Does Jeppesen Real World Weather still work?

[Red Eye]

I just attempted to take off from Key West, FL in a C-130 to fly into the hurricane. Jeppesen says partly cloudy and slight wind. Currently, there are 150 MPH winds in the area and it is extremely cloudy. I noticed this when I attempted this with Katrina also. No wind and clear skies while Missippi was being pounded.

So, is Jeppesen still providing "Real World" weather? If so, is there something I need to do to get real weather instead of clear skies and no wind in the middle of a hurricane?

[JSPuonti]

The explanation I've seen given before in these situations is that when a big hurricane moves over an area, the weather stations under it are shut down either voluntarely or forcibly.

Because the stations are not providing weather data, Jeppesen provides either no weather data for that area, or old data.

[Drake34]

I've noticed it does strange things with the weather. Sometimes when I fly out my local area the weather won't be anything like what it is outside and other times it does get it right.

[link:www.dreamfleet2000.com|http://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/im...Mullins01.jpg]

"A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting."

Don Mullins
Niceville, FL.

[Red Eye]

>The explanation I've seen given before in these situations is
>that when a big hurricane moves over an area, the weather
>stations under it are shut down either voluntarely or
>forcibly.

The weather stations (at least NOAA) are still operational and providing all kinds of data - even in XML. It is possible that Jeppesen gathers their data from sources other than NOAA or NWS but that would be odd.

Flying from a location further away I noticed very cloudy with a ceiling of around 8000 ft. Again, not indicative of real conditions. I did notice that conditions change abruptly as I fly away from the coast but that would be expected when flying out of range of the weather stations.

I hope their real world pilot data for real pilots is more accurate than what they feed FS9. I'd hate to be in a real scenario being told clear skies and light wind only to find myself in a terrible thunderstorm.

[RFields]

It is 1839Z - the NOAA Metar (http://weather.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/mgetmetar.pl) is:

KEYW 240606Z AUTO 15052G66KT 1 1/4SM RA BR FEW003 BKN020 OVC033 26/24 A2904 RMK AO2 PK WND 15066/0604 PRESFR P0004 TSNO

12.5 hours old - no updates since about 0200 local today - and even then it was an automated report - not a verified observation.

While the visibility was 1 1/4 miles in rain - the cloud cover was very high.

At it's best "Real World" weather - either from Jeppsen or from the airport observations or from a FSS for pilots - is going to be updated only once an hour.

The actual "right now" weather is what a pilot gets from the tower when he/she is on approach.

And quite frankly, real world data in hurricanes or major storm fronts is not worth the time of obtaining - there ain't no real world pilots flying in that stuff - not even the hurricane hunter aircraft because they do not fly over land - only water.

If you want to fly in hurricane type weather - you are better off avoiding the larger airports - they will create clear weather bubbles as the reports go off-line. The smaller airports with no local weather or AWOS only will have a general weather for the region - which is probably closer to reality.

[RFields]

And if the time on these posts is correct - the storm was already over the Atlantic when the first post on this thread was made.

Due to it's location - I would not expect the Key West Airport, or weather station, to be in full operation for a few days.

The airport was closed on Saturday afternoon.

I've found this to be a very useful reference about airport status when storms hit - http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp - select the Southeastern region and click on one of the closed airports for some very good detail.