Ask the Meteorologist: Achy Joints, Ice Pellets and Windy Landings
Welcome to episode two of Ask the Meteorologist, where I take your weather questions and answer them the best way I can. This one was filmed on October 23, the day what was left of Josephine brought rain, wind and ice pellets to parts of Newfoundland, so one of this week’s questions comes straight from that day’s weather.
In this edition
- Can the weather really make your joints ache?
- Was that ice pellets in St. John’s?
- How windy does it have to be before planes can’t land in St. John’s?
Ask the Meteorologist is presented by HeatPump Solutions Ltd.
Can the weather affect how our bodies feel?
Pauline Matchett asked why so many people blame aches, pains and even mood swings on certain kinds of weather, since it really does seem to have an impact on how our bodies feel.
The answer is yes, and it comes down to something called tissue expansion. Atmospheric pressure acts like an invisible support glove, pressing in on your body. That’s compression, the same idea as putting a compression sleeve on something that hurts to ease the inflammation a little.
When an area of low pressure moves in, that pressure relaxes a bit, and the compression weakens. If you have something that’s sensitive to even a small drop in pressure, like nerves or joints affected by osteoarthritis, that little bit less compression can make the inflammation worse and leave your body feeling a lot less comfortable. So yes, the weather certainly can affect how you feel. (Any medical professionals out there, let me know if I’m off base!)
Ice pellets in St. John’s
Natasha Cole asked about the weather that very day: it looked like ice pellets, or something, mixed in with the rain in St. John’s.
Yep, we certainly had some ice pellets around that day. Some folks were calling it hail, but it was ice pellets: little balls of ice that start out as snow up in the clouds. That snow falls into a layer of warmer air and melts, then refreezes before it hits the ground and doesn’t have a chance to melt again, so it ends up bouncing off things. That’s why we call it ice pellets, or where I come from, sleet.
How windy is too windy to land in St. John’s?
Ann Marie Slaney asked how high the winds need to be to make landing in St. John’s impossible. That’s a bit of a loaded question, because every aircraft and every airport has its own wind limits for whether it’s safe to land, or whether it’s a go or no-go on even trying an approach. (Pilots, please correct me if I’m wrong!)
Headwinds: aircraft always want to land into the wind, because it makes the approach more stable. As far as I understand, there isn’t really a maximum headwind for landing. But once winds get to around 100 km/h (about 55 knots), crews can’t safely open the aircraft doors or cargo doors. That doesn’t make landing impossible, it just makes working with the aircraft after landing impossible, so even when the wind is blowing right down the runway, high winds can still mean delays.
Crosswinds: this is where it gets more complicated. When the wind blows across the runway, aircraft have to “crab” in, coming in a little sideways (side-slipping, I believe, is the proper term), and it’s actually pretty wild to watch. Crosswind limits are generally pretty high when the runway is dry. But if the runway is wet, they drop, if it’s covered in snow, they’re very low, and if it’s foggy, they’re even lower.
Both the aircraft and the airport also have what are called minimums, thresholds where a crew can’t even try to shoot an approach. So the long-winded answer is: it depends. On a sunny, windy day, the limits are generally pretty high, but once you add rain, snow or poor visibility, they come way, way down.
Got a question?
Leave it in the comments right here at the bottom of this page, or wherever you’re watching on Facebook, YouTube or TikTok. You can also send it my way through the contact page. It could be answered in next week’s Ask the Meteorologist, presented by HeatPump Solutions.
Don’t forget to…
📱 Get the Sheerr Weather App in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
🗺️ Check out the Map Room to see all the latest weather observations for the Province.
🎥 Check out the Provincial Highway Cams to see 👀 what’s going on around our highways.
Enjoy your show