Temperature inversion at 6000ft
I hope this is the right forum for this question - anyway, hear goes. One for the weather boffins!
Two weeks ago I was climbing out of an airport in the west of England in a BE76 Duchess, and encountered an apparent strong temperature inversion at alt 6000 ft. Surface temp. was 12C. There was a stable stratocu. deck between 2500 and 5000ft, with an indicated OAT of +1C in the tops. At 6000 ft the indicated OAT had jumped up to +10C!
I've encountered temperature inversions before, but a temperature of +10C at 6000ft in the west of England in early February is pretty impressive! I checked the OAT when we landed and it agreed with the ATIS temp. so nothing wrong there.
There was a stable high pressure system over the western UK at the time, so I assume the high OAT was due to compressional warming in a descending airmass.
At a TAS of only about 150 - 160kts RAM effect on the temp probe isn't going to be much, so I'm assuming the OAT was only slightly in error.
Any comments?