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Saturday, 6/13/2015 [Weather] and [Flight Articles] by [Sundowner] & [Go Sailplane Pilots]
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Wasn't really watching the weather, but we hadn't seen the sun for days in Carpinteria.  John Scott called Friday with a heads up about monsoonal moisture feeding thunderstorms in the desert, so I took a look Friday night.

The system was moving east and we were west of the stronger action on Saturday.  Friday saw rain and T-Storms with puddles remaining Saturday morning on the old overgrown 6K North Parking Lot Launch.  Saturday had some moisture left over, but not nearly as much as Friday.  Sunday it looked like it was going to be much drier.  There was some local north wind to contend with on Saturday due to the cyclonic flow around the low centered near Needles.  We were on the back side of the low and the local winds aloft forecast was calling for north wind in the low teens at mid altitudes with less wind up higher.

Ideally, it's good to have light wind down low and stronger wind from the west up higher so you can make good time going downwind at altitude late in the day.  Sunday's wind was clocking around to come from the west, but Sunday's was warmer at altitude and drier, so I opted for Saturday's better altitude.

It's nice to have a little north in the winds aloft because the desert draws from the south.  If there is south in the winds aloft, it will add to the draw and is often too strong on Pine's south side launch for paragliders.  A little north, like 5 to 7, helps to counterbalance the south draw and will often result in a convergence and big altitude directly over launch at Pine.  When there is too much south in the flow the main convergence is often pushed to the north, so you need to go OTB to connect to bigger altitude.  We tend to get more north days early and late in the season.  In July the desert seems to draw too strong.  Saturday's north wind was more than optimal, so we were expecting to launch from our old original 5650.  With the Winds Aloft Forecast calling for local north flow in the low teens, we would also need the air mass to be unstable, which it was, with a good lapse rate up through 12K.  Without the good lapse rate, the local ridge lift would be laminar with a skip out to Ojai the best we could hope for, but with the good lapse rate we were hoping to be able to run the range toward Lake Pyramid, which we did.

There was a cloud over Caltrans and another line over the watershed divide of Monte Arido and Old Man Mountain.  Connecting to 12K under either of those options would likely be a downwind glide to the beach.  The better clouds were over Lockwood and east of I-5.

Rather than a pronounced convergence line running east on the south side of the range, there was only spotty feed with broken clouds over the south edge.  The better lift was still over the high terrain of Lockwood Valley and Alamo.  The north was pushing the development south which resulted in a shelf and some light virga around Grade Valley and McDonald Peak.  I kept pushing and crabbing north, but it was OD'd over Alamo by the time I got to Mutau Flat.  We launched late do to a couple factors.  It seemed laminar and with mostly steady wind on launch when we got there, so we needed it to start lulling and cycling.  We had abandoned our original legacy north launch when the HG pilots cut the Parking Lot launch, so it hadn't been used in maybe 15 years?  The Parking Lot launch is now too overgrown and will likely be out of action for good because there aren't enough HG pilots remaining to maintain it.  We needed to do an hour of work on both the HG launch and the PG launch, so that pushed our start time back to almost 2 PM.

Both HG pilots had tactical errors and got stuck on the north side.  I think the days potential was limited, and I didn't have the horsepower to reach the clouds east of I-5, but a faster vehicle might have done better.  Some sailplane pilots flew north several hundred miles from Crystal Air to Austin NV (352 miles).  They started further east and likely didn't have the north wind to contend with?

Preflight Perceptions:
Copied from: http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3202

Saturday 8am Update. Still on track for 9 am at Ash Street to be on launch about 10:45.  The mid-level north flow continues to be an issue, so we will likely need to use one of the north launch, perhaps our original 5500 foot option because the "Parking Lot" launch is overgrown.  Hope to follow the feed line cross wind east bound along the south side of the range toward Lake Pyramid, but if there is too much north flow we may opt to try and pull a glide to toward beach as a consolation if we can leave high enough.

__________________
Friday Night Posting 9 am at Ash Street in Ventura for Pine on Saturday.

Friday was likely ODed with T-Storms.  The wind looks more favorable on Sunday, but the lift looks like it goes higher on Saturday.  Saturday is showing some north in the winds aloft from Pine through the western Antelope Valley.  If you can get to Hwy 14 it should be a tailwind from there.  On Sunday the wind is light from the west but it is colder at altitude on Saturday.  Saturday's altitude might be limited by cloudbase while Sunday's altitude will likely be limited by the top of the lift.  We might need to launch from the north side on Saturday with trigger line (convergence?) running down the south side of the range toward Lake Pyramid.  No need to detour up to Lockwood Valley.
John Scott and Jonathan are coming up from LA with Edward Skow for crew.

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