Weather conditions at arrival airport

[timgill]

I've often wondered whether pilots, when they come on the intercom to tell passengers about weather conditions at the arrival airport, might be understating things like the wind strength and so on. It always seems windier than anticipated when I get off the plane so, for example, if the pilot says the wind is "fresh" does he/she mean "strong"? And does "strong" really mean "gale force"?

Conversely, the only flight I've ever been on where the pilot stated the actual wind speed (38 knots!) was a Virgin flight from Delhi to LHR. On this occasion the descent was much less bumpy than anticipated, which was a relief as we had prepared ourselves to be hurled around all over the place!

[piton]

You caught us! :O

We do tend to slightly understate winds in order not to alarm the nervous passengers among you. And we are usually told not to use knots as many people aren't familiar with that unit. Here in Holland general weather reports/forecasts still only give the Beaufort scale(!).

Also I must say that quite often we are also surprised with how windy it is when we do the walkaround check - the wind report we get is often averaged out over 2 minutes at many airports and though gusts are also reported it does often seem windier than for eg 10 or 15 kts might suggest.

Plus the wind is reported from near the tower or met station and the terrain on approach may cause venturi effects between nearby hills or buildings giving a bumpier ride in the last few minutes compared to an open space.

[Businesstraveller]

That would explain how the 'it's not very nice in Edinburgh at the moment' when we left Manchester yesterday evening translated into one of the choppiest approaches I've experienced at Edinburgh (and I've had a few hundred of those to judge by). Said to the chap next to me, as the brakes were slammed on, that I was glad not to have had a chocolate fondu off the menu!

[Griff]

I was on an Alaska Airlines flight when the pilot told it like it was:

"The weather at our destination is too poor for us to land. We hope it will improve so we will continue on and I will keep you advised if conditions change."

It did improve and we landed at the intended airport.

[TightSlot]

Back in the day when I was shorthaul... We CC used to smile quietly at some of the secriptions given on the PA by the Captain (for the very good reasons given above by piton).

Here is your cut out and keep decoder for weather-related PA's

"Breezy..."
Runway is presently off-limits for approach

"Very breezy..."
And also forecast to remain off-limits

"Chance of rain..."
It is raining heavily

"Scattered Showers..."
It is raining torrentially

"Chance of snow..."
Airfield presently closed for snow clearance

" Chance of light mist..."
Autoland and we'll give it a shot

"Misty..."
Forget it, we're going somewhere else

"Presently warm and sunny..."
It won't be by the time we get there!

"Reasonably good flying conditions'''
Cabin crew should keep the galley latches up and carts tight and be prepared for the occurrence of any known weather condition throughout the flight.

[Rainboe]

Yes, if 'flying conditions' is prefaced by anything other than 'excellent' or 'good', do up your seat belt extra tight! I have trouble getting around thunderstorms because that word instills panic in some. 'The odd rain shower in the area' covers lightning that gives more light than darkness. 'Quite a lot of rain' covers the Bombay monsoon on June 15th. 'Quite breezy' does indeed cover Hurricane Kate. 'A little bumpy' covers turbulence that makes your fillings fall out.

I once came on the PA after landing at Gatwick in 'a little breezy and bumpy' weather that had everybody near panicking and broke the tension by saying 'we'd flown that route 50 times in the last year and it is always extremely boring. I'm sorry if you found it awful, but if it's any consolation, today we had a whale of a time and enjoyed in immensely, like a wonderful bracing sail in a yacht in a storm across the Bay of Biscay'. It worked.

[Dont Hang Up]

On a recent flight the captain described the approach as "sporty".

I suspect, in the professional pilot lexicon of understatement that is as near as you get to "good luck folks you'll be lucky to walk away from this"

[PAXboy]

My most entertaining was a departure. Johannesburg, late afternoon in mid-summer (for those that don't know, that means thunder storms) the a/c was a BAe J41, a 19 seat twin turbo-prop = Teeny, Tiny Plane ...

We held off the (non) active for ten minutes whilst the rain shower passed and the wind changed ends, looking out at the serious Highveld thunderstorm that was then due east of JNB and the flight was going to Phalaborwa which is due east of JNB - Natch! :uhoh:

As we turned on to the reopened runway, the Cpt warned that it would be 'bumpy' for the first 15 minutes whilst we went around the storm. You don't say? It was more than 'sporty'. But one pax was still taken by surprise and screamed quite a lot as we bounced but if the Cpt had said how bad it was really going to be - she would have wanted to get off!

