Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

1 Answers

Airmet Zulu

Asked by: 5842 views , ,
Weather

As we know, an Airmet Zulu will be issued for moderate icing.  After further research, I have found this to be particular confusing.  Say an Airmet Zulu is issued for the surface-10,000'msl.  The OVC base is at say 5,000'msl and the surface temperature is 60 degrees farenheit with light rain showers in the area. Now, where are we going to find the icing? In ANY visible moisture(clouds/rain)? ABOVE the freezing level? If we are flying below the freezing level but still in visible moisture(clouds/rain) could we still pick up icing? Do supercooled water droplets or freezing rain get mentioned in the specific airmet?

Ace Any FAA Written Test!
Actual FAA Questions / Free Lifetime Updates
The best explanations in the business
Fast, efficient study.
Pass Your Checkride With Confidence!
FAA Practical Test prep that reflects actual checkrides.
Any checkride: Airplane, Helicopter, Glider, etc.
Written and maintained by actual pilot examiners and master CFIs.
The World's Most Trusted eLogbook
Be Organized, Current, Professional, and Safe.
Highly customizable - for student pilots through pros.
Free Transition Service for users of other eLogs.
Our sincere thanks to pilots such as yourself who support AskACFI while helping themselves by using the awesome PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android aviation apps of our sponsors.

1 Answers



  1. Mark Kolber on Jan 07, 2016

    I think you are over-complicating it and perhaps looking for a degree of specificity that is not there.

    The Airmet speaks in general terms. It is a forecast of weather conditions over a large area, maybe several states. In the case of Zulu, it is a forecast that conditions in the area are generally conducive to moderate icing. It is not a prediction that any specific location will have ice.

    A hint of this comes from the freezing level forecast, which is usually stated in terms like “FRZLVL….RANGING FROM SFC-105 ACRS AREA” or “MULT FRZLVL BLW …” It doesn’t tell you that you will or won’t encounter ice, or for that matter, clouds, at any specific location any more than the weatherman saying there is a 70% chance of rain in your city means your house will get wet.

    It’s a warning. An advisory. What it tells me as in instrument pilot is, if I am planning a flight in that area I will need to dig a bit deeper as part of my preflight planning and decision-making.

    +1 Votes Thumb up 1 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes


The following terms have been auto-detected the question above and any answers or discussion provided. Click on a term to see its definition from the Dauntless Aviation JargonBuster Glossary.

Answer Question

Our sincere thanks to all who contribute constructively to this forum in answering flight training questions. If you are a flight instructor or represent a flight school / FBO offering flight instruction, you are welcome to include links to your site and related contact information as it pertains to offering local flight instruction in a specific geographic area. Additionally, direct links to FAA and related official government sources of information are welcome. However we thank you for your understanding that links to other sites or text that may be construed as explicit or implicit advertising of other business, sites, or goods/services are not permitted even if such links nominally are relevant to the question asked.