Foreflight weather question

[ayryq]

Attached is a screenshot of Foreflight's daily/hourly weather. (The specific image is the vicinity and time of my scheduled checkride )
I'm wondering about the wind which is forecast "285° @ 19-28"
I'm speculating that the 28 is the gusts but can't actually find any confirmation anywhere of this. It seems an odd omission in their very lengthy documentation. They made it look like a range, when they could have put "19G28" like we're used to seeing, so maybe it's just a probability range for wind—and gusts aren't forecast. Does anyone have any insight on what these numbers mean.... or how I could have found this on my own (apart from contacting Foreflight support, which I have done—I await their reply).
Thanks

 

[ArrowFlyer86]

Attached is a screenshot of Foreflight's daily/hourly weather. (The specific image is the vicinity and time of my scheduled checkride )
I'm wondering about the wind which is forecast "285° @ 19-28"
I'm speculating that the 28 is the gusts but can't actually find any confirmation anywhere of this. It seems an odd omission in their very lengthy documentation. They made it look like a range, when they could have put "19G28" like we're used to seeing, so maybe it's just a probability range for wind—and gusts aren't forecast. Does anyone have any insight on what these numbers mean.... or how I could have found this on my own (apart from contacting Foreflight support, which I still may do).
Thanks

I'd bet that's gusts, not just uncertainty in the wind number. But I don't really rely on that data for precise flight planning.

Here's where the daily data is sourced: https://support.foreflight.com/hc/e...t-is-the-source-of-the-10-Day-hourly-forecast

Using the MOS data for KSDC, it seems to predict roughly the same.

 

[ayryq]

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that the MOS uses the same hyphenated formatting. I'd bet it's gusts too, but why can't I find anything that says so?
I found that FAQ but The Weather Company does not have their data available for the public online, so I was unable to correlate Foreflight's display with the source data. It doesn't ever quite match any other online source of weather I've found.

 

[ArrowFlyer86]

Also, you can use windy.com as another source, which clearly labels the gusts. I believe you can just plug in your airport code and see the wx forecast.

 

[Racerx]

The foreflight daily forecast gives you an idea but I've found pretty inaccurate at least when it comes to ceilings. Don’t use the MOS (computer generated, not official) or the daily for the checkride. It will open a can of worms. At most you can say “they’re nice to glance at to get a sense of interpolated weather, but I make decisions based on approved sources”.

If you open up the prog chart what does it show for roughly your checkride time. Yes. This is a checkride test prep question. Aviation weather has some great gfa's

 

[ayryq]

Also, you can use windy.com as another source, which clearly labels the gusts. I believe you can just plug in your airport code and see the wx forecast.

Yes! I have a Windy.com premium subscription. It also lets you check different models when you're trying to find a reason to hope that you can go.
On this day Windy is showing much higher gusts than 28kt.

 

[ArrowFlyer86]

Thanks, I hadn't noticed the the MOS uses the same hyphenated formatting. I'd bet it's gusts too, but why can't I find anything that says so?
I found that FAQ but The Weather Company does not have their data available for the public online, so I was unable to correlate Foreflight's display with the source data. It doesn't ever quite match any other online source of weather I've found.

The dash separator is the same format used by METARs and TAFs in ForeFlight to display gusts, and thus I'd assume the same for MOS. It just substitutes "G" in the string for a dash.
You can verify this by looking at the raw METAR/TAF string available against the decoded, more readable version.

 

[ayryq]

The dash separator is the same format used by METARs and TAFs in ForeFlight to display gusts, and thus I'd assume the same for MOS. It just substitutes "G" in the string for a dash.
You can verify this by looking at the raw METAR/TAF string available against the decoded, more readable version.

OK that's a good find, you must be right.

 

[ArrowFlyer86]

The foreflight daily forecast gives you an idea but I've found pretty inaccurate at least when it comes to ceilings. Don’t use the MOS (computer generated, not official) or the daily for the checkride. It will open a can of worms. At most you can say “they’re nice to glance at to get a sense of interpolated weather, but I make decisions based on approved sources”.

If you open up the prog chart what does it show for roughly your checkride time. Yes. This is a checkride test prep question. Aviation weather has some great gfa's

Agree. METAR+TAFs are what I use for real flight planning. MOS and DAILY view are just helpful to see multiple days out. They can give you a rough sanity check of whether you should get a rental car and prepare to drive instead of fly
Personally, I get very little use out of prog charts unless I'm flying a long distance and I'm multiple days out.

 

[Racerx]

Agree. METAR+TAFs are what I use for real flight planning. MOS and DAILY view are just helpful to see multiple days out. They can give you a rough sanity check of whether you should get a rental car and prepare to drive instead of fly
Personally, I get very little use out of prog charts unless I'm flying a long distance and I'm multiple days out.

Was just using the prog to cross-check the winds in this scenario. Very tight isobars in OP's area. But generally I do the same with the prog. My dpe leaned very heavy into weather and using the mos or daily, he definitely would have queried more.

 

[ayryq]

Just to tie this up, I heard back from Foreflight support confirming that the "Dash" is for gusts.
And also, no checkride today.