Hi L1011effoh. Thanks for your input. I guess from your username that you are an ex-Tristar crew member, so its good to hear from someone who may have experienced the conditions in question in a large jet (my experience of operating at MPA is in small and medium fixed wing, and rotary).
I agree with your comments about the interpretation of the TAF, as I said in my earlier post (#13) in the thread -
".....turbulence due to rotor activity indicated by 56/// group". In my view that is not strictly correct - those codes say nothing about the cause of the turbulence. There will be turbulence to some degree any time the wind at MPA is from the North, but the clue to the fact that it is rotor streaming is not in the 560003 alone, but the fact that it is accompanied by (e.g.)VRB05 - for someone not familiar with the phenomenon, they could be fooled into thinking that the TEMPO VRB05 meant the occasional relief from the bad turbulence of northerly 45kts, whereas it is exactly the opposite - it is when the rotors break off the hill and stream down over the airfield that the wind comes from all directions and is at its most turbulent."
So I am aware that it is the supposedly light winds that can have the worst turbulence. However, what I had meant to highlight in the sequence of METARs was that on that day, during the 560003 forecast, for a period of 15 hours of reports, not one showed a wind speed above 19kts, and the majority below 5kts, with no gusts reported. I was not there on that day, but have been on many other similar ones, and even on the worst days when there definitely are rotors, the majority of the time the basic wind will be, e.g.350/35-45, with only the occasional light and variable. Every report being light northerly suggests to me that, as on many other occasions, the conditions were nowhere near as bad as forecast.
If you were indeed Tristar crew on the airbridge, do you think that closing the airfield to all fixed-wing purely on the basis of forecast, with no flexibility for aircraft already enroute and close to landing (i.e. the LATAM flight from Punta Arenas) or even for departures, when the conditions are clearly not as forecast, is reasonable?
Edit - apologies, I see above that you already answered that in some way, by saying that you agreed the policy was excessive!