I Will Never Understand Wind

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:sZaee.56223$c24.36319@attbi_s72...
[...]
I suppose after all the unsettled weather we've had the atmosphere is
still stirred up -- but no one standing on the ground would EVER have
guessed what was brewing and burbling just a few thousand feet overhead.

"No one"? That's obviously false.

In fact, the conditions you describe sound like there was a reasonably
decent temperature inversion, creating nice, calm stable air near the
ground. Of course, any movement of the air above that inversion is going to
create shear and the turbulence that goes along with that.

When you got your weather forecast, did you look at the winds aloft
forecast? Did you compare the temperatures on the surface with those at the
various altitudes in the winds aloft forecast? What were the wind speed,
direction, and temperatures in the winds aloft forecast?

Did you look at the pressure charts? Both for the surface as well as for
higher altitudes (850mb for example)? What sort of pressure gradient
existed? This can give you additional information to elaborate on the winds
aloft forecast, or even to correct errors in it (depending on how recent the
winds aloft forecast is versus the pressure charts).

It may well be true that you will never understand wind, and it's certainly
true that understanding wind is a non-trivial exercise. But to claim that
no one could have predicted the conditions you experience, well...that seems
just a bit silly to me.

As far as the lack of a specific mention of turbulence in the weather
briefing, remember that an airmet for turbulence is given only for moderate
or above. Pilots (and especially passengers) of light aircraft consistently
overestimate the intensity of turbulence, and it's entirely possible that
the turbulence you experienced was not great enough to justify an airmet.

Pete