Howard – as Q#1 you left out some facts, such as if the sun was out! But as it may, I was wrong . . . but pressure works too, as in the pressure at the bottom of a glacier. I think we are saying the same thing for #3 . . . but, if Q#1 was a hypothetical as an expert witness, and you left out the little fact that the sun was out, I’m not sure a jury would think kindly of an expert leaving out such a crucial fact when providing an expert opinion on a hypothetical!

AS for aviation, meteorology and law, I’ll freely admit that I know merely a small fraction of what there is to know – about anything to be honest. I just try to have logical opinions which take into account human nature . . . thats all. And while I do practice law, once again, none of us can ever know it all ;-) and, a good lawyer on cross does not need to disprove anything, merely attack credibility logically within the realm of the common sense of the jury.

and BTW – I never ever cast doubt on the value of forensic meteorology – like every other science it has value within the limits of the science and the technology applied to the science.

How will I ever know who you are since you hide under the name Joe F.? Besides, I would love to have you cross examine me. I love proving those attorney’s who think they know it all wrong in front of a jury.

Despite your attempts to clarify and restate your answers in a more correct sounding manner, you’re original answer the way it is written is incorrect. Accept it. Anyway, it seems that this conversation is not going anywhere. I’m not here to play professor because I have real work and important cases to work on. So, i’ll let you continue to believe that you know everything about Meteorology, Law, Aviation and anything else you’d like to proclaim your specialty in on this blog. I take that back, you probably know a lot about Law since that is your career.

Constructive questions and responses from posters I would be happy to comment on. All the best to you Joe F.

Yep, Flight Aware is first on my laptop; one of those 21st century tools that makes life really hard on any gate agent who’s trying to give passengers a song and dance about a particular flight. And yes, that inbound was Chicago’s all along – have taken it several times myself although it’s now changed in SWA’s system. It now comes in from New Mexico rather than Phoenix and the flight number is changed.
Seems like SWA is trying to hide something here (joking).

I then answered #3correctly – you get the lightning strike info – the sensor information is ALWAYS in the past – no matter if it is on the weather channel, on the tv weather or in the ‘archived records,’ the information displayed is ALWAYS past information. So, THAT answer was correct as well since I referred you to the SAME source.

The issue with doppler is resolution. The further you go from the site of the WSR-88D the less resolution there is since the waves propagate outward – the inverse square law means that the distance from the doppler means an ever large slice of space is being noted – which means that very small scale vorticity cannot be discerned, give me an A .

C’mon, Howie, you hate to have me cross-examine you . ..

Also note that all this is puffed up from: “In my opinion, the day has now come …”, “may be in for a rude awakening” and “should someone decide to challenge them”, i.e. there’s nothing behind it…

The airline companies do not give out good information to the front line staff. Basically because every decision is made by committee. The flight canceled? why? Only the guy in operations knows why s/he canceled it. Ops might be in Dallas in the case of the American or Atlanta in the case of Delta. The information does not get to Des Moines. The gate agent has 112 angry passengers to re-route and no real reason why- depending on what the airline has GIVEN them to accomodate passengers, and how much authority they have generally. People are screaming at you, generally p/o’d and you need to deal with it, for $12 an hour.

Yeah, you make it up as you go along. . . . is it right? Nope. Is it honest? No. Does EVERY corporation do it – yep.

I tend to think lying as being more intentionally misleading – if you have no idea why the flight was canceled and you are given no authority in the instance to accommodate people, you find an applicable excuse to fit the facts. Now, if they KNOW the reason – well – thats a lie!!!

So, making up excuses isn’t lying? So, if my kid tells his teacher that the dog ate his homework, he’s NOT lying? THAT’S a stretch…

First, your answer to Question A is incorrect. My assertions were that the air temperature was below freezing for the entire time. So, no, the temperature obviously was not above freezing. Snow and/or ice can melt on exposed and untreated surfaces when sufficient incoming solar insolation acts on it. So, the correct answer is that melting will occur when the strong sun and air temperatures are near 23 degrees or higher. Clearly cloud cover plays a role as well. Once the sun starts to go down as the air temperature is below freezing, the melting ceases and refreezing occurs. This usually begins about an hour before sunset. I’m afraid that since the majority of weather related suits and claims involve slip and fall accidents, your undertsanding of this could have been catasrophic for your case had you not consulted a Forensic Meteorologist. :)

Nice job on answer #2. You nailed it. The majority of non-Meteorologists do not get that right and don’t understand the difference. Many also refer to sleet as hail.

The answer to question number 3 doesn’t answer my question. I was asking about determining lightning strikes in the past (that’s part of what this story refers to right…past weather determination?). We have access to archived ground sensor information that will show with 99.9% accuracy, when cloud to ground lightning struck a particular address or location. The datas includes the exact time to the millisecond as well as amperage and polarioty information. Most people do not realize this is available.

Answer 4: Good answer. But i usually like to refer to Storm Relative Velocity also. We also would review the Vertical Azimuth Display winds to see how the winds change with height. But archived Doppler Radar imagery is very useful in showing where convection was occurring.

All in all, not bad answers but certainly not an A+. My point for all of this is to defend some of the comments stated in earlier posts and to show why Forensic Meteorologists are helpful and useful. Lawyers included.

Question 1: Without the presence of any salt or other treatments, tell me why snow and ice sometimes melts when the air temperature is 23 degrees? Now tell me when it begins to refreeze to ice if the air temperature was below freezing all day?

Is the sun shining? Then the surface temp was obviously above 0C! Unless the ice was under pressure – which lowers the freeze point. Or maybe it was snow mold on the bottom . . . I suppose it can be supercooled, but thats only IN the clouds – not once it precipitates into crystals. My money is on pressure at the bottom of the snow. It refreezes when the temps get below -5C.

Question 2: Tell me the difference between sleet and freezing rain? Which is more dangerous on untreated surfaces?

Sleet is rain that falls through a below freezing layer of air and freezes prior to contact with the surface. ZR is rain that freezes on contact with a surface, forming ice. ZR is dangerous, SL is not as bad since it does not generally create ice on surfaces, it is ice.

Question 3: If you want to determine whether cloud to ground lightning struck a house, are you just going to see what the airport 5 miles away reported?

No, I’m gonna use my storm scope. Or, use the records kept by the power companies which display cloud2ground lightning strikes – or – subscribe to Accuweather and get the same information from their website. Its what is displayed on the TV weather stations when they report lightning strikes.

Question 4: What about wind shear in a thunderstorm. Are you really going to look at Newark airports weather report to see if a Thunderstorm caused severe winds 20 miles away? I’m sure you realize that thunderstorms can cause damaging winds in one place and it can be sunny 3 miles away.

Wind Shear at ground level in a TSRA is not reportable except vby specialized equipment which detects different wind speeds at different sectors of a runway environment. Now, if it is precipitating, you can see from the doppler radar radial velocity image whether there was a change of direction in the scan image in a certain area.

Can I get a grade professor? ;-) Gee, a pilot, a lawyer, and knowledgeable about weather . . . . hmmm. But I would need an expert to testify about all that . . ..

Now – Bill – maybe they just forgot? hahahaha – you know – ooops, I was supposed to go to MDW BEFORE MCO? Did you check the flight in Flightaware.com to see if it was diverted or if the flightplan was actually to MCO?? Go check out your flight #

This topic is fun!