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Unstable wx

Sferics:

Radar (suggests the TS over Germany is not in a lot of organised IMC):

MSLP (showing no troughs and the pressure is fairly high):

How do you explain that?

If Germany had something like this, it would be fairly obvious

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There is a long explanation for the current weather situation on the website of DWD (German Weather Service): here (german language only, maybe google translate can do something?)

In brief: The nasty weather situation in Germany, France and Austria (over 10 casualties in the last three days) is caused by a persistent high-altitude low-pressure region (trough) and intermittent low-pressure regions on the ground. This causes an unstable layering of the atmosphere with the associated convective thunderstorms. Pressure gradients are very low, therefore the windspeeds are low as well and the situation is stationery for many days.

[URL fixed into a live link because it wasn’t displayed right]

EDDS - Stuttgart

How do people here fly IFR there without radar? Is it just a case of remaining VMC at all times or relying on Stormscope?

Radar (suggests the TS over Germany is not in a lot of organised IMC)

Absolutely not. It’s beautiful here in Frankfurt all day. Not a raindrop has fallen. These showers/TS are rather small and quite far apart. Very easy to negotiate under VFR.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

boscomantico wrote:

Absolutely not. It’s beautiful here in Frankfurt all day. Not a raindrop has fallen. These showers/TS are rather small and quite far apart. Very easy to negotiate under VFR.

I live just 100NM south of Frankfurt and here we have had showers and thunderstorms all day. Brief periods of sun for less than 10 minutes each time maybe. No way I would have flown today without a radar.

Yesterday morning I went flying with a student (IFR training) in a Pa28. Initially, they refused to give us startup clearance because of “all the CBs around and all other training slots have been cancelled already”. First time this has happened to me… I explained to the controller that we had the plan B to cancel IFR and fly home VFR, as outside the precipitation cloud base would permit it. In the end, he cleared us for start-up with the addition of “if this is really what you want to do”.
The flight was almost uneventful, some strong showers and an occasional towering cumulus, but nothing what our little Piper wasn’t able to handle. A lot less scary than this approcah into Frankfurt on the other thread. I am no daredevil at all, but I never felt uneasy during the flight. We flew our intended program, airwork, two approaches into EDTY (one ILS, one GPS) and an ILS back home. Through some gaps in the clouds we could see the first CBs of the day towering-up on the horizon and the airliners on the frequency (sissies!) kept diverting around the towering cumuluses that we flew through. I must say howerver, that for my peace of mind our Pa28 has a stromscope, so at least we would have gotten some warning about real nasty stuff.

Last Edited by what_next at 05 Jun 15:30
EDDS - Stuttgart

what_next wrote:

airliners on the frequency (sissies!) kept diverting around the towering cumuluses that we flew through

That makes me wonder about how much in the case of a TCU is too much. Or aren’t they as bad as one might think?

Frequent travels around Europe

Stephan_Schwab wrote:

That makes me wonder about how much in the case of a TCU is too much. Or aren’t they as bad as one might think?

I think the main reason for flying around those is passenger comfort. Otherwise they are unpleasant but harmless. On the weather radar, they will show in green (if at all) because there are no substantial amounts of liquid and frozen water inside. Real CBs are yellow and red.

EDDS - Stuttgart

I flew back home from Dubrovnik LDDU to Ingolstadt ETSI on Saturday and used my ADL a lot to avoid the high clouds. There were a lot, but none of them were embedded so VMC in FL200 combined with ADL it was quite easy.

EDMA, Germany

chwinter wrote:

There were a lot, but none of them were embedded so VMC in FL200 combined with ADL it was quite easy.

This is the tactics I use these days as well. However, when descending it’s not always possible. First, ADL is definitely not a tool you can use instead of radar for close avoiding. Second, sometimes TCU is just on your way and big avoiding isn’t possible because you have to land somewhere in that direction – so if you’re not sure what’s in front of you, it’s usually diverting or canceling IFR enough in advance and descending below cloud base.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

I cancelled my plans to fly VFR to South of Germany this weekend, obviously.

Instead, I did a lot of local flying in the Rhine Ruhr area on Saturday, helping a pilot friend relocate his aircraft, having a BBQ sausage at a neighboring airfield, these kinds of things. It was actually a very beautiful flying day with nice cloud formations, some of which you obviously wouldn’t want to fly into but it was easy to navigate around them, as they were pretty local.

Here’s one. Merry Christmas!

And 10 minutes later:

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany
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