How reliable will ATC vector you around thunderstorms?

Center weather is subject to the same delays as your own satellite weather, but also has the hidden danger in that they can filter out returns by altitude, and can filter out returns by intensity. If there’s embedded convection, and you are IMC, you need onboard radar, unless you like high stakes gambling. I had ATC try to run me into a thunderstorm outside of Denver one day that they could not see on their approach control radar. Probably due to filters related to terrain, or something. I refused to fly into the thunderstorm. They were quite insistent, that their scope didn’t show anything. I was unimpressed with their scope. I ended up having to declare an emergency to fly off course as they were insistent. I took plenty of pictures of my onboard radar, Nexrad and storm scope, as well as pictures of the actual thunderstorm once below the bases just in case. But nothing ever came of it. I imagine shortly after I Vectored off course their screen blew up.
 
My scary anecdote...

I was flying my daughter to a summer camp near New Bern, NC in my Tiger. The weather was a bit rough, in and out of clouds and rain. I think I was getting vectors from Cherry Point Marine base and one of those vectors headed me towards some very dark and ominous skies. I asked what their radar was showing, and the controller replied they didn’t have weather radar! Obviously we survived, but lesson learned!
 
FastEddieB said:
My scary anecdote...

I was flying my daughter to a summer camp near New Bern, NC in my Tiger. The weather was a bit rough, in and out of clouds and rain. I think I was getting vectors from Cherry Point Marine base and one of those vectors headed me towards some very dark and ominous skies. I asked what their radar was showing, and the controller replied they didn’t have weather radar! Obviously we survived, but lesson learned!
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That was probably quite a few years ago. Cherry Point upgraded maybe 10 years ago to ASR-11 which has weather radar. Their previous version (ASR-8) had no weather radar.

However, even the old analog systems (no weather processor) depict precip and ATC had / has the authority to issue position information and vectors around it. Personally prefer the precip depiction better than today’s digital weather processors. At any rate, that NKT controller should’ve provided you with some sort of info on what they were painting. If they said they weren’t showing anything, then they had an inhibitor (circular polarization) on.
 
iamtheari said:
You'll hear things like "there is an area of moderate to heavy precipitation at your 12 o'clock, 25 miles, let us know if you need to divert around it" but I don't think you'll ever get "turn left heading 290, vectors between two areas of extreme precipitation."
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I get vectors for heavy rain from ATC. I’ve been vectored between two heavy-to-extreme rain cells. It was a completely smooth ride. The plane stayed dry until later in that flight when I went through some light showers.

Their radar feed is much more up-to-date than my ADS-B or XM weather data.
 
wayne said:
Their radar feed is much more up-to-date than my ADS-B or XM weather data.
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depends on whether you are talking to center or approach control. Center has the same delay as what you see in your plane. Depending on refresh cycles coin flip on who has the most recent refresh.
 
PaulS said:
...The video you posted is a good example of the danger of using adsb to steer around storms.
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I believe the pilot in that video was using XM , and definitely not ADS-B.
Although I’ve found ADS-B can also have quite a lag, so perhaps that was your point. The scary thing to me is often I find ADS-B is only 4 minutes or so behind, but every now and then it gets 20+ minutes behind without warning.
 
Country Flier said:
I believe the pilot in that video was using XM , and definitely not ADS-B.
Although I’ve found ADS-B can also have quite a lag, so perhaps that was your point. The scary thing to me is often I find ADS-B is only 4 minutes or so behind, but every now and then it gets 20+ minutes behind without warning.
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No appreciable difference between the two in this context. Both are subject to the same time lag issues. As they say, use them strategically but not tactically.
 
As others said, it is our responsibility. ATC can help and some facilities are more helpful than others. This is actually a pretty good subject you can learn a lot about from YouTube. BaronPilot in particular has a number of videos showing dodging Florida convection including interaction with ATC, and both accepting and rejecting recommendations.

