Pilot report

The boundary between those two air masses is where the shear lives, and that shear produces turbulence that neither you nor your Nexrad is going to see coming.

Pilot reports, PIREPs, are your primary real-time intelligence for CAT.

There is no radar return, no satellite image, no model output that gives you the resolution of an actual pilot telling you there's moderate chop between flight level two four zero and flight level two six zero on Victor Airway two thirty-one.

When you receive that information, use it.

A good weather briefer can help you identify mountain wave risk.

So can a PIREP from someone who flew the route an hour ago.

PIREPs.

Let me close on this point, because it's the one that makes the whole system work better for everyone.

and then they landed the aircraft.

Now, here's my question is, because that happened, did those pilots give a pilot report, they call it a PIREP, to say, hey, there's some problems with this airport.

We're having some wind shear at low levels.

And did that get communicated back to them? The fact that they did not declare an emergency or make an immediate go-round tells me that they probably didn't have that information.

The graphical ARMAT system provides better spatial resolution than the old text format in many cases.

But even those are broad pilot reports, PIREPs, from aircraft that have recently been in the area are invaluable and underutilized.

If you're flying into a mountain airport and there are no recent PIREPs, consider filing one on the way in.

You're contributing to a system that other pilots depend on.

Local knowledge is irreplaceable.