VFR pilots in western Michigan have one more reason to hate Winter than the rest of the populace.
Translation: the weather sucks.
Everyone complains about the fickle weather we experience here in the Midwest, where it’s 50F one day, -2 the next with a foot of snow, and then a warm front comes up from the southwest and turns everything into a brown quagmire of slush, rain and misery. For pilots however, our spite is divided between the dismal conditions on the ground, which threaten morning commutes on the highway, and the impenetrable wall of low-lying clouds that obscure the skies, keeping our boots – and the soggy socks within – firmly grounded. It really comes to me as no surprise that MI is leading the nation in average number of cloudy days during winter.
Places in the US with more than three out of four days during winter when cloud covers over three-quarters of the sky – CurrentResults.com
The weather in Muskegon is representative of the entire west coast of Lower Michigan, and looking at the above statistics, it’s not hard to see why I’ve been unable to find a suitable day to take a much needed break from classes and the endless studying they demand to go flying for a couple hours.