August 2026 EZNews

Thank you for taking a few minutes to read the 64th edition of EZNews!

We appreciate those members who have opted for automatic monthly renewal of their EZWxBrief membership. At this time there are no options to renew your membership annually. If you haven't yet set up your account to renew automatically, please sign in and follow the prompts if your membership has expired. Otherwise, go to the User Profile page (see right) and tap or click on the Renew button on that page. This allows you to set up your monthly renewal using a Visa, MasterCard, or Discover credit card (we do not accept American Express at this time), ensuring you continue to enjoy the simplicity of EZWxBrief.

Run EZWxBrief as a PWA

EZWxBrief is optimized to run as a progressive web app (PWA). So if you have not installed it on your device (you can install it on as many devices as you'd like), now's the time to do this to avoid weird rendering and other usability issues. See this post for more information on PWAs. You'll be happy you took the time to set this up.

Surface Wind Trend & Tactical Decision Aid

A surface wind trend layer like the one shown below is now available to add to the Map. It's designed to plot the trend of surface wind direction and wind speed at an airport. Specifically, it considers six hours prior and six hours after the time shown on the EZDeparture Advisor™. This may include both observations and forecasts depending on the time selected.

The miniature pie wedges positioned around the center white circle represents the direction the wind is blowing from in 20° increments. The length of the pie wedge represents the wind speed. For example, for the marker shown here, the wind direction trend is from the south to northwest with the strongest winds out of the west and southwest for the six hours prior and six hours after the time set on the EZDeparture Advisor™.

If the EZDeparture Advisor™  is set on 1200Z, this will factor in the winds (either observations and/or forecasts) from 0600Z to 1800Z. Whenever wind gusts are reported or forecast, those are used instead of the prevailing wind speed. Note that variable winds and wind speeds below 3 knots are excluded.

When you click or tap on any of these markers, you will see a Tactical Decision Aid (TDA) appear like the one shown below for Chicago Midway International Airport (KMDW). This provides a simple diagram of each runway for this airport along with a compass rose. If there are parallel runways (left, right or center), the longest runway is shown. Note that this depiction does not accurately reflect the runway environment and should not be used for navigation purposes.

The TDA will show the most recent observation or it will show a wind forecast based on the time set on the  EZDeparture Advisor™. Two arrows are shown as long as the wind is not calm. The blue arrow represents the prevailing (magnetic) wind direction with the speed/gust shown at the beginning of the arrow shaft.

The second arrow is the best opportunity runway crosswind component. Depending on your personal minimums, it will be colored green, yellow or red accordingly. It will always be oriented perpendicular to the best opportunity runway. This runway is outlined in orange in the runway depiction. Given that your departure and destination airport personal minimums may be different, a switch at the top of the diagram labeled "Dest" and "Dep" allows you to switch between the departure and destination airport personal minimums. If there's a wind gust observed or forecast, the crosswind calculation will use the gust to determine the crosswind component. That magnitude of the crosswind component is shown at the beginning of the arrow shaft.

Below the compass rose you will find a wind speed graph. This allows you to quickly see the trend of the wind three hours prior and three hours after the current time selected on the EZDeparture Advisor™. The wind speed label will depict the prevailing wind speed or wind gust (if any). The color of that label will match the color of the crosswind component arrow.

A similar TDA will appear in the Airport Wx view. After choosing the desired airport, select "TDA" from the Airport Wx site menu. Unlike the TDA discussed above, this version will only show surface observations. Initially it will show the latest observation with a time slider positioned all the way to the right. Sliding this to the left will view the TDA for older observations giving you a historical perspective of the winds for this airport.

Top of Climb and Top of Descent Route Markers

Now on the Map, you will be able to see the point on the active route where the top of climb (TOC) is reached along with the point where the top of descent begins. These are green markers positioned at the point based on the aircraft performance settings, forecast winds aloft (if enabled) and altitude chosen. If there's a stopover airport, then there will be TOC/TOC markers presented for each leg of the active route. The TOC is a green square with an upward pointing white triangle and the TOD is a green square with a downward pointing white triangle.

If you click on tap on any TOC/TOD marker, a popup tabular display will show the time, altitude for the leg and the downrange distance from the departure airport or destination airport accordingly. This should be consistent with the climb and descent profile presented on the Route Profile view.

New Skew-T Clouds Column

When viewing the Skew-T log (p) diagram either in the Skew-T Flight Mode or on the Airport Wx view, you will notice a new column on the far left labeled CLD. This represents the altitude where clouds are most likely to occur. This is next to the icing and turbulence forecast columns as shown below. These should match the CLDS depiction for the meteogram or in the route profile view.

EZWxBrief v3 News

EZWxBrief v3.3.0, 3.4.0 and 3.4.1 were released in July. The release notes can be found here. If the app is open, sign out and close the app. Upon restart, you will have immediate access to the latest release.

Note that starting on December 1, 2026 the monthly subscription price to EZWxBrief will increase by $0.25 to offset the increasing cost of computing resources including, but not limited to, the cost of artificial intelligence (AI) now used throughout the app.

Support note: There will be limited email EZWxBrief support for a period of time during the last two weeks in August and the first week in September. Please understand that during this three-week period, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more before responding to you. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Most pilots are weatherwise, but some are otherwise™

Your EZWxBrief product and sales team