By Eric McCarthy

Very MVFR. (Roy Knight)The day began, as many do here in southern California, with a coastal marine layer extending inland a mile or so. I know from experience that conditions just a couple of miles further inland can be dramatically different–often sunny and clear, and 5-10 degrees warmer. The marine layer usually burns off by late morning and often returns late afternoon, so I wasn’t really concerned about my mid-day photo mission up in the Corona area. It’s only about a half hour flight from Palomar (KCRQ), we’d be over the site for 20 minutes or so, then off for lunch; we should be back to Palomar by 2:30 or 3, no problem.

As I was driving south along the 5 freeway in Camp Pendleton, that little voice in my head began to express concern. I was beginning to wonder if the marine layer was going to burn off this day–it was about 10:30 a.m., and I didn’t see any signs of it burning off. In fact, I was in and out of dense fog, and where it wasn’t foggy, there was a very low cloud cover, well below VFR minimums. Yet, looking east up the canyons and between the mountains of Pendleton, I could see clear blue skies beckoning. Palomar is about two miles from the beach, and I figured it stood a good chance of being in the clear. I wasn’t too worried about getting out of Palomar, flying east and into the Temecula Valley, which is often clear. But getting back into Palomar–that began to gnaw at my noggin. I’ve seen the marine layer fill in pretty quickly in the past; then again, I’ve snuck in under the advancing cloud layer. Hmmm…what to do…