Where to find the snow?

[MDFlier 2,030]

I did a couple of snowy flights last week. Chicago (KORD), Minneapolis (KMSP), and Toronto (CYYZ) all had some snow.

Like Dave said, use any weather site that has wide area radar maps to find it and plan your flight accordingly. 

[micstatic 4,297]

just picked up Sun Valley and Eagle County.  Hopefully that will help.  Oh and MBS.  Buying payware airports can be funny for me.  Sometimes i fly to them just once or twice.  Other times out of nowhere, certain ones become a staple.  

[Vodcoke 14]

Go to 

www.badbadweather.com

 

joe

[cwburnett 1,809]

4 hours ago, Vodcoke said:

www.badbadweather.com

Well that's an awesome website, thanks for sharing.

4 hours ago, micstatic said:

just picked up Sun Valley and Eagle County.  Hopefully that will help.  Oh and MBS.  Buying payware airports can be funny for me.  Sometimes i fly to them just once or twice.  Other times out of nowhere, certain ones become a staple.  

Nice. I also noticed that ASE is pretty nicely done as part of the ORBX freeware airport pack, so I put that into my rotation sometimes.  Gives a pretty good pucker-factor in a tubeliner, but doable with an A319, 717, etc... Given that I think you said you have SLC and DEN, those all make great short snowy hops and they all have non-standard approaches for added good times.  I've been eyeing MBS as an ex-ORD short hop - I'd be interested in what you think of it after a couple flights.

[pgde 571]

Just FYI there is a payware KASE by Aerosoft. It is excellent and is on sale at PCAviator for 15.09 (10% off additional added at checkout). Highly recommended.

Happy Holidays!

[slait 169]

This is what I saw coming into KEGE the other day...

[Alan_A 1,650]

Windy.com includes a snow depth map and a new snow map.  More useful than METARs because it shows what's on the ground, not just what's falling.

Snow depth: https://www.windy.com/-Show---add-more-layers/overlays?snowcover,38.978,-77.081,5

New snow: https://www.windy.com/-Show---add-more-layers/overlays?snowAccu,38.978,-77.081,5

Not exactly what the OP was looking for - he wanted to fly in snow, not over snow - but still, maybe worthwhile.

Maybe more on point - the precipitation type map: https://www.windy.com/-Show---add-more-layers/overlays?ptype,38.978,-77.081,5

The site is a really great resource.

 

 

[pgde 571]

Here is another resource -- https://www.aviationweather.gov/cva

[micstatic 4,297]

thanks for all the great comments and suggestions.  Just landed at MBS.  It's great, but dynamic lighting doesn't appear to be on.  The orbx page says it has optional dynamic lighting.  HOw do I turn it on?

[fluffyflops 1,843]

Keflavik tomrrow...

TAF: BIKF 031607Z 0318/0418 02013KT 9999 FEW025 SCT035 TX06/0415Z TNM07/0320Z 
BECMG 0321/0323 09010KT 
BECMG 0401/0403 11020KT 
BECMG 0404/0406 12024G34KT SCT020 BKN034 OVC050 
BECMG 0407/0410 12045G65KT 5000 -SN BLSN SCT012 BKN018 OVC030 
TEMPO 0407/0412 2000 SN BLSN 
BECMG 0413/0415 20020G30KT 7000 
TEMPO 0415/0418 SHSN BKN014
 

[micstatic 4,297]

7 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

Keflavik tomrrow...

TAF: BIKF 031607Z 0318/0418 02013KT 9999 FEW025 SCT035 TX06/0415Z TNM07/0320Z 
BECMG 0321/0323 09010KT 
BECMG 0401/0403 11020KT 
BECMG 0404/0406 12024G34KT SCT020 BKN034 OVC050 
BECMG 0407/0410 12045G65KT 5000 -SN BLSN SCT012 BKN018 OVC030 
TEMPO 0407/0412 2000 SN BLSN 
BECMG 0413/0415 20020G30KT 7000 
TEMPO 0415/0418 SHSN BKN014
 

What's a good Keflavik scenery anyway?  I've been wanting to get one.  BTW, the windy site has been fantastic.  I love the various options to show new snow and look ahead a few days at a time.  

[JasonPC 173]

Simelite's season manager can match the season.bgl with current snowfall on the ground, https://simelite.com/seasonmap/. It's an interesting product, but one issue is with sceneries that use a global scenery config for the seasons. Sometimes they will be snowy when the surrounding weather is not. The only thing you can do is make an exception for the area so that it matches the default seasons.bgl.

[cwburnett 1,809]

47 minutes ago, micstatic said:

What's a good Keflavik scenery anyway?  I've been wanting to get one. 

ORBX Global Iceland Demo claims some photoreal around Reykjavik but I haven't tried it yet. It is in their freeware section.  I doubt it does anything to the airport. Haven't found any good Iceland airports, but I haven't investigated thoroughly.

[micstatic 4,297]

Incidentally I just saw on FSElite that MK Studios is shooting for a release of Reykjavik this quarter.