Rainy Monday

The trip back from Salt Lake City was intended to take advantage of a nice high pressure area over the western U.S. While it has held up mostly as expected, it appears that a southerly flow (maybe even from hurricane Fausto?) brought more moisture than originally forecast. I had seen that the forecast changed from mostly clear to overcast, and then scattered showers were added to the mix. Even so, the perpetual afternoon thunderstorms were also still expected.

On the drive to the airport, I kept a watchful eye to the north to see which side of the Salt Lake valley looked the best. There was a nearly solid curtain of showers across the valley, but I could still make out Antelope Island on the west side, so I decided on that direction. This was different than what I had mapped out last night, as I tried to tighten up the route a bit to make it in one shot with no fuel stops. Nevertheless, the clouds were high up and visibility below 12,000 feet was at least 10 miles, so everything was legal. The only concern was my comfort level with venturing off into some light precipitation.

As before, I tried to obtain flight following while on the ground at U42, via the Clearance Delivery frequency. I was simply told to remain clear of the Class B and contact approach for a VFR transition. As I sat on the ramp with the engine running, I looked over the charts for another few minutes, to mentally assign myself the proper altitudes at the proper sectors, at least until otherwise directed.

It was even smoother today than on the trip down, due to the cloud cover, so I thought that would continue as I moved north to outrun the rain. As it happened, Approach vectored me further out to the west than I really wanted to be, and I had to stay fairly low. This, combined with the now-steady rain, was starting to give me concern. As I reached Antelope Island, I requested to go direct to Ogden (OGD) since the rain looked at least a bit lighter that way (and it was more on my desired route). I was allowed to turn east as long as I stayed low (about 1,700 AGL at this point).

I puttered along, with the rain not really causing me much trouble, but lowering the visibility through the canopy. I finally made it out the north side of the Class B, and was cleared to proceed on course. I planned to fly a standard VFR altitude of 11,500 feet, but the clouds were lower in this area, so I had to stay a bit lower. I was able to "cheat" a little, by staying around 10,000 feet over terrain that had risen to about 7,000 (so, with less than 3,000 AGL, exempt from the "hemispheric rule"). I asked a few times what the precipitation looked like to the north, and was basically told that "what you see is what it is". So I continued to dodge heavier showers and aim for the higher visibility all the way up to Malad City, Idaho.

There, I could look back and see the rain from the other side. It was still overcast, but the clouds were much higher, there was the rare spot of sunlight peeking through, and I could climb up to 11,500 as planned. This was all the more desirable, since 10,000 had put me under the radar coverage, so I had to call ZLC back and request it again.

The rest of the flight went on without incident, although I did still pick up some early-afternoon thermal turbulence in Montana. I was happy to have successfully navigated and changed course as necessary to thread through the rain. It was also nice to have spent so much time in the air traffic environment. If you haven't yet given it a try, go for it!