We get a fair number of questions about the forecast freezing level line you’ll find on the Route Profile view in WeatherSpork. When there’s only a single freezing level (more specifically the melting level) forecast, you’ll see just a single dotted line as is depicted in the image below. This identifies the expected freezing...
Author: Scott Dennstaedt
CFI and former NWS research meteorologist. Founder of AvWxWorkshops.com and co-founder of WeatherSpork
Winter precipitation types
The big freeze is coming! So it’s that time of the year to review one important aspect of airframe icing, namely, precipitation type. The three basic wintry precipitation types include freezing rain (and freezing drizzle), snow and ice pellets (colloquially known as sleet). It’s important to understand that METARs and TAFs typically report or...
October 2018 SporkNews
Greetings! If you are new to WeatherSpork, welcome to the family! Congratulations, you are now officially a Sporkie! This e-Newsletter will be emailed out at the beginning of each month to keep you updated on the progress of new features and content provided by WeatherSpork. We are listening and we’ve already received dozens of feature...
What lake effect looks like in WeatherSpork
With the winter just around the corner, you can bet the Great Lakes ice machine is starting to warm up its rusty engine. This will be the first opportunity since WeatherSpork was released in March for fellow Sporkies to see how well it handles the great ice maker this coming winter. Here’s a sneak...
Release notes for WeatherSpork version 4.4.5
Provided a way for the user to resend the verification code if one was not received. Corrected an issue where both time preferences could end up being selected. Fixed a minor discrepancy between the Meteogram and Map view. Updated a few Imagery view labels that were inconsistent from a previous release. Various bug fixes...
What the SLD potential analysis won’t tell you
Supercooled LARGE drop (SLD) icing is a hazard for all aircraft. But is all SLD created equally? Not necessarily. It also helps to understand what’s triggering the SLD event in the first place. A little sleuthing and some basic education goes a long way to understand the analyses and forecasts we use every day....
September 2018 SporkNews
If you are new to WeatherSpork, welcome to the family! This e-Newsletter will be emailed out at the beginning of each month to keep you updated on the new features and content provided by WeatherSpork. We hope the app has made your preflight weather analysis much easier and has saved you time to find that...
Releases notes for WeatherSpork version 4.4.4
Corrected an issue where the pop-up weather information did not dismiss on iPad when the EDT Finder was changed. Fixed a caching issue that caused the Imagery date-time stamp label to be out of sync with latest imagery. Added a button to resend verification code during failed login attempt. Other bug fixes and performance...
Twice as fast updates of radar and lightning with SiriusXM
A number of Sporkies couldn’t attend my presentation at AirVenture this year and were wondering if my presentation had been recorded in some way…unfortunately, it was not. But I wanted to pass along some information about changes to the SiriusXM (SXM) lightning and radar products you get via the satellite datalink broadcast. You may...
Release notes for WeatherSpork version 4.4.3
Fixed an issue where some stations on the Map view were being treated like it only had an observation. Added a filter to the Map view layer selector to include or exclude flight category markers from the map. Changed “Save” to “Apply” when modifying the route on the Map, Route Profile and Grid views....
August 2018 SporkNews
If you are new to WeatherSpork, welcome to the family! This e-Newsletter will be emailed out at the beginning of each month to keep you updated on the new features and content provided by WeatherSpork. We hope the app has made your preflight weather analysis much easier and has saved you time to find that...
Major NWS data outages
As some of you may know, there was a major data center outage at some of the offices within the National Weather Service (NWS). This caused a disruption in some weather guidance in WeatherSpork that has continued into this morning. The Aviation Weather Center (AWC) was disrupted along with the Weather Prediction Center (WPC). ...
Using the Skew-T diagram in the WeatherSpork app
The Skew-T diagram is an excellent resource for pilots to use as a drill down tool to discover the potential of adverse weather at a particular location. Keep in mind that the big weather picture is still more important and the Skew-T is just a supplementary tool to fill in some of the details...
Convective outflow boundaries
When thunderstorms develop and evolve, their “exhaust” is cold dense air flowing down through the storm, striking the ground and moving outward away from the storm. To better understand this, imagine pouring pancake batter onto a griddle. The edge of that pancake is the outflow boundary which is essentially a gust front of sorts. ...
HREF outage in WeatherSpork Imagery view
Over the past several days, the HREF products have been unavailable in the Imagery view. They are provided by NOAA and are generated by a non-operational or experimental platform which makes them vulnerable to have outages from time to time. Here’s the statement provided by NOAA… “Once again the NCEP development computer is unavailable...