At about 10 a.m., Dudley called up a DUATS briefing. It reported a cold front off the Atlantic through North Carolina and Northern Georgia, and it, too, had plans to head South. The Miami area forecast for eastern South Carolina, Georgia, and the northern half of Florida had sky conditions ranging from scattered to broken clouds anywhere between 3,000 and 12,000 feet, with occasional visibility of three to five statute miles in mist, and widely scattered thunderstorms with rain showers.
If Dudley saw any good news it was that most of the convective activity (and a convective SIGMET) was west of his route. Even the AIRMET Sierra for IFR conditions and Tango for turbulence were also farther west of his intended route, which was about as far east as it could be, via the Savannah, Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Melbourne, and Vero Beach VORTACs.
The GOES satellite photo (Figure 3) showed only moderate cloud cover nearby, and the weather depiction chart showed only one small area of marginal VFR at the start of his planned route (Figure 4). Actually, it was where he was right now! The 12-hour significant weather prognosis chart (Figure 5) with a "valid time" of 18Z (2 p.m.) predicted some marginal VFR at the beginning of his route, as well as intermittent rain and thunderstorms with rain just north of the Georgia-South Carolina border. He could easily be far from that by 2 p.m., so he might be able to go today - but it could be dicey.
At first glance the weather seemed to be close to Dudley's personal minimums for a go. But he knew the information he'd seen so far covered a wide area, and that he'd have to get to the specifics, such as surface observations and forecasts, before he made his go/no-go decision.
The METARs all along his route at just after 8:50 AM (1250Z) showed westerly winds at about 10 knots, 10 statute miles visibility (with Melbourne being the exception at five miles in haze), and few to scattered clouds at altitudes varying from 1,000 to 9,000 feet. The reports mentioned no precipitation anywhere, the temperature-dewpoint spreads were between three and six degrees Celsius along most of the route except at the very beginning.
Both Savannah and Brunswick, Georgia, showed zero spreads, and a warning buzzer went off in Dudley's head. With no difference between the temperature and dewpoint, bad visibility from such things as fog was almost guaranteed. A 9:13 a.m. PIREP from a Beech Debonair pilot flying at 9,000 feet just southeast of Savannah reported a higher overcast. An 8:13 a.m. PIREP, also from a Debonair (the same one) at 9,000 feet but 170 miles further south, near Daytona, reported cloud tops at 4,000 feet.
The TAFs quieted Dudley's warning buzzer. They predicted generally southwest-to-westerly winds at around 10 knots, with only Savannah having gusts. But all over, the visibility was greater than six miles with no worse than scattered clouds at 3,000 feet - and no rain. Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., some northern locations predicted temporary three-mile visibility, rain showers, and a ceiling of broken clouds at 3,000 feet. After 2 or 3 p.m., however, two of the terminal forecasts predicted some brief but unfriendly weather, including 35-knot gusts, one mile visibility, thunderstorms, and rain. This wasn't good.
Once he got past Jacksonville, it looked like the worst Dudley could expect was gusty surface winds and scattered clouds at 4,000 feet up until evening. An exception, between 2 and 6 p.m. Daytona Beach predicted a possible brief period of broken clouds at 4,000 feet. At his destination, after 5 p.m. there was a 30 percent chance of a thunderstorm and rain.
Between 3,000 and 9,000 feet the winds aloft were mainly out of the west at 15-to-20 knots, except at Savannah, where they were westerly at 26 knots at 9,000 feet. There wouldn't be much difference in flight time between the high or low road, and the clouds mandated a lower cruising altitude anyway. One NOTAM reported that - adjacent to his route north of Jacksonville there would be aerobatic activity below 2,500 feet between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Dudley noted this on his sectional chart.
The question was, of course, Did Dudley have any "windows" - times when the weather met his personal minimums and his route of flight timetable? If so, how wide (or narrow) might they become?
Already packed, Dudley could be at the airport in 10 minutes. Adding the time for final flight planning, preflight inspection, etc., he was sure he could be off the ground at noon. If the weather behaved as reported and predicted, he'd get past Jacksonville just after 1 p.m. The Jacksonville TAF said there might temporarily be convective weather in that vicinity, but not until between 2 and 6 p.m.
Also, between Savannah and Brunswick, Dudley wanted a VFR altitude between 3,000 and 11,000 so he could stay away from the two MOAs he'd be sandwiched between, even though no activity had been reported in them. Dudley knew he might be flying VFR on top if some of those scattered clouds north of Daytona did, indeed, become broken, but he knew he'd see the clouds starting to close the gaps in plenty of time to divert to a VFR alternate airport.
Dudley decided to give it a try, and was off just before noon. The clouds through Georgia stayed scattered, but just before 3 p.m. Flight Watch told him that Savannah had gone to 2,900 broken, and Brunswick was reporting broken clouds at 3,500 feet. He was relieved that this was behind him. The weather ahead duplicated the forecast, and Dudley was on the ground in West Palm Beach just after 3 p.m.
