Hello again and thanks for reading the 14th edition of EZNews!
We appreciate those that have recently joined, renewed their membership or signed up for auto-renewal. A special thanks to Willie L. who renewed his membership and contributed an additional $300! Also, a big thanks to Joe P. who renewed for $100 and Fabio S. who renewed for $80. We truly appreciate your generosity which helps support our continued innovation and assist general aviation pilots to make the best operational decisions prior to departure. We look forward to more continued growth and for all members to enjoy the simplicity of EZWxBrief.
There have not been any new releases this past month as we are working on changes to the underlying data infrastructure to improve precipitation forecasts beyond 24 hours and we are working to improve the user experience and speed of the progressive web app.
New online training subscription service
Backed by popular demand, you will have the opportunity to purchase an annual subscription for online training. This service allows you over the next year to book up to ten 1-on-1 training sessions each lasting 60 minutes with Dr. Scott Dennstaedt. The cost of the annual subscription is $695/year. That's a $900 value! You will have the opportunity to renew for an additional year when your subscription expires.
With this subscription you can book a private session to dive deeper into any aviation weather topic. Want to learn more about what causes icing, turbulence or thunderstorms, then book an hour-long session to discuss that topic. Perhaps you want to review the weather along a route for a flight you are contemplating. While we are not your formal briefer, these route-based sessions are designed to help you better understand how to interpret the observations and forecast guidance available in the EZWxBrief progressive web app so that you gain more confidence in your decision.
Here is the fine print. Each training session must be scheduled in 60-minute increments. Therefore, sessions cannot be split into shorter lengths. All sessions must be booked for available times Monday through Friday with the first session on these days beginning at 9:00 am eastern time and the last session ending at 5:00 pm eastern time on most days. Weekend and evening sessions are not available at this time. Scheduling is subject to schedule Scott's current availability which can be determined when you reserve an hour-long session. There will be blackout times due to aviation events (e.g., AirVenture), holidays and for other circumstances as they arise. Unused training sessions cannot be carried over to the next subscription year.
For details on how to purchase an annual subscription and book a session, please click here.
Please install EZWxBrief as a progressive web app
For members new to EZWxBrief - you won't find EZWxBrief in the Apple App Store or Google Play store. For the best user experience, EZWxBrief is optimized to run as a progressive web app (PWA) and must be installed on your device. This is especially important for smaller handheld devices (e.g., iPhone or iPad). This only takes a few seconds of your time for each device. Please see the Pilots Guide for more information on how to install EZWxBrief as a PWA on your devices.
Check out The Daily EZ Weather Brief on YouTube
We like to thank those that have subscribed to the EZWxBrief YouTube channel and are watching The Daily EZ Weather Brief on a regular basis. If you haven't subscribed or viewed any of these videos, what are you waiting for? The goal of this daily program is to provide general aviation pilots with a brief overview of today's aviation weather impacts across the conterminous U.S. and southern Canada. It's been very gratifying to hear all of the positive feedback we received since it rolled out on March 1st. Here's what one YouTube subscriber and EZWxBrief member is saying...
"I just found [EZWxBrief] two days ago and yesterday I had a very complicated flight weather wise from Delaware to Atlanta, Georgia. The [Daily EZ Weather Brief] in the morning was an amazing addition to my weather sources when planning a flight. I hope you can continue this service - awesome!"
- Jim J.
How can you watch? If you get up early, the actual live broadcast will be on the EZWxBrief YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/avwxworkshops) beginning at 7:15 a.m. eastern time (assuming there are no technical or personal glitches). With a few exceptions for illness, holidays, events and travel, there will be a live broadcast every weekday (Monday through Friday) morning with Friday's broadcast offering a brief weather outlook for the weekend. If you miss the live broadcast, no worries, the program is being recorded and the video will be published on the EZWxBrief YouTube channel shortly thereafter. Any changes to the daily schedule will be posted on the EZWxBrief Instagram and EZWxBrief Facebook pages.
Check out the next edition of Flying magazine
Flying magazine has made some serious changes. If you missed that memo, it is now a quarterly publication that is only available by subscribing and is no longer available for purchase on the store shelves. With Q1 and Q2 issues signed, sealed and delivered, you'll want to check out the Q3 edition coming up in July. That issue will feature an article written by - you guessed it - Dr. Scott Dennstaedt. Moving forward, Scott will now be a "regular" contributor to these quarterly issues of Flying magazine. He has written an article or two for Flying in the past, but Julie Boatman who is the editor-in-chief of the magazine reached out to see if he would share his knowledge and expertise in promoting safety with Flying magazine readers throughout the coming years.
