WEATHER

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Jon, what's the link to your favorite weather site, I don't remember for sure?
I think it is Intellicast? Is that right? ,and don't you have some sort of weather GPS or some such thing in the bus, what's that all about?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I have multiple sites I use for weather, but they do not relate to surface conditions as much as what I encounter in flight.

This is usually my starting point: http://adds.aviationweather.gov/icing/

From there I go to the AOPA site (member access only) for better surface graphics.

There are other aviation related sites that are free that also have some weather links or content. I use this one for some detail from time to time:
http://www.fltplan.com/

When I am looking at travel weather such as when getting ready to leave on a trip I use the same weather sites as everyone else looking at city forecasts along the path to get a sense of what will be encountered. If I choose to bring the antenna with me (I don't usually) I can get weather depiction in real time on my Garmin 396 which is an aviation GPS that allows me to download XM weather. Graphics depicting rain or snow or fog is depicted, but I can also call up "METARS" which is a shorthand aviation weather string that includes the time of reading, surface winds, ceiling, visibility, temperature, dewpoint, and barometric pressure setting, little of which is important for driving down the highway.