I was taking my daily check of AWC and saw several reports of Mod-Sev turbulence and just Straight up Severe turbulence in socal. They were all from small aircraft. The interesting thing is that the METARs are showing very calm winds and even Windy.com is showing light winds. I read both reports and one of the extreme turbulence ones said that the winds were 20kts and another one said that the winds were 3kts. Regardless even 20kts over mountains isnt enough wind to cause severe let alone extreme turbulence even in a Cessna 172.
i know about that thread. I post in it quite often but i wanted to ask why there was such turbulence with low winds. I asked it here cause not very many people use the Pirep thread so I thought i’d get a quicker answer here. Then after the question is answered that topic can be closed.
So looking at this map, there seems to be a trough right in the region that you were talking about, along with some more isobars pretty close. Usually, when there are isobars and troughs this close, this indicates a good bit of wind or wind sheer between layers, which probably is causing your turbulence your feeling.
The trough is indicated by the yellow line and the isobar lines are areas of different pressure. When these are stacked close, you will more than likely be in for some good bumps on the way.
For sure. I use this to help check out the weather when I go flying IRL, so use it when you can! I used Flight Service.
If you create an account though, be sure not to file any flight plans as they’ll go into their systems. So if you file a fpl, you’re filing for it RL.
It was not bad at all this morning I was trying to fly a 737-8 up to PANC(Anchorge) my "Vitural Flight Crew/Airlines home base and I couldnt make it past the chain of Alaska because of the wind there but in socal area it was not bad at all well at least not at 34,000 feet up in the air but im not sure maybe a system glitch
