From Laura Nelson, 

1. I look at the iWeathar station at Dunnottar to see windstrength, direction and humidity. Check on www.iweathar.co.za  for the Dunnottar station.

2. I ask Ulf to tell me what the myriad weather forecasts on the internet say. That can vary a lot, but he has a few that he likes a lot. His preference is Noaa (or however it is spelled) while others prefer Windguru, or the Spotgraph, or the Aerosport one, and so on. Many, many of them.

3. Then I call the Weather Bureau at OR Tambo airport to get their forecast, as well as the latest information that the aeroplanes provide on their approach to landing or during take off. These are normally the best information as to what is happening in the upper air - since we have had access to this info, we have been able to avoid the extremely high winds that are sometimes just above the surface. This is relevent as very often (approx 90+% of the time) those strong winds come down to the surface within a couple of hours. This knowledge has saved us hours of sitting in strong winds on the site without being able to fly, hoping that it would calm down.

4. I also look at the Metars on the aviation weather site http://aviation.weathersa.co.za/  - interesting, and sometimes confusing.

5. When the summer rains start, I also check the Irene weather radar on http://metsys.weathersa.co.za/IR.html  to see where the nearest thunderstorms are and what direction they are tracking.