EZTip - EZDeparture Advisor for icing and turbulence
- Dr. Scott Dennstaedt
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
When hovering over a 3-hour summary block rendered in the EZWxBrief EZDeparture Advisor™ you may have noticed a bunch of gray squares for the icing and turbulence personal minimums. Any gray rectangle you see means that EZWxBrief does NOT have forecast data for that time of departure and that particular personal weather minimum category. Normally, icing and turbulence forecasts are available for departure times within the most recent 18 hours. It is normal, however, for the icing probability, icing intensity and turbulence intensity minimum evaluation to be missing at departure times of 19 hours and beyond as shown below in the red rectangle. This is because icing and turbulence are very difficult to forecast beyond 18 hours with any reasonable certainty and this is reflected in the EZDeparture Advisor™ using a gray square.
Moreover, if you plan a route that has a proposed altitude of FL310 or higher, the icing fields do not extend above FL300 as shown below. In that case, icing will not be evaluated as a result of the EZDeparture Advisor™ and will render these same gray squares even if the departure time is within the timeframe that an icing forecast is available.
You can also click or tap on the three columns that appear above the 3-hour summary block to see the EZDeparture Advisor™ details in a pop-up window like the one shown to the left. This will list the evaluation of each of the personal minimums for the selected time and will include a reminder in parenthesis of the personal minimums you have set.
However, gray squares can occur for any personal weather minimum category and any departure time. While this doesn't occur often, it is mostly associated with a forecast for surface visibility. This can happen from time to time when the model data for visibility arrives late and is unavailable for EZWxBrief to use. This occurs when there's a delay getting the raw data from the NWS for one or more of the models that EZWxBrief relies on to determine the surface visibility.
Most pilots are weatherwise, but some are otherwise™
Dr. Scott Dennstaedt
Weather Systems Engineer
Founder, EZWxBrief™
CFI & former NWS meteorologist
