Weather for the commercial pilot: the atmosphere and two graphical products
Stability and what it predicts, moisture and the forms of precipitation, the six kinds of fog, and how to read the Graphical Forecasts for Aviation and the Convective Outlook without being misled by either.
15 min read · Commercial operations
After this lesson you can
- Define atmospheric stability and predict the weather stable and unstable air each produce.
- Explain how moisture reaches saturation and name the forms of precipitation and what each tells a pilot.
- Distinguish radiation, advection, upslope, steam, ice and precipitation-induced fog by how each forms and dissipates.
- Use the Graphical Forecasts for Aviation with its layers and time span, and say what its blank areas mean.
- Read the Convective Outlook's categories and say what the product does not forecast.
A commercial pilot reads the same weather as a private pilot and is held to a different standard for it: the passenger did not check the forecast, and the schedule is not the pilot's to keep at any cost. The Airman Certification Standards for the commercial certificate ask for the atmosphere behind the products, stability, moisture and fog, and for two graphical products that replaced text the older handbooks still describe.
This lesson takes the physics first, because it explains the products, and the products second, because each one has a way of being misread that the physics exposes.
The rest of this lesson
- 1.Stability: the atmosphere's resistance to vertical motion
- 2.Moisture and precipitation: how water leaves the air
- 3.Fog: six ways to put a cloud on the ground
- 4.Graphical Forecasts for Aviation: a tool, not a chart
- 5.The Convective Outlook: borrowed from the severe-weather forecasters
These 5 sections, their figures, the checks along the way and the end-of-lesson quiz come with the CPL track. Paid once, yours for good.
Key terms
Try to recall each definition before turning the card.