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Article: Convection on the Skew-T: thunderstorms are predicted for your route, but how likely are they to pop up at your destination? A Skew-T might help you know.(WX SMARTS)
- Article from:
- IFR
- Article date:
- March 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Belvoir Media Group, LLC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Mix a generous amount of low-to mid-level moisture and conditional instability with an abundance of outside energy (or lift) and you can brew some serious convection. Often pilots are taught the numbers game with respect to various indices forecasters use for predicting thunderstorms--a highly negative lifted index may mean big storms--without having a clue where these numbers come from.
And maybe that's OK, but if you want to play the thunderstorm guessing game at a higher level, take a look at the graphical Skew-T diagram to help explain them, as well as give you insight as to whether t-storms will be likely at a specific spot, such as your fuel stop or your ...