It’s rained most of the day here in the Sonoran Desert. At times the rain has been pounding on the roof quite hard; the forecast calls for more rain through Wednesday. It is that time of the year, after all.
While my husband watches the football playoffs, I’ve been studying up on aviation and weather. I’ve been organizing my flight bag a bit. For the past couple of years I’ve been trying to go “completely electronic” with organizing my weather, notes, and other flight bag goodies in the cockpit. I started off with paper on the my kneeboard and during the last flight I migrated back to that, using my EFB, or Electronic Flight Back, for approach charts and as a reference. My EFB lives on an iPad mini 5, which is still quite capable but the Apple Pencil, which is a generation 1 of the plethora of pencils Apple now offers with specific iPads, can be spotty. Pen and paper are more reliable in that regard.
I’ve also been studying up on the weather, watching videos from various sources on using the various tools, improving my forecasting skills and the like. I found this video from MeteoTechWX, a storm chasing channel on YouTube. I really liked the vibe of this team and look forward to watching more of their videos this week.
Amongst all the other things I talk about on Ye Ol’ Ancient Blog, I’ll be mentioning my Storm Chasing toolbox as it gets assembled for chase season coming up this spring. The Accounting Department (otherwise known as the love of my life, my husband), has blessed a solo storm chasing trip again this year. I haven’t figured out the timing yet, as it’s a bit too early in the year to pinpoint that timing down, but the smart people out there are saying this year could be above average for severe storms and I find that quite exciting. Unless, of course, I’m flying an airplane. Then I want Mother Nature to be as calm as a cucumber.
It’s a shame the New York State curriculum for Earth Science back in 1982 made for a duller than a dishrag experience when I was a freshman in high school. This stuff is super interesting to me.
