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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Turnerloose At NASA... Thoughts on the Weather

This is a picture of the 3 page, small font, front and back weather procedure for a shuttle launch.


I will not go into everything, seeing as how the "Near Freezing Temperatures" section won't apply.

Basically what we need to worry about as we get to launch day will be thunderstorms and rain.

Thunderstorms can't be within ~30 miles of the launch site... they'll scrub right away if storms are popping up around launch time which is around 11:26 a.m. Friday.

They'll also scrub if there is the potential for rain at any of the emergency landing sites, the shuttle can't land in rain (but the NASA weather team doesn't feel like that should be an issue on launch day).

So that leaves us with the big issue: The timing of thunderstorms.

As we all know, the heat of the afternoon is when things get popping here in the southeast, but especially in Florida, where we're dealing with not one, but two seabreeze fronts. And where you get seabreeze collision, you get uplift and you get the big, tall puffy clouds that make rain and a whole lotta electricity. (See also: Florida, Lightning Capital of the Country).

When will the seabreeze develop? Well that depends on how quickly we heat up that day, as well as interaction with an "easterly wave." So while seabreezes may spark a few tstorms around 3:00 or 4:00 on many occasions, that wave may push it a little earlier. Which could mean lightning around launch.

As of this blogging, the NASA weather forecast, which is given by the U.S. Air Force Range Weather Operations Facility just down the road from Kennedy, is calling for a 60% chance of thunderstorms at the time of launch.

That translates into a 60% chance of delay for the final shuttle launch.

The better option would be Saturday morning.

The best option, though, looks to come on Sunday. Drier air will be punching into the Space Coast.

So, if we are a no-go on Friday, it looks like at worst we're talking about a Sunday departure for Atlantis and her crew.

But, come on, it's just a 60% chance, right?

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