What’s with the Weather? Balloon Flight Weather Dependency

The weather certainly plays a big part in hot air ballooning, and whether your flight is able to proceed on your chosen flight date.

When you imagine your perfect balloon flight, no one wants to fly in the rain or on a foggy morning where they can’t see that beautiful view. The good news is that our Flight Teams are constantly assessing the weather and, if it looks like we are going to have a rainy or very foggy morning, your flight team will likely cancel the flight so that you can rebook your balloon experience for a nicer day.

Some weather conditions just aren’t suitable for hot air ballooning. They may either make your flight unpleasant or unsafe or both. Some of the weather conditions that may cause the cancellation of your flight include rain, strong winds – either at ground level or at the higher altitudes we fly at, fog or thunderstorms.

Cloudy mornings are perfectly safe to fly in and as we fly below the cloud base, you still get a perfect view and sometimes a bit of cloud gives us the very best sunrises.

Can you fly in the rain?
The short answer is yes, but why would we want to? Hot air balloons can fly in the rain quite safely but it’s not much fun so, whilst it’s not a big issue if we get caught in an unexpected shower we won’t proceed with a flight if we have a forecast of certain rain (i.e. 100% chance of rain) during the flight window which falls in the hours after sunrise.

How will I know if my flight is cancelled?
Once you are booked in for a flight you will receive a Booking Confirmation email with a Weather Check-in phone number to call the evening before the flight. It is during this call that we will be able to confirm the weather suitability for the next morning’s flight and also confirm the exact meeting time for you, which is finalised based on the weather forecast.

What time of year can you fly?
We schedule flights all year round. The weather in Spring, Summer and Autumn does tend to be a little more reliable than over the winter months but the majority of our flight proceed every month of the year.

Could my flight really be cancelled?
There is a very real chance of the cancellation of your balloon flight due to unsuitable weather on any given day. Please keep this in mind when you make your ticket choice. If you feel that coming back to the Hunter Valley on another occasion to take your flight is not possible for you, should your initial flight be cancelled, please consider purchasing the Flexi Tickets. Flexi tickets are 100% refundable in the event of a weather cancellation.