Tinpis:
well put, you crack me up
Pilot HTR:
solid advise, well done.
Ovation:
seems to me that if you spent less time with your head in your laptop, and more time looking outside you might be a lot better off, not just from a weather point of view but also remember that little catch phrase ' see and avoid'.
Crosshair:
while I agree it is wise to be armed with all the latest info just be aware that sometimes a little knowledge can be dangerous. Eg, you might not like what you see in front of you and would normally turn back/land and wait, however this day there is extra pressure to make your destination on time. You check the weather radar on your phone and conclude that you can safely skirt around the storm cells so push on based on this info. However the radar image is wrong and you are heading for trouble.
Remember that the weather radar has its limits and accuracy can be degraded for a nunber of reasons including tall buildings (eg silos) near the radar site, heavy rain near the site can mask whats happening further out, many sites are shared with windfinding duties and are out of action for half an hour or more in the morning and arvo and some mobile(wap) radar pages dont have a time stamp to alert you of this. The BoM website has info on these limitations.
Often when we are faced witha tough choice we look to justify the path we want to take, not necessarily the path we should take and so put too much faith in unreliable info.
Just something to be aware of.
PW