If you want ATC assistance, ask for it. Clarify with them what they can and will provide. I did an IFR flight from Myrtle Beach back home on a convective day. My clearance was direct. Reading it back, I asked, "Will departure be able to vector me around those buildups to the north?" They did, eventually amending my route to keep me west of the easterly moving line. In other situations, it was up to me to request the deviations. And diversions.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Isn’t that how all radar works?
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Yeah but some can see smaller amounts of water. (Smaller droplets or even water vapor.) And then there’s Doppler effect... so essentially looking at moisture laden wind...

Watching the antenna motors work on a Doppler On Wheels scanning a storm is almost as much fun as watching the storm.
 
jordane93 said:
Also sometimes their echoes are wrong or delayed. They’ve told me there’s heavy to extreme precipitation in the FLs right ahead of me and it was severe CAVU
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Exactly. ATC may be looking at a display of weather similar to your XM/ADSB with the same latency. This may not be the case with more advanced weather radar available at some ATC facilities with much faster updates but one recent experience, in the Canadian Moose Jaw area, near the US border brought this point home. While on an IFR southeast bound with onboard XM and maybe ADSB (near the US border) and Stormscope, there was a relatively narrow line of TSW headed northeast. I was in the clear and could see the line cutting me off my track. I could see the buildups about 40 to 50 miles apart with a layers joining them at 9k. Atc asked if I had weather avoidance equipment on board and I answered affirmatively. I picked a course between the buildups where the Xm/Adsb was showing red but my Stormscope was clear and my eyeballs could see no buildups past the line. Atc, trying to be helpful, offered a course that would take me right at a visual buildup and that the Stormscope lit up. I told him I was keeping my selected course. After slowing down to well below maneuvering speed, I rode out a relatively mild set of mild up/downdrafts which smoothed out. After 5-10 minutes I was on the backside of it and in the clear to cross the border into KMOT. ATC’s selected course would probably have been good 15 min earlier.
 
I can now speak from new found experience, they will put you into a nice pile of clouds when vectoring you for an approach. I keyed up once I could maintain control and asked for a new heading and this was the reply, “you are between two buildups.” Sigh.
 
David Megginson said:
On that note, even weather radar by itself isn't ideal, since heavy precip doesn't correlate perfectly with storm clouds
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If I could only have one weather avoidance device, it would be onboard wx radar. That gives the best chance of avoiding hazardous weather, (the kind that tears your plane up) which is the bottom line.
 
martym said:
If I could only have one weather avoidance device, it would be onboard wx radar. That gives the best chance of avoiding hazardous weather, (the kind that tears your plane up) which is the bottom line.
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Fair enough, but in a hypothetical situation where my only paths to survival were to fly through red returns without lightning or scattered yellow returns with lightning, I'd pick the red returns. Red sometimes means hazardous weather; lightning always means hazardous weather (even when the radar doesn't look so bad).
 
My worst nightmare is being vectored through CB's only to fly around one and have another smack on the nose. I request vectors around WX, not through.

I hate those things that look like suharo cacti.​
 
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David Megginson said:
Fair enough, but in a hypothetical situation where my only paths to survival were to fly through red returns without lightning or scattered yellow returns with lightning, I'd pick the red returns. Red sometimes means hazardous weather; lightning always means hazardous weather (even when the radar doesn't look so bad).
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Well, I would never make a tactical weather decision based on solely on echo reflectivity or lightning as that would be a woefully underinformed decision.
 
martym said:
Well, I would never make a tactical weather decision based on solely on echo reflectivity or lightning as that would be a woefully underinformed decision.
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I think you missed the "in a hypothetical situation where..." part of my post, just like your "If I could only have one weather avoidance device..." post.

