The weather at Krey Field is excellent for year
round soaring. When the weather in Los Angeles, Orange County,
and the Inland Empire is poor, Krey Field is usually clear and
flyable. 14,000 ft. thermals, an active shear line (and
occasional wave)
are all available at different times throughout the year. This
is So-California! Spring - Thermals and shear lines. 1,000 ft.+ /minute
lift possible. Multi-hour flights are frequent. Summer - Excellent thermals all summer long are the norm.
On those weather transition days, shear line makes for excellent flying.
Altitudes of 12,000 ft.+ are common. Fly all day! Fall - Shear line, thermals, and occasional mild wave
are all apart of fall flying. The flying is great until late into
the fall. Start flying early and fly until evening.
Winter - Shear line and decent thermals are available
during the winter months. When it's raining in Los Angeles we're
usually flying.
Current conditions:Dr. Jack's Blipmaps are no longer
free, but they're darned valuable! Pony up the $40 to support Dr. Jack.
His maps may be the best predictors of the day's soaring conditions.
The Palmdale
Forecast seems the best indicator of what winds will be like at
Krey later today or tomorrow.
Powerful thermal activity isn't that helpful
if they're all going sideways!RAWS for El
Mirage, Saddleback, Vallyermo are as close as we can come to having a weather station at the field.
You can see some of the desert from the Mt
Wilson cam.
Try NOAA's
Skew-T soundings if you'd like to do your own Thermal Index.
NOAA also has a nice Soaring
Forecast.
Get a more macro view of weather with a GOES
Image, or the Jet
Stream.
Of course,
the most important "flying condition" of all is
whether or not we have someone to tow! These are the tow pilots scheduled in the weeks ahead:
Fri, Jan-09-2009, Keith James 01P - 04P
Sat, Jan-10-2009, Tom Coussens 12P - 04P
Fri, Jan-16-2009, Dean Van Oosterhout 01P - 04P
Sat, Jan-17-2009, Mike Malis 12P - 04P
Fri, Jan-23-2009, Keith James 01P - 04P
Sat, Jan-24-2009, Dean Van Oosterhout 01P - 04P
You can check the current tow pilot calendar at PilotSchedule.