19 June 2010

No flying today (Sat)

We awoke to overcast skies again today and the forecasts said  60% chance of rain in the morning and the afternoon could go either way.  The rain appeared during the pilots' meeting and there was a chance of CB's in the afternoon, so everyone was told to rig and stage near the terminal, but not to push out to the grid in case a CB appeared.

After checking the weather again at noon and with no sign of CB's on the radar, we gridded and launched a sniffer as a band of towering Cu moved over the airport.  As the sniffer was on tow he reported rain and soon the rain hit the grid.  It poured for about 30 minutes and all the gliders and many of the pilots were soaked.  The ground at the edge of the runway had about 2 inches of standing water.  Meanwhile, the sniffer who was able to climb away and move out of the rain found good conditions away from the airport.

With the amount of rain that fell and all the drenched pilots, the day was scrubbed at about 2:30.  I towed back to my trailer to dry the glider off and de-rig, and as soon as I had it nicely dried, another shower came through, lasting about 20 minutes -so I dried my glider for a third time today (see rain during pilots' meeting in the morning) and finally got it put away dry. 

As the rain was falling around the airport, a good field of cu could be seen to the east and southeast and nice cu lasted until about 7:30 pm, unfortunately with the rain right over the airport, we could not get launch and get everyone to the cu.

The forecast looks great for the next few days, and if the airmass we saw after the rain today sticks around, we expect some great Saskatchewan conditions.
Dave

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