Sigmet wrote:
the basic conditions are visibility 10+ and clouds better than 1500 ft agl and it's going to rain every now and then with Visibility not below 3 km and ceiling not below 500 ft agl, but no longer than local midnight
TAF EGPF 230507Z 2306/2406 09008KT 9999 -RA SCT010 BKNO15 BECMG 2306/2309 16016G26KT TEMPO 2306/2320 3000 RA BKN005 PROB 40 TEMPO 2320/2323 22023G35KT 4000 RA SHRA BKN006 BKN014CB BECMG 2400/2404 VRB06KT
Sigmet after over 30 years of flying here's my take on the above forecast:
- ALL DAY it's going to be very blustery (G26) with big crosswinds on most local runways and some extremely heavy showers (3/4000m). Spend the day making sure all the aircraft are tied down and secure or better still see if you can get a couple in the hangar because later the met man is pretty sure (PROB 40) it's going to gust 35kt in these big showers. Later sit and worry about an aircraft being damaged (we always get +10KT on the gust the met man forecasts)
In addition, with respect to the actuals and being there to see it - the visibility was excellent all day save for a shower, which gave 6k at 1050 (6k not a problem ,3k = big problem) -the 500 foot cloud base never materialised and the wind was less than 12kt all day.
I tracked the storm on radar and basically it ran north out of Ireland and did not cross the central belt of Scotland. The Belfast visibility was much lower than forecast with, I believe, RVRs being issued.
I'm not into picking detail out of actuals/tafs as I believe you need to take the big picture with weather. Saying it's "going to rain now and then with visibility not below 3 km" whilst leaving out the wind seriously distorts the picture. My take on the forecasters story was that, there is a big storm area coming and its not going to be pretty - however, it missed.
Tricky to forecast the UK weather - ok no problem, don't try........ spend your energy and resources into telling us when the hurricanes and big dumps of snow etc are coming because if it's not right, it's not fit for purpose.