Is SKEW-T still important to soaring pilots ?

On Monday, February 29, 2016 at 9:22:12 AM UTC-8, wrote:
Having used XC skies and now Topmeteo, I wonder what's the need to get the forecasted SKEW -T diagram to points along your task.
Will you as, a pilot, get any better prediction of soaring conditions if you use both ?
Dan

Pretty maps tell you what is supposed to happen. Skew T tells you why -- and helps you to figure out why it's not happening.

For example a "top of lift" occasioned by a very shallow intersection of adiabatic parcel with the surrounding air is a very different forecast than one with a hard inversion.

Skew T shows the vertical profile of wind and direction.

Skew T shows you how close you are to things not in the graphical forecast. How close to OD/not OD? How close to cirrus formation?

John Cochrane

On 2/29/2016 12:37 PM, John Cochrane wrote:
On Monday, February 29, 2016 at 9:22:12 AM UTC-8,
wrote:
Having used XC skies and now Topmeteo, I wonder what's the need to get
the forecasted SKEW -T diagram to points along your task. Will you as, a
pilot, get any better prediction of soaring conditions if you use both ?
Dan

Pretty maps tell you what is supposed to happen. Skew T tells you why --
and helps you to figure out why it's not happening.

For example a "top of lift" occasioned by a very shallow intersection of
adiabatic parcel with the surrounding air is a very different forecast than
one with a hard inversion.

Skew T shows the vertical profile of wind and direction.

Skew T shows you how close you are to things not in the graphical forecast.
How close to OD/not OD? How close to cirrus formation?

John Cochrane

Succinctly stated.

I saw my first lapse rate diagram as a sketch on a napkin by my officemate
before I'd ever been to a glider field; its predictive power was immediately
apparent to me. (I still have it! And, I eventually learned the NWS had
something called a Skewed-T plot.) Perhaps that's why I still prefer to
generate my own daily forecasts from as primary data as is obtainable on any
given day (sometimes, eyeballs-only!).

Bob - a "Why?" kinda guy - W.

and Skew-T is free, an important consideration for glider pilots

If you know how to interpret the Skew-T (or T-Phi) diagram then you can get all the information that the graphical forecasts provide and more. It just takes more effort and knowledge. (Which seems to be going the way predicted in Idiocracy.)