Condor Weather - hints and tips

[Geepers]

Getting more into RL gliding and weather prediction has led to a few questions about Condor weather settings. And also attempting to start a an ongoing conversation to draw out hints and tips for simulating various weather scenarios as an aid to task setters in Condor.

So questions first...

1. Wind:
a. Should wind be set for surface; thermal layer average; or thermal top?
b. Does Condor alter wind direction with increasing altitude (due to Coriolis) and if so does direction depend in the hemisphere for the landscape?
c. With higher wind settings does Condor simulate wind shear for landings/take-offs?
d. How are vertical layers or Condor 'air' affected by boundary of different weather zones? Can zones provide differences in the vertical above a given location? (For example the other day in RL there was a cooler, more stable - and later moister - airmass moving into our mountains. The result was the valleys weren't working whereas the hills and mountains, depending on position, were providing plenty of lift. Can sim the effect by setting flats activity to zero. However there was a a carpet wind of increasing strength creeping into the valley at the airfield later in the day and that's not so easy to sim with flats activity alone.)

2. Thermal settings:
a. Within a weather zones do temps change as the day progresses?

3. Wave settings:
a. At our flying site we often have wave interacting with thermal production and ridge lift, both positively and negatively. In Condor is there a way to guesstimate wave minimum altitude for settings so such interactions are likely to occur? (Expecting that any interactions themselves will be highly dependent on wind direction, mountain ridge shapes, etc, so likely to need quite a bit of experimentation to find. But so far not been able to induce any such interactions.)
b. Is there a way to have rotor clouds appear in Condor?



Hopefully some of the experienced task and weather setters can chime in with lessons learnt and techniques/clues for creating interesting weather effects within the very impressive toolset we already have with C3.

[wickid]

As far as I know, only Uros knows for sure:

a. Should wind be set for surface; thermal layer average; or thermal top?

Wind you set in the flightplanner is the thermal layer wind. In the wave tab you can set the wind above the inversion

b. Does Condor alter wind direction with increasing altitude (due to Coriolis) and if so does direction depend in the hemisphere for the landscape?

Not sure

c. With higher wind settings does Condor simulate wind shear for landings/take-offs?

Yes, wind gradients due to surface friction and wind shading by terrain are modelled.

d. How are vertical layers or Condor 'air' affected by boundary of different weather zones? Can zones provide differences in the vertical above a given location? (For example the other day in RL there was a cooler, more stable - and later moister - airmass moving into our mountains. The result was the valleys weren't working whereas the hills and mountains, depending on position, were providing plenty of lift. Can sim the effect by setting flats activity to zero. However there was a a carpet wind of increasing strength creeping into the valley at the airfield later in the day and that's not so easy to sim with flats activity alone.)

Not completely sure what you mean. Weatherzones alter the base weather. You can increase or lower cloudbase, change wind direction, thermal strenght ect ect. There is a definable boundary zone where Condor blends one weather into the other. Overlapping zones average the weather between them. Convergence can happen when you put the weatherzone wind opposite to the base layer wind.

a. Within a weather zones do temps change as the day progresses?

Yes, the temperature you set is the maximum temperature. Early in the day cloudbase will be lower, as the air needs to heat up to the temperature you set.

a. At our flying site we often have wave interacting with thermal production and ridge lift, both positively and negatively. In Condor is there a way to guesstimate wave minimum altitude for settings so such interactions are likely to occur? (Expecting that any interactions themselves will be highly dependent on wind direction, mountain ridge shapes, etc, so likely to need quite a bit of experimentation to find. But so far not been able to induce any such interactions.)

Yes, wave affects ridge below. It depends on inversion height. A downdraft part of the wave can completely kill ridgelift. Vice versa, an updraft can strengthen the ridge below. You can alter the wave lenght by setting the airmass stability. You can find settings that puts the wave in phase with the ridge, and out of phase with a ridge altering the strength of the ridgelift.

b. Is there a way to have rotor clouds appear in Condor?

No, rotor is not modelled.

[Geepers]

Thanks for the reply and info, wick. All good stuff to know.

Couple of points to clarify and (of course) some extra questions...

Not completely sure what you mean. Weatherzones alter the base weather. You can increase or lower cloudbase, change wind direction, thermal strenght ect ect. There is a definable boundary zone where Condor blends one weather into the other. Overlapping zones average the weather between them. Convergence can happen when you put the weatherzone wind opposite to the base layer wind.

Meant the ability to sit one airmass on top of another. Haven't played around much with zones and the boundaries between and wondered if a colder zone would slide somewhat under a hotter zone, at least for some pre-defined or configurable distance. Been doing some modifications to my Condor rig and now it's back in action will experiment.

Yes, wave affects ridge below. It depends on inversion height. A downdraft part of the wave can completely kill ridgelift. Vice versa, an updraft can strengthen the ridge below. You can alter the wave lenght by setting the airmass stability. You can find settings that puts the wave in phase with the ridge, and out of phase with a ridge altering the strength of the ridgelift.

Was wondering if there was some rough rules of thumb for guidance in, say, how low the Condor wave will reach - not much point in looking around ridges 7,000 ft high if the Condor wave doesn't come down to that level. (In New Zealand the RL wave comes right down to ground level.) So far a fair bit of experimenting but not been able to find any interaction. But was looking at impact on thermal rather than ridge lift. Maybe Condor wave doesn't affect thermals?


And the extra questions...
a. Is there some guidance on how thermal strength setting (weak, moderate, strong, etc) affects climb rate? Something along the lines of: weak = 200 to 300fpm; moderate=400 to 600 fpm, etc. Did some experimenting however unsure if I'm finding/working representative samples of thermals for any given settings.
b. Are these strengths fairly consistent through a range of temperature settings?

[n98Bk9-NT3]

From my experience as a Condor task setter, it is difficult to calculate the climb rate from thermal strength directly.

• In the late afternoon or in the winter time when the sun is lower, the climb rate becomes lower.

• With stronger turbulence of thermal, the climb rate becomes lower.

• Thicker high clouds make the sunlight weaker, which makes also the thermal weaker even though the thermal strength setting is strong.

• When you set higher variations of thermal strength, you may find quite stronger thermal than you expected in some places. Therefore, the average strength of all thermals and MC value set by pilots could be different.

In the Condor2, it was not so difficult to make tasks. I needed test flights just around the start area. I could expect that task was flyable or not easily.

But, in the Condor3, there are weather zones and different weather modeling. I need to fly tasks at least until the final glide area. While it’s time-consuming, I enjoy making challenging tasks.

Naoki

[wickid]

Cloud base height, thermal width and flatland or mountains also affect thermal strenght. There are so many variables going into that calculation that it is impossible to say to put numbers on "weak" or "strong".

[Geepers]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Guess I'll stop trying to too exactly replicate RL conditions. It seems to do an acceptable enough job just matching temps, high cloud cover and everything else set to about medium.