The conditions were then smooth and a clear run to destination and a baby's bottom landing.

[TightSlot]

and a baby's bottom landing

i.e. Smooth 'til you hit the crack?

[timgill]

Well thank you one and all. I did wonder.

Best one I had was returning from Zakinthos to LGW: "there's a funny wispy wind which should however have cleared the fog. But we might have to go round just to make sure" Needless to say, panic all round!

[Rush2112]

Two weeks ago AKL - ZQN, at take off we were advised it was "windy" at our destination. As we we preparing to make the descent the flight deck comes on and says (something to the effect) that it's still windy and we are in for an "interesting" approach.

I was in 4C and could see the ground was a long way down, but the lady in 4F could see mountains brushing the wingtip (from her expression).

It was a very frisky approach and I was damn pleased to be down. As we got off the CC at the door said to the guy in front of me "It was not as bad as we expected!" :uhoh:

Our taxi driver into Queenstown commented that an earlier flight had been obliged to abort and go around again - pretty happy I hadn't been on that one!

[spillit13]

Total sympathy with Business Traveller's comments re Edinburgh.

Had similar experience at Edinburgh last year with roller-coaster approach only for pilot to abort at last minute (gale force winds) and divert to Newcastle.

Am now so nervous of flying to business meetings around UK during wintery conditions, I take the train or drive - even though it takes hours!

UK weather patterns seem to be changing to much wetter, windy days which sadly keeps me off aircraft and has made me much more nervous of flying generally.

[lexxity]

We once spent a happy hour bouncing around above JFK due to some slightly inclement weather. i.e. thunder, lightning and all manner of rain and gales. :ok:

[PAXboy]

One February, I had to go to Innsbruk to give a presentation. From ZRH to INN was in a Saab 340 (I don't know which version number of the 33 seat twin turbo-prop) and the hop over the mountains (in and out the next day) was memorable. However, you just rely on the knowledge that the flight crew have done this before, know the places well and sit back ... relax ... and try to keep your lunch in place. :ooh:

[apaddyinuk]

Personally Id like a pilot who speaks English and not Planeglish when it comes to describing the weather. Just tell us if its cloudy or sunny, windy or calm, hot or cold! We dont need to know about wind direction, speed in knots, whether there is scattered cumulous nimbus high pressure blah blah blah!!!!! Not all of us are trained in meteorology!!!

[Di_Vosh]

Some very funny comments, esp. from Tightslot and Rainboe :ok:

Mine are pretty boring (I work for QLINK - Qantas regional turboprop)

Wind in Kilometres per hour (mental conversion from knots)
Temperature (Celsius)
Low cloud (if we have to do an ILS)
Some cloud (everything else except "blue sky" or "starry night")
Rainy (covers everything from one or two spots to a monsoon)
Bumpy (some turbulence on approach)
Quite Bumpy (unsecured items may find themselves across the aisle)
"Bumpy and I suggest you have your seatbelts done up firmly" (never had to explain that one)

DIVOSH!

[timgill]

Wonderful. On a flight back from Rome to London last year we were informed by the CC that "the weather for the entire flight is very bad I'm afraid, so the captain will be leaving the seatbelt sign on for the duration". Cue multiple and deep intoxication, nerve pills, etc.

The flight itself was really not bad at all. True, there was some high cloud that we had to skim along, but most pax don't mind the bumps when they can see what's causing them.

Bu the way, "broken cloud" often means extensive cloud cover as far as the eye can see, with one hole that the pilot presumably aims for when descending...

[keltic]

I fly to the UK quite often and I do find differences in the way for instance, Spanish pilots give information to their passengers. While on British airlines, language tend to be "politicaly correct", in Spanish language, people tend to use a more direct and confrontational, and blunt.

I know it´s a stereotype, but generally many ot them never say things like "restricted visibility" for "fog", and don´t mind using the word stormy weather. Last time I was on a plane was flying from NY, on Iberia, and while they are excelent professionals, they don´t really talk too much to their passengers, so it solves the problem of misinterpretation with the weather forecasts. This time, he talked and said something like "the weather in route won´t be too bad"......which had a devious meaning. FInally the weather was fine.

I live in the northwest of Spain, and bad weather is usually present for the Atlantic low pressures coming in. So we usually expect bumpy landings, and only in very serious situations crew inform about the weather. They say it´s rainning, so we know what it means. I only suffered a lightning strike on landing in Venice. It was an Iberworld pilot who had previously told us about the formation of clouds around the airport. Most passengers didn´t understand that, but suspected it wasn´t anything good. :)