AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - 101
P&E
WX WATCH
Different takes
On convection, and a cause of unusual weather
BY THOMAS A. HORNE
IN CONVECTIVE SEASONS of yore, pilots
were advised to check three big weather
products for the best preflight advice
concerning the location and intensity
of any anticipated thunderstorms. The
big three were: the Convective Outlook
(AC), the K-Index, and the Lifted Index.
The Convective Outlook has survived,
and remains a great source for getting a
general idea of where the worst convection will be over the coming three days.
It's produced by the National Weather
Service's Storm Prediction Center (SPC),
and can be called up under Convection on
the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) website's Forecasts drop-down menu.
But the K and Lifted indexes seem to
have gone the way of the dodo-at least
in general aviation applications. The K
Index is all about lapse rates. You take the
difference between the temperatures at
5,000 feet (850 millibars) and 18,000 feet
(500 millibars), and then add the difference between the 5,000-foot dew point
and the 10,000-foot (700 millibars) dew
point depression. The dew point depression is the spread between the dew point
and the temperature. A K Index of 24 or
higher means potential trouble; above 60,
there's a high convective potential.
The Lifted Index is all about the temperature situation at 18,000 feet, or 500
millibars. Here, you calculate the difference between the actual temperature and
the temperature of a hypothetical parcel
of air, were it lifted to that altitude. Parcel
temperature warmer than the actual temperature? That's a recipe for instability.
WHERE ARE thunderstorms
most likely to occur? With
Convective Available Potential
Energy (CAPE) values at a very
high 4,300 J/kg, eastern
Oklahoma, the southern half
of Tennessee, and northern
Alabama and Mississippi look
like trouble spots.
www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 101
http://www.aopa.org/pilot
AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015
Contents
AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - Cover1
AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - Cover2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - Contents
AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - 2
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - R-1
AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - R-2
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - Cover3
AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - Cover4
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