenger from Milan to Amsterdam last week, but had a private flight planned in the evening. I asked the cabin crew if they could ask the flight deck to print the TAF for Rotterdam for me. About 10 minutes later the captain brought the ACARS-printout to my seat personally. Nice service!

[Tall_guy_in_a_152]

For UK flights:
2-10 days before flight - World and Local UK Weather Forecast, Map and Report weather.co.uk (http://www.weather.co.uk)
Day of flight - met office (free)
Backup - avbrief (free)

Europe:
21st O.W. squadron, linked above.

Failing all that, the old-fashioned approach:
http://imgsrv1.pxdrive.com/pics/norm/68522.jpg

[scooter boy]

TV forecast for general picture (definitely BBC - ITV is a complete waste of time), is anyone else sad enough tp know all the BBC forecasters by name or is it just me?

Preflight weather briefing fixed wing aircraft for long distance.

Metoffice 215/214/414/415.

TAFs, Metars, Jersey ATIS - my frequent fuel stop (phone line).

UK or European weather radar (free from European aviation weather centre - great last Wednesday flying back to Plymouth - I have a stormscope but no Wx radar - just before departure I checked and was certain all the heavy precip/CBs had moved to the West. If it hadn't I would have driven home rather than flew).

Significant weather charts for Europe (to get an idea of the level of the tops).

If it looks rough and I'm really uncertain whether (i:e it's not a definite no go) I have been known to call the duty met forecaster at the Met office in Exeter for £17. Their attitude can really colour your judgement i:e "yes we have to put isol CB on all forecasts but the chances are you'll be fine crossing this front" versus "severe convective activity is forecast on your entire route along with freezing rain - the tops are looking like FL260". I've called them 5 times in 5 years of European IFR flying.

In flight - volmet and ATIS, very occasionally I bother ATC with a request for weather at XXXX. London info seem to spend a lot of time getting this data for Ryanair etc...

Helicopter for shorter distances (departing from my back garden) - look out of window, see if I can see the top of Kit Hill, call friend whose back garden I'll be landing in. Kick tyres. light fires, go flying.;)

SB

[IO540]

There is a huge # of weather websites, mostly offering the U.S. run GFS model because the UK Met Office doesn't release much from its own model.

NOAA (http://www.arl.noaa.gov/ready/cmet.html) is one favourite of mine.

BTW, SB, the SigWx charts do not show cloud tops. I used to think they did, but I was very wrong, as I discovered on a number of occassions when the SigWx was clean but there was solid IMC to FL190 or so :) The scalloped areas on the SigWx show hazardous stuff like icing and turbulence or whatever and do not relate in any way to vertical cloud extent.

There are however websites which show cloud tops, derived from GFS. The NOAA one above offers Soundings which are fairly easy to interpret for where the IMC will be vertically.

For VFR flight, one needs the tafs and metars (both ends and near-enroute airports) and not a lot more... the MSLP charts show the weather trends.

For IFR flight, one needs potentially a lot more information unless flying something very capable, and that is where more extensive data comes in. For example I scrap any flight where the forecasts show that the cloud tops will be above FL160 (my ceiling is FL200) or where there will be significant icing risk in the terminal areas.

One could write for hours on this stuff but the OP posted a one-liner.

[dangrey]

"One could write for hours on this stuff but the OP posted a one-liner."

Sorry, as it's such a big area I didn't want to lead people too much! :)

I notice no-one has mentioned AIRMETs, do people not use them? Where do you go for your flight winds info?

[L'aviateur]

Agree that the Bracknell charts from Wetterzentrale are very good, the charts Prognosis charts from Jeppesen are good too (in colour!).

JetPlan.com Graphic Weather (http://www.jetplan.com/jeppesen/weatherServlet?&action=show&graphicType=wxMapPrev&img=eusfcwx24.gif:1)

However, the 10 day forecasts from weather.com are pretty good, then closer to the hour TAF/METAR/Winds on the met office website is enough.

[dangrey]

Do people use airmets for briefing before flight?

And does anyone use the 3-day planner on the Met Office subscription service for planning ahead (e.g. weekend flying)?