In real life, of course, you and I both use all the resources available to us, not just the devices and ATC alerts, but noting changes in OAT, wind direction, etc. But you were hypothesizing about which is the single most important.
 
masloki said:
I can now speak from new found experience, they will put you into a nice pile of clouds when vectoring you for an approach. I keyed up once I could maintain control and asked for a new heading and this was the reply, “you are between two buildups.” Sigh.
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Only the best NWS radar in very specific modes can see clouds for the most part. Not a new thing. Vast majority of the time they're in modes that only see precipitation. And most datafeeds to other services don't include the raw data or advanced storm modes.
 
I was headed into LOM one year, and PHL approach said they had level 5 precip parked over BUNTS, and gave me vectors and an approach to come in from the north.
 
I was flying from PA to MA Sunday, there was a line of rain on my route about 50 miles ahead, wasn't really a thunderstorm, but it was pretty turbulent stuff. I was contemplating going south of it when NY center called me with a route change around it. That's happened to me about 3 or 4 times in the past month.
 
PaulS said:
I was flying from PA to MA Sunday, there was a line of rain on my route about 50 miles ahead, wasn't really a thunderstorm, but it was pretty turbulent stuff. I was contemplating going south of it when NY center called me with a route change around it. That's happened to me about 3 or 4 times in the past month.
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Sometimes in the past ATC has suggested a deviation to me not because of what they see on their own displays, but because of what other pilots have been reporting.
 
Here in the mid-west pop-up thunderstorms we deal with almost every day all summer long. In my experience, if you let ATC know that you have weather ahead they will give you instructions like "Course deviations approved, let me know when you are back direct destination."
 
In my local area, the controllers (Great Lakes Approach) are hypersensitive to what they see on their radar. They will literally suggest vectors around sprinkles. I'm not complaining mind you, just funny sometimes, "I'm showing light precipitation at your 12 o'clock, let us know if you'd like to deviate..." then I look ahead and see a single, happy looking cloud! Its happened more than once. Can't say they don't have your back here.
 
Potomac Approach is really good at it, in my experience. Two nights ago on the way back home, was seeing lots of cells between me and home... and one fairly large one right OVER home. The one over home field triggered a special ATIS with thunderstorms, lightning, heavy rain, winds gusting (I think 35 or 40?)... Potomac must have some good radar, because they were able to get me around the cells, buttonhook around the west of the airport, then set me up for what turned out to be the visual approach. By that time, the storms had cleared off to the south (I was landing south) and I could see them in the near-distance. Although it was a bit ominous when they handed me off to tower... the approach controller said, "Good luck, guy.."... Hmmmm...
 
tawood said:
In my local area, the controllers (Great Lakes Approach) are hypersensitive to what they see on their radar. They will literally suggest vectors around sprinkles. I'm not complaining mind you, just funny sometimes, "I'm showing light precipitation at your 12 o'clock, let us know if you'd like to deviate..." then I look ahead and see a single, happy looking cloud! Its happened more than once. Can't say they don't have your back here.
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Airline pilots are hypersensitive about bumps, because they make their paying passengers unhappy — I always hear them on the radio asking for ride reports and different altitudes. That's probably made controllers extra cautious.
 
tawood said:
In my local area, the controllers (Great Lakes Approach) are hypersensitive to what they see on their radar. They will literally suggest vectors around sprinkles. I'm not complaining mind you, just funny sometimes, "I'm showing light precipitation at your 12 o'clock, let us know if you'd like to deviate..." then I look ahead and see a single, happy looking cloud! Its happened more than once. Can't say they don't have your back here.
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One night I had a controller in a restricted area that kept issuing areas of moderate precip in front of us. I guess he was expected us to deviate because he finally got exasperated and said “Ok, I’m confused here, I keep issuing moderate precipitation to you and you keep flying right through it???”I laughed and politely informed him that while his radar might very well show moderate areas, that doesn’t mean it’s convective and it doesn’t mean it’s less than VFR.;)
 
