Today's Weather Diversions Underway

[Grahame Hutchison]

VH-VOO operating VOZ741 was tracking normally from YMML to YBCG, then just short of Mudgee made a 90+ degree left turn towards Dubbo, descending
to FL080 initially then climbing to FL110. They then made a right turn and continued to track back towards TBCG. The diversion was due to the storm front
heading in from the west. The tower made mention of possible 41kt winds as the front passes through Sydney.





This is what the front looked like over the Airport Runways at 1412-AEDT.



1416-AEDT The front just hit, 35kts of crosswind and some missed approaches, namely QLK39D VH-QOF, ANZ719 ZK-OJB. The Tower just confirmed the
wind as 250 @ 35kts all crosswind.

1418-AEDT Departures now closed.

Plenty of aircraft waiting to depart ...


1423-AEDT Tower advised they will probably stay with the 34 direction, once the front has passed.



1433-AEDT The decision is to change runways to the 16 direction, this will be fun for ATC and
the 15+ Aircraft involved ...


1437-AEDT The Runway 34R traffic is now backtracking down the Runway to T2 for a 16R/L departure,
depending on destination - musical aircraft. The 34L traffic looped back onto Alpha via Alpha 5.



Form a circle !


1453-AEDT Departures underway again.

And then there are the arrivals to process ...

[Adrian B]

Hope you guys have the wellies on...

[Martin Buzzell]

Great info Grahame, very interesting. Thanks. Any idea why the Virgin en-route to YBCG descended?

[George G]

Why does the fun stuff always happen when im at work??

[MarkR]

Originally Posted by Martin Buzzell

Great info Grahame, very interesting. Thanks. Any idea why the Virgin en-route to YBCG descended?

I don't think the drop occurred, flightaware does not show it. To drop to that indicated level would indicate a pressurisation issue, not avoiding thunderstorms which are very unlikely to have a 10000ft floor.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Hi Mark, I was surprised by the indicated drop in altitude, which came up on my own network of ADS-B receivers - and they feed to Flightaware. At first I thought they were diverting to Dubbo, then realised it was a weather issue.

[MarkR]

Weird, looking at the flight aware data they picked up the turn west but Tamworth, Armidale and Richmond all have the aircraft at FL390

[Grahame Hutchison]

I had another look at the FlightAware altitude data Mark, and noticed there was a 162ft/min descent rate on one of the transmissions when they took up a westerly heading. As the location where this happened is right on the edge of our reception range, I would presume that the last data transmission we received was the 162ft/min descent, and our software then predicted the descending westward track until timeout. I noticed on our live map that the aircraft did drop off a couple of times.

[Grahame Hutchison]

2039-AEDT After an extended period of fine and calm conditions, the wind is back, there have been several missed approaches (Qantas, Virgin and Rex), and many reports of wind sheer up to 30kts (on arrivals and departures).

The Romeo ATIS is showing the wind at 170/20-30kts

[Kent Broadhead]

Windy again this morning. I noticed a 773 at around 0620 tracking west after what I assume was a missed approach, given the reasonably low altitude?