AirVenture 2022
EZWxBrief will not have a booth this year at the event, but Dr. Scott Dennstaedt will be doing as many as seven presentations that you won't want to miss. More details of the times and locations of the other presentations will follow in the July EZNews. A week before AirVenture starts, keep an eye out for our special edition of EZWxChat on YouTube live for the analysis of the weather for anyone planning to fly to the event. The schedule for these episodes will be posted on the EZWxBrief Facebook page and Instagram for those interested. For now, plan on attending his presentation at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 26 at the AOPA pavilion and at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 28 in the National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI) pavilion. Looking forward to seeing you in Oshkosh!
EZWxBrief premium workshops
After getting valuable feedback from many new subscribers, premium workshops are now part of the annual membership to EZWxBrief. This means favorites such as Mastering the Skew-T Diagram can be viewed as long as you remain an active member of EZWxBrief. Just like the "bite-sized" workshops, once your membership expires, you will no longer have access any workshops unless they are designated as free. To view these workshops in EZWxBrief, simply sign in and tap or click on the Start button. Then in the Quick Start menu select Watch online workshops. You can find more information about viewing workshops by reading the Pilots Guide.
The Skew-T log (p) and Me eBook
Scott is a co-author of the new gold standard in aviation weather texts, Pilot Weather: From Solo to the Airlines, and is placing the finishing touches on his next creation. He will be releasing his second book entitled, The Skew-T log (p) and Me: A primer for pilots. It will be formally announced at AirVenture on Monday, July 25th and will go on sale in eBook format only during the week of the event (there will be no printed book at this time). Stay tuned for a one-time special offer when it is released. Current EZWxBrief subscribers will receive a promotion code (make sure you watch your email) so they can get the eBook at the lowest possible price. And if you are one of the first ten customers that purchase an annual online training subscription mentioned above, you will get a copy of this eBook for free.
Here's a little excerpt from the new book to whet your appetite...
Another example of a severe turbulence signature often occurs when you see significant changes in wind direction and speed with height. In the 15-hour forecast sounding (F15) below valid at 08Z near the Rocky Mountain Metro Airport (KBJC) in Denver, Colorado notice that westerly winds rapidly increase in velocity from 5 knots at the surface to 55 knots at 4,000 feet above the airport’s elevation. Then winds decrease to less than 5 knots where they shift to the northwest and above 20,000 feet shift to a south-southwesterly flow. This is all in a rather unstable atmosphere. Given the unstable lapse rate and wind shear, this creates a favorable condition for the air to mix and produce significant turbulence.
Just after sunrise, five urgent PIREPs were documented this severe turbulence event. These urgent reports prompted the AWC to issue a SIGMET for severe turbulence from the surface to 24,000 feet due to strong low-level winds and mountain wave activity. Shown below is one of those urgent reports from a TBM900 that reported severe turbulence at 19,000 feet shown in EZWxBrief.
This was captured quite well by the EZWxBrief EZRoute Profile the night before with mid- and low-level severe turbulence (red) forecasting eddy dissipation rate (EDR) values approaching 0.6 m2/s3 at 20,000 feet. A value of 0.64 m2/s3 is considered extreme turbulence for light aircraft. In EZWxBrief, the EDR value is multiplied by 100 for each of use.
Retirement of AvWxWorkshops.com at year's end
With the EZWxBrief progressive web app fully encapsulating all of the features of the legacy AvWxWorkshops.com website, the avwxworkshops.com domain will be retired at the end of this year. All users and workshops have been moved over and there is no need to preserve the site at this time. It's a little bittersweet given that the AvWxWorkshops website originally went live in 2008 and I know that some of the current EZWxBrief subscribers were members of AvWxWorkshops as well. More importantly, any avwxworkshops.com domain email addresses you may be using to reach out to Scott will also cease to exist at the end of the year. Therefore, to reach him by email it is best to use the EZWxBrief support email address or fill out the contact us form.
Most pilots are weatherwise, but some are otherwise™
Dr. Scott Dennstaedt
Weather Systems Engineer
Founder, EZWxBrief™
CFI & former NWS meteorologist