David Megginson said:
Airline pilots are hypersensitive about bumps, because they make their paying passengers unhappy — I always hear them on the radio asking for ride reports and different altitudes. That's probably made controllers extra cautious.
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Paying passengers? Eff that. The bumps make it harder to drink coffee and read my free USA Today. ;)
 
jordane93 said:
Also sometimes their echoes are wrong or delayed. They’ve told me there’s heavy to extreme precipitation in the FLs right ahead of me and it was severe CAVU
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Back in my early KC-135 days, we flew with Navigators and an old crappy monochromatic radars. It wasn't uncommon on a clear and a million day to have the nav with his head buried in the radar telling us that we need to deviate for a thunderstorm up ahead. We'd tell him to un-bury his head and take a look out the window... you're having us deviate around St. Louis.
 
Velocity173 said:
Yes to all the above. I’ve done all of that on approach countless times. But, that was 25 years ago. With the technology we have in the cockpit today, I don’t see much of a need in vectors around weather. ATC has an advantage in refresh rate vs FIS-B / NEXRAD. Pretty much instantaneous for analog (ASR8) and about 30 secs for digital (ASR11). Their depiction is pretty poor vs in the cockpit color returns though.
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Old friend of mine was working ATL approach during some of this.

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Here's what happens to Memphis when a storm hits the field.
 
Sluggo63 said:
Here's what happens to Memphis when a storm hits the field.
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Ugh. Thunderstorms suck when they’re over the field. Multiple runways help but so many stories of close calls and last minute diverts.
 
In 2004 an A36 Bonanza N55448 crashed in Missouri after flying into a thunderstorm. The widows of the three victims sued the federal government, charging that controllers directed the aircraft into a dangerous thunderstorm causing the crash. Air traffic controllers vectored the plane south of its original flight path to avoid a line of storms. Reportedly, the A36 turned east at 8:10 pm, and was handed off to a new controller in Kansas City, who erred by not giving any more weather guidance. The lawsuits claim by 8:36 pm, the plane disappeared off radar as it flew into a thunderstorm, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Does anyone know the outcome of the lawsuit?
 
Is this a rhetorical question where you tell us the answer? There are a very few lawyers amongst the much more likely flurry of pot stirring posts that are about to follow.
But the general answer is many parties were sued. Some had insurance that paid.
 
masloki said:
Is this a rhetorical question where you tell us the answer? There are a very few lawyers amongst the much more likely flurry of pot stirring posts that are about to follow.
But the general answer is many parties were sued. Some had insurance that paid.
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No, it's not rhetorical. The case was Kracke/Fox/Shearer v United States of America. I can't find the results.
 
They should have charged the widow for any costs the government incurred because of the accident. Flying in weather that contains embedded thunderstorms is so far beyond stupid if you don’t have onboard operating weather radar that it should have its own category of dumb.
 
The thing to remember, the controller is sitting in a dark room with no windows. Their only picture of the weather is from PIREPs, and radar. Radar has its limitations, especially around rapidly building, fast moving storms. I've had ATC try to vector me into build-ups they couldn't see...yet. I've also had a controller absolutely convinced I was about to die, because of a cell of heavy to extreme precipitation on his scope...on a cloudless CAVU day. In both cases it wasn't the controller's fault, just a limitation of the technology.
 
Jeff767 said:
They should have charged the widow for any costs the government incurred because of the accident. Flying in weather that contains embedded thunderstorms is so far beyond stupid if you don’t have onboard operating weather radar that it should have its own category of dumb.
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True, but that doesn't answer my question.
 
midwestpa24 said:
The thing to remember, the controller is sitting in a dark room with no windows. Their only picture of the weather is from PIREPs, and radar. Radar has its limitations, especially around rapidly building, fast moving storms. I've had ATC try to vector me into build-ups they couldn't see...yet. I've also had a controller absolutely convinced I was about to die, because of a cell of heavy to extreme precipitation on his scope...on a cloudless CAVU day. In both cases it wasn't the controller's fault, just a limitation of the technology.
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True, but that doesn't answer my question.
 
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