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Old Apr 20, 2017 | 1:53 am
  #1  
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HA 18 Northern Route

Yesterday's HA 18 HNL-LAS seems to be taking a northern route today. Almost as though they programmed in SFO instead of LAS! All the recent flight history on Flightaware like the day before has this flight going over Los Angeles county. I'm just curious - is this a typical deviation? Are they trying to fly thru the little bit of rain we're getting?
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Old Apr 20, 2017 | 7:30 am
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look at your pics, answer should be obvious.
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Old Apr 20, 2017 | 9:18 am
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Looks like weather over LA.
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Old Apr 20, 2017 | 1:53 pm
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Ummm... Yeah. I was literally typing the note while listening to the rain on my windows in the SF Bay Area. Going over Ventura would have easily been enough to avoid the little area of weather over LA - and would have had less weather than they flew thru on the SF route.

Sorry, I don't buy "weather over LA" as the "obvious" answer here. Any other theories?
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Old Apr 20, 2017 | 2:58 pm
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Originally Posted by jtet
Ummm... Yeah. I was literally typing the note while listening to the rain on my windows in the SF Bay Area. Going over Ventura would have easily been enough to avoid the little area of weather over LA - and would have had less weather than they flew thru on the SF route. Sorry, I don't buy "weather over LA" as the "obvious" answer here. Any other theories?
Generally the flight plans are optimized for best time and fuel burn. There are other factors considered like enroute weather, turbulence and airspace constraints. Therefore, it could very well have been a combination of it all. But you're right, it's highly unlikely the flight took a northerly route because of some rain in So Cal. If I had to guess, there may have been turbulence on the southern tracks.
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Old Apr 20, 2017 | 6:28 pm
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Favorable tailwinds by routing via SFO area?
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Old Apr 21, 2017 | 7:24 am
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This kind of thing isn't at all unusual, look at pretty much any flight and you will see its routing vary due to the factors azj mentions.
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Old Apr 21, 2017 | 1:51 pm
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Hmmm. I suppose that turbulence and tailwinds are the more plausible explanations. Given the storm that had come in off the Pacific towards the SF Bay area (spiraling counter-clock wise looking down on the map), the southern part of the storm would have had potentially strong westbound winds. Interesting...
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Old Apr 21, 2017 | 5:26 pm
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Originally Posted by jtet
Hmmm. I suppose that turbulence and tailwinds are the more plausible explanations. Given the storm that had come in off the Pacific towards the SF Bay area (spiraling counter-clock wise looking down on the map), the southern part of the storm would have had potentially strong westbound winds. Interesting...
This is not terribly unusual, if you look at the detailed weather forecasts.
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