A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the study of so vast a subject. A time will come when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them.

                              — Seneca, Book 7, first century AD —

The pages that follow discuss and describe weather resources which have recently become available to the US Soaring Community.  Some of these are relatively simple tools designed to allow us quickly to predict whether there will be soaring conditions for a given day.  Others are intended for those whose interest and curiosity push them to understand the concepts and tools available and to begin to prepare their own custom forecasts.  The pages contained here draw extensively from the tutorials provided by Richard Kellerman which were presented at the 2003 SSA Convention.  The following links provide an outline for this Weather Section:  

• Thermal Soaring Forecasts
• Forecast Methodology   
• Thermodynamic Diagrams 
• Convective Boundary Layer
• Tutorials 
• Online Weather Resources and Links
• Bibliography of Weather Texts

       (Note:  These same links are on the menu on the right.)

The use of traditional morning balloon soundings coupled with surface temperature estimates is much inferior to the use of afternoon soundings computed by [numerical models].  These soundings, particularly those produced by the [RUC (Rapid Update Cycle) model], are available on a 20 KM grid (soon to be 13KM) covering any US soaring site, are updated every three hours, and most importantly, are insensitive to surface temperature errors.  There remains controversy about the validity of the model sounding as compared to the older RAOB, and time-honored local early morning soundings taken at contest sites for the past 50 years.  But for most, the RAOB sounding is from a fairly remote site which leaves one guessing that the local air will be similar to the sounding, and often interpolating for expected changes.  Similarly, we have been assuming early morning air sampled would be representative of the air we would fly in that afternoon (or, again, interpolating any change expected).

In reality, we have been attempting to do what the models now do for us, that is, estimate what airmass we will have in our flying area during the soaring period.  Some concern is also expressed about the lack of recent actual sounding data in the model sounding.  It is certainly true of the [RAOB sounding] (RAOB soundings are available twice a day at approximately 9AM and 9PM EDT.  Those are integrated into the RUC model shortly thereafter), but the [MAPS]/[RUC model] also receives numerous other data points that include hourly [METAR data] for winds, temp, dew point, wind-profiler data, [GOES satellite data] that include cloud movement, temp and dew-point information as well as Airline descent profiler soundings.

There is much to be learned yet, but the quality of convective boundary layer soaring forecasting has certainly improved.  We would like to thank Richard Kellerman and the SSA Weather Task Force for providing this start for the Weather content and we hope you find the following resources useful.