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Phew, long and challenging day! Here's a breakdown of today's invest mission into #91L (now #TD8). First, a little clip from 1500 feet (1/6)
If you were following along today, you probably noticed a delay in the data. Long story short…we were about to takeoff then had an issue that we had to taxi back for. After a tail swap (switch aircraft), we were GTG 
Then, we had a bit of a delay getting clearance down to 1500 feet. Bottom line is for wx recon we require a large chunk of airspace for a long period of time. Sometimes it is simple, sometimes not. But that offset us from our planned entry point, so we had to plan it on the fly
The mission itself was difficult. Others have noted the broad circulation, which combined with the light winds can lead to a lot of "head fakes" if not careful. On a day like today, better to just be patient and map the wind field than to try to chase every potential closed circ
"But why didn't they fly into that center?" Answer: Thunderstorms! We don't like to fly into them! Eyewall at 10K ft is one thing, 1500 ft above the ocean sfc is another. We tried twice to get into that bubble of convection but it wasn't happening. Here's another vantage point:
So there's a little lesson on flying a low level invest! If we can close off the center that's great, but bottom line is to map the winds for the NHC forecasters. Even a "boring" msn like today is still useful. It's all about the data! Oh, and try not to fly under these! (6/6)
