irockfm2

Anyone flying in this mess today? I will be going for business, but I'm taking a segment run so I can make Platinum BTV-PHL-PIT-STL - should make for an interesting day..

.

phlwookie

I'm doing ORD-PHL later, which is often a recipe for pain when headlines like that are in the news, but I'm hopeful we'll just fly over it, though my risk is that the aircraft gets tied up somewhere else earlier in the day.

bkafrick

PHL was a disaster yesterday... They're probably still reeling from that, and this weather will just make it that much worse.

Michael El

Hopefully it'll clear up by Sunday and things will be back to normal. I'm doing a mileage run on UA SAN-ORD-PHL-SFO-SAN.

ubernostrum

I am currently airborne (yay gogo), en route to CLT with hopes that the 6:15 CLT-DFW doesn't cancel. Because this isn't MR travel; I just actually have business in Fort Worth tomorrow, and really would prefer not to get stuck.

BoeingBoy

Cross your fingers. The Dallas-Ft Worth area is expecting periods of freezing rain/sleet although the system is moving out. I don't see a ground hold for flights heading there, but that could change at any time. The good news is that DFW deals with ice every winter so even though this is a particularly serious event it's handled like all ice - chemicals on the runways.

Jim

heyeaglefn

Sunday is going to be terrible in PHL, good luck.

phlwookie

Fortunately, we're half way there now on US 702 without delay, though it appears flights from closer in origins are hitting up against ATC ground delays.

tommyleo

Why did you post a map of wind-chill temperatures?

BoeingBoy

It's not obvious, but the temps tell you roughly where the freezing rain associated with this storm is. Just look at the line between above and below freezing chill factors. BTW, this isn't exact - while rain on an exposed surface like the ground is subject to chill factors since evaporation drops the temp of the surface water, the ground cools slower due to several factors. But airplane wings, for example, are not only exposed to the chill factor but may still be cooler than the airport temp because of descending from cooler altitudes and holding cold soaked fuel.

Jim

pa3lsvt

I flew AUS-PHL yesterday morning. Left Austin just as the front passed over - air temp dropped 20 degF in less than 90 minutes! I don't think the ice hit AUS until today at the earliest, but I managed to get home to PHL before it got ugly here.

My boss' boss (VP of Sales) flew SCE-PHL yesterday, then got completely stranded trying to get to DFW. We missed each other by 20 minutes at the airport (so I don't get to add to the "Running into people you know at airports" thread), but I got a chance to take him for Tony Luke's later. He managed to get to DFW today after overnighting in Philly.

tommyleo

Jim, I'm pretty sure that water will not freeze due to the wind chill factor. For example, if the air temperature is 37 degrees and the wind chill temperature is 27 degrees, water stays liquid. (Similarly, if a surface -- like the ground or a wing -- is 37 degrees, the wind child temperature is also meaningless). That's why I don't see the meaning behind the OP's posting a wind-chill map with a title of "Worst Ice Storms in Years Unfolding".

GaryZ

What ever happened to global warming?

Any chance you SUV owners could get busy this weekend?

Michael El

Crikey. Not only do I need to get a minimum of 3,400 PQM, I need to get home so I can fly out Monday afternoon for a business trip.

BoeingBoy

Air movement will cause the water to drop in temp quicker. Evaporative coolers, used in some places as portable air conditioners, use that principle all the time. They spray a water mist into the stream of moving air, cooling the air. The actual freezing takes a bigger loss of energy if I remember high school science correctly, so actually converting from 32F liquid water to 32F ice won't occur as easily. This is where chill factor ceases to have much influence. Once frozen the chill factor doesn't matter - solids aren't affected by wind chill directly although they will cool down faster in a wind than in still air - ask anyone living in the northern half of Alaska if a wind will make their car engine cool down faster after it's shut down in the winter. That's not wind chill, it's just the warm underhood air being replaced by cold outside air faster because of the wind.

Of course, freezing rain/drizzle depends on the surface temp being below 32F and that's a function of the cross sectional shape of the frontal boundry - colder air below warmer air. But again, in significant frontal system events like this anything that let's you visualize the ground level boundary between the above and below freezing air tells you roughly where the freezing rain starts.

Jim