Aviation Page
Home Sciences Education Aviation Page Other Info   

My IP Page
Aero Club Wx Brief

                                                                                                                          Updated: 26 June 2007

If you want weather information for your flight, click on the Aero Club Wx Brief on the left side of the page. 

On this page, I discuss projects that I am currently engaged with or topics of special interest that I wish to share with others. You can follow the links of the four current activities for more information. 

1940 Air Terminal Restoration & Science Museum Project at Houston Hobby Airport.   

The History of Aeronautics & Meteorology. 

Discussion of Selected Topics Meteorology and Flight Instruction. 

Aviation Links

The 1940 Air Terminal Project at Houston (HOU) Hobby Airport. 

Recent activities: 

  1. List of items sought for the Weather Bureau Airport Station (WBAS) & Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) room. 
  2. Images of Phases I and II restoration plans. 
  3.  A short description of the project & the education program
  4.  The flying classroom: Teachers and students learn math, science, & technology from an authentic setting.

What an interesting and exciting project! Not many people get the opportunity to return to the very spot where their career begin--but I do have that chance thanks to the many fine folks working to restore the art deco William Hobby 1940 Air Terminal. It's a pleasure to work with people like Graden Harger, Aubrey King, and all of my colleagues from the National Weather Service who have helped immensely with this project.  

To find out more about the project--Houston Hobby Airport Terminal

The history of aeronautics and meteorology. 

This section is under development.

This section is not complete; many links are broken. Weather Knowledge, Information, and Flight Planning for the Private Pilot Ground School is organized around the Private Pilot's ground school syllabus of either Jeppesen's or Macado's texts. There are slight differences, but you should be able to determine the relationship of the links and the location in either text.

  Hazards Printed Reports Graphic Products Briefing sites

Basic Weather Knowledge and theory

bulletWe discuss the global wind patterns and wind belts of the Northern Hemisphere. We make reference to the westeries and easterlies. The westerlies are associated with the band of winds generally between 25 deg N and S latitude while the easterlies are within the tropical latitudes from about 20 deg N and S.

Several geostationary satellites orbit the Earth; the images of these satellites, if merged, provide a good picture of the westerlies and easterlies. Weather coming from the west can be seen in this loop while weather from the USA eastward to Europe is best seen in this loop.

bulletAtmospheric Pressure
bulletCalculating density altitude (from the NWS El Paso Forecast Office)

    Step 1: Calculate station pressure, using results from this calculation

    Step 2: Calculate density altitude

bulletAnother DA calculator
bulletAn ariticle on Mountain Flying and the importance of density altitude
bulletAn FAA report on Density Altitude
bulletGleim's Density Altitude chart
bulletThe Weather Calculaor-NWS El PasoWFO
bulletAOPA article on DA and accidents
bulletGlobal and local winds

Weather Patterns

bulletAtmospheric stability
bulletMoisture
bulletClouds
bulletFormation of precipitation and types of precipitation
bulletAirmasses and Fronts

Weather Hazards

bulletThunderstorms
bulletTurbulence
bulletLow level (temperature boundaries)
bulletMechanical (terrain induced)
bulletConvective (with thunderstorms)
bulletFrontal (can be associated with thunderstorms or fronts)
bulletWake turbulence (with large aircraft)
bulletMountain wave: formation, forecast, & harzards.
bulletVisual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) to Instrument Meteorological (IMC) Conditions
bulletDownload a PowerPoint Presentation on VMC>>IMC Processes and a Case Study (file is approx. 5MB)
bulletIcing

The Forecast Process

bullet 

Printed Reports & Forecasts

bulletMETAR
bulletMETAR by ICAO identifier from NWS
bulletCurrent observations
bullet    Colorado
bullet    United States
bullet    Worldwide
bulletFAA ASOS/AWOS HomePage (real-time data from all sites around the world). Some of these have been incorporated into other sections of the AviationPage.
bulletTerminal Weather Forecast (TAF)
bulletRocky Mountain TAFs
bullet 
bulletPilot Reports (PIREPS)
bulletReports from NOAA Flight Center Page
bulletRadar reports and data. Other Doppler radar data are available from NWS's Aviation Page
bulletAviation Area Forecast (FA).   The area forecast (FA)
bulletWinds aloft data
bulletWinds aloft (FD)--text version
bulletData from UCAR-RAP including Profiler data, upper air data, & Upper air soundings
bulletSevere Weather Reports & Forecasts.
bulletConvective Outlook (AC). You can link to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) for a wide range of information including the AC, Watch Boxes, and Day One and Day Two Outlooks
bulletHurricane Advisory. You can link to the Tropical Prediction Center (TPC) for all tropical weather information and forecasts.
bulletConvective SIGMETS
bulletAIRMETS.
bulletSIGMETS.
bulletCenter Weather Service Unit (CWSU) Corner

Graphic Weather Products. Many of these products are available from the NWS's Facsimile Broadcast link. These charts generally take several minutes to download, depending on your computer and connection.

bulletSurface Chart--available from the NWS & requires a TIF reader
bulletWeather Depiction Chart
bulletRadar Summary Chart
bulletSatellite data. Other satellite data are available from the NWS's Aviation Page
bulletU.S. Low Level Significant Wx Prog Chart
bulletSevere Weather Outlook Chart (same as SPC's Day 1 and Day 2 Outlooks
bulletVolcanic Ash Forecast & Dispersion Chart

Aviation organizations

bulletAOPA
bulletAOPA Flight Training Magazine
bulletColorado Aeronautics Organization—CDOT
bulletFlightLine - On-line Newsletter - Texas A&M Flying Club
bulletColorado Pilots' Association
bullet Sky Control Portal
bulletEarth Times Portal
bulletAshgate Publishing (Aviation, Geography, Education/Training)

Airport photos--NOAA page