Long Mynd Soaring Club

Friday looks a nice soaring day, cloudy but thermic up to 5000ft late afternoon on Corndon - wind direction ENE - NE but should be about the right speed and direction for ridge soaring as long as not too far NE. Weekend predominantly wet, but Sunday has a narrow band of rain with northerly winds, so there is some chance somewhere might be flyable if it's dry there. ------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, today the forecasts still vary between too light to soar and top end for PG's so I'm not sure. Wind direction between N and NE, so Corndon looks a possibility as long as mostly North. The weather and air improves this afternoon. Wednesday, either the same or slightly less wind and from a NNW to N direction and drier air than today, So more possibilities as some of our NW facing sites do ridge soar reasonably ok when well off to the North, but don't work when it's too West due to hill profiles. ----------------------------- Well this week looks better from Tuesday onwards, though may be a bit windy. Cool, thermic turbulent airmass from the North, makes a change from howling damp south west gales all the time. Tuesday looks to be N to NNE so the north side of Corndon looks on - As long as it is pretty well North or just east of it then that side of the hill provides good soaring with easy access to the bottom landing field adjacent to the main track - much safer for bottom landing than the rocky east side. One thing to note is that because the hill is a bit of a lump in the middle of the lower ground, the wind tends to venturi around it - that creeates a situation where the hill is often perfectly soarable even though windy lower down, but also increases the risk of being blown around either side side of the hill - serious accidents have resulted so be very aware not to extend ridge soaring beats too far from in line with wind direction. Please also note the farmers request to walk up the steep NW footpath to keep away from sheep on main pasture. Wednesday may be similar. Thursday might be westerly for Mynd and good or it might be easterly and rainy - forecasts do not even remotely agree yet!

Update - Solarcam say that UV has caused permanent damage - A common issue recently discovered. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have looked back at images taken exactly two years ago and I could not believe how much the image quality has deteriorated, I suppose it's like eyesight, you don't realise how good it used to be as it's a gradual deterioration. Anyway, I'm waiting for advice from the manufacturer, but my guess is will be for a new device as there's nothing I can do regarding cleaning and I've tried the highest level of quality image which create huge files but no better. ------------------------------------------------------------------- North camera cleaned again 29th Feb, I think there is a very marginal improvement, but at least its better than all the cameras that are not working! ----------------------------------- Cameras at the Long Mynd now back up, picture quality has not improved much though. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update - The Mynd North camera is totally dead from 19th December - flat battery and has auto-powered off until it is manually recharged and rebooted. Lenses will be cleaned on North and South too, hopefully to get the picture quality back again. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mynd cameras both north and south are working intermittently as the solar panels are not getting enough energy at present for the next month or two. May have to turn video off to allow the batteries to build up a bit more. A visit is required to try to clean the camera lens as the picture quality is now very poor, so batteries can be remotely charged then. The Mynd weather station is working fine. Clatter camera also needs a visit and a clean, but the weather station is working fine. Lawley weather station is working intermittently due to poor data signal at the top of the hill. A potential fix has been organised and just waiting for suitable weather and people to be available to carry that out and if it works better the camera will be turned on. The Llangollen camera is nothing to do with us, just on our website with kind permission of the North Wales club, unfortunately it's not been very reliable. Similarly the Welshpool and Llandovery camera images.

The two Long Mynd cameras are not working today, the reason is they are only picked up a 3G data signal this morning and they only work on 4G. No idea why, hopefully it will be better tomorrow as we have no control over that at all.