Friday, July 20, 2018

I've never seen anything like this before

Speaking of ominous developments, have you noticed how much  more often you hear the phrase, "I've never seen anything like this before" in reference to the weather nowadays?  Well, now it's my turn.  For those of you who don't know, I'm a private pilot.  I got my license in 1996 so I've been flying for over 22 years.  This is a map of south-western Oregon as it showed up on my flight planning software this morning:


(This is not what I would actually look at to plan a flight.  I've turned off all the aviation-y things that would normally show up, like airports.)

See those red circles?  Those are Temporary Flight Restrictions, commonly known as TFRs.  They are places you can't fly for various reasons, like if the President is in town.  But those are not presidential TFRs, they are fire-fighting TFRs.  Those are not uncommon this time of year, but usually there are only one or two of them in any given area.  Today in this part of Oregon alone there are ten.

I've never seen anything even remotely like this before.

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