Weather Archive for Sunday, 8/15/04

Monsoon moisture off to the east.  Some SE wind at launch.  The thermals started getting workable a little before noon and anchored good enough to block the wind inside the cores. It reportedly got a little strong at launch early through mid afternoon.  Started backing down around 4ish, and by 5 it was lulling to zero.  The NW flow up the Cuyama river started to push up to launch and a convergence set up over the ridge.  Earlier in the day you had to go OTB to get to bigger altitude

Most of the day, altitudes at launch were in the mid 8s, with pilots reporting close to 9 later in the afternoon.  When the convergence moved overhead about 6 PM, max reported altitude at launch was 10,500'.  Pilots were getting to 13+ over Lockwood, and cloudbase was another thousand higher.

The wind at altitude varied.  Some SE, and other places had SW.  Late in the day the NW was also pushing.

Diablo (HG) struggled low through the antelope Valley before finally connecting to cloudbase near Tehachapi but got caught on the wrong side of a convergence and landed a little short of California City, about 75 miles.

SD tagged the interstate before turning downwind to land at the Moose Lodge in Lake of the Woods.  For the last flight of the day, he pulled a glide to NHS in Ojai.

Tom Pipkin got to 10K over Dry Canyon, but hit the dirt in the Badlands short of Lockwood

Numerous other PG pilots flew, mostly late in the day to the Sand Pile.  Dean Stratton got to 96 and landed at Cal Trans.