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Posted by Ray
on 8/1/2008, 7:35 am
72.230.154.40
Saturday is not going to be an all-day rain event. Neither however is it going to be conducive to any real soaring, although gliding should be possible at times, especially later in the day.
Details: It was interesting to watch the 6 local (Buffalo & Rochester ABC,CBS,NBC) forecasters this morning, as they continue to struggle with mildly-schizophrenic model output, as did the professionals at Buffal0 NWS, 7:30 AM EDT:
FOR TONIGHT...ONE OF THE TWO PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED SHORTWAVES WILL DIVE FROM THE UPPER GREAT LAKES ACROSS MICHIGAN TO OUR REGION. GUIDANCE VARIES IN THE HANDLING OF THIS FEATURE...AS THE OPERATIONAL NAM/WRF DEPICTS A MORE POTENT FEATURE THAT WILL DROP ACROSS LK ERIE WHILE THE GFS SUGGESTS A SOMEWHAT WEAKER PASSAGE.
Again I invite our serious readers (RL,DC,CZ,JR,DB, and hopefully others) to scroll through both the NAM and GFS 500 mb vorticity maps, and they will see exactly what Buffalo NWS is talking about. The 36 hr NAM prog (valid for 1200 UTC Sat) has a vorticity max, more pronounced than yesterday's output, situated smack dab over western NY, whereas the 36 hr GFS has a much weaker vort max over the eastern end of Lake Ontario. Which model to believe? Damned if anybody really knows, yet that makes the difference between a cloudy day with very limited precip and maybe some peaks of sun (best case), or overcast with drizzle most of the day.
BOTTOM LINE: No need for despair: it's hard to believe we can't at least do some winch flights (in which most members aren't yet proficient), and....there's always the deck!
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