It has been so long since we have seen rain around our home in the Houston area that it is almost hard to conceive of the idea of storm cells ? but lo and behold, they still exist in other parts of the world! Monday morning, we found ourselves in Wadena, Minnesota (having toured the damage from a massive tornado that took out the west side of the city almost exactly a year ago), looking to get back to Houston by the afternoon. The forecast was for some areas of rain, but when we went to bed the night before, it looked like we?d have a good chance of getting south before anything big cooked off in the volatile Midwestern atmosphere.
My brother ?in-law is an early riser, and that helped a lot, as our planned sunrise departure meant we needed a ride out to the airport about 0430. Looking at the radar as we woke up, we got the first surprise ? a fairly intense north-south line of storms just across the border in the Dakotas, slowly moving our way. The line extended down to the southern Minnesota border, and looked to be bulging at its lower end ? but the weather was clear to the east, and that looked like a viable escape route should the need arise. Interestingly enough, the previous day?s forecast had shown the potential for thunderstorms across Iowa and Missouri (just what we had seen on out trip north four days earlier), so I had planned a westerly escape route in the early morning out to central Nebraska/Kansas if needed. Now it looked like the backup plan would change.
Launching shortly after 0500, it was my leg to fly (which meant that Louise got to go back to sleep) and I decided to near the base of the overcast around 9,000? to reach less detrimental winds. At the surface, the winds were blowing out of the south at close to 30 knots, and our on-course heading was about 179 degrees. Fortunately, the winds slacked off with altitude, as predicted, and I was soon seeing only about five to eight knots of headwind on the EFIS. There was no doubt about the storms to the west ? forty miles off our right wing it looked downright sinister, both on the radar and out the canopy. The thin overcast above looked to be the first of several layers, and as we headed south, the ground began to disappear more often below a low thin overcast. Knowing that the air was quite moist to the south, and we were dealing with early morning temperatures and dew points, I didn?t want to risk getting down into Kansas about breakfast time with no holes, so I called up Minneapolis Center and air field IFR down to Fort Scott (KFSK), a fuel stop I?ve used many times. Center wasn?t busy and they were happy to take our flight plan and clear us ?Direct? at 8,000?. After listening to the exchange, Louise was once again storing up energy for her leg later on, and I settled in to watch the autopilot ? and the XM.
Sure enough, Iowa was already warming up the Cumulous for the day, and strong cells were popping up from Lamoni eastward. Our course was west of that, so we were fine (after getting past that line in the Dakotas, but I started to see little blobs of green with an occasional yellow pixel showing to the west of St. Joseph (MO) when we were about 45 minutes to the north. Hmm?.those bear watching! Because of the headwinds, I had mentally book-kept Lawrence (KS) as a good place to stop short if necessary, and now I thought about St. Jo as a possible escape as well ? if (as happened on our way up), Kansas City suddenly decided to build major storms, we might just have to pick a spot and find shelter. This little blob looked to me to be a nasty potential start ? but since it was still only 0730 in the morning, I crossed my fingers that it did not yet have enough energy to get serious.
What we had, basically, was a ?slot? in the weather about 60 miles wide, centered on Kansas City. Ceilings and Visibilities were reported good pretty much everywhere, and as I got closer, I could see that the bases of the storms were above us ? probably around 10,000?. I am used to the gulf coast, where the bases of thunderstorms are always about 2,000 or so ? having them higher made it a lot easier to stay below and look for options. In this case, I held our course ? the little cell of green and yellow was barely, barely moving, maybe a pixel every ten minutes, to the east. Once I saw a red pixel, then it went back to yellow. The little course line on the 696 that tells me where I would be in ten minutes time crawled much too slowly towards St. Jo ? the place I would now need to reach if I wanted to make a turn towards Lawrence. The road south was still clear, and fuel was not going to be a problem to KFSK, so I crossed Lawrence of the list ? and just in time, for a line of green pixels was beginning to form up to the east of there. It looked like we?d be good once we got past KMCI, and we only had about ten more minutes to get there when the ?Little Storm that Could? finally ?DID! Oranges, Reds ? we were past St. Jo, but it suddenly expanded laterally as it strengthened, and as I hit the northern edge of the Kansas City Class B, I had to call Approach for a deviation to the left. ?Deviation as required approved? came the quick response from the controller ? he didn?t want me in a storm any more than I did, and I turned out to the east about 30 degrees to get around it. Directly over the big airport, we were able to turn back south, under a little shade form the high clouds. We hit a couple of good bumps just as Louise was waking up, and I told here to tighten up her harness, just in case I had misjudged the turn ? but that was it ? nothing more but smooth air and we never got any rain to wash the bugs over the windshield?dang! (And with three hours of IFR, I didn?t get to log more than a minute in IMC?.)
Approach handed us back to Center as we crossed just east of Garmin?s headquarters in Olathe, and our GPS waved?.Center wanted to know what approach we?d like at fort Scott, but it was clear all the way to Texas, so I canceled and stayed high in the morning air to keep cool as long as possible. We touched down on the nice paved runway among the corn fields just as the clock struck 0830, which was good because Louise had a teleconference she wand to tie in to for an hour ? and I was ready for a nap. Of course, the nap came after a nice break on the ground ? I was riding in back the rest of the day, and napping was not an issue?..
Paul
My brother ?in-law is an early riser, and that helped a lot, as our planned sunrise departure meant we needed a ride out to the airport about 0430. Looking at the radar as we woke up, we got the first surprise ? a fairly intense north-south line of storms just across the border in the Dakotas, slowly moving our way. The line extended down to the southern Minnesota border, and looked to be bulging at its lower end ? but the weather was clear to the east, and that looked like a viable escape route should the need arise. Interestingly enough, the previous day?s forecast had shown the potential for thunderstorms across Iowa and Missouri (just what we had seen on out trip north four days earlier), so I had planned a westerly escape route in the early morning out to central Nebraska/Kansas if needed. Now it looked like the backup plan would change.
Launching shortly after 0500, it was my leg to fly (which meant that Louise got to go back to sleep) and I decided to near the base of the overcast around 9,000? to reach less detrimental winds. At the surface, the winds were blowing out of the south at close to 30 knots, and our on-course heading was about 179 degrees. Fortunately, the winds slacked off with altitude, as predicted, and I was soon seeing only about five to eight knots of headwind on the EFIS. There was no doubt about the storms to the west ? forty miles off our right wing it looked downright sinister, both on the radar and out the canopy. The thin overcast above looked to be the first of several layers, and as we headed south, the ground began to disappear more often below a low thin overcast. Knowing that the air was quite moist to the south, and we were dealing with early morning temperatures and dew points, I didn?t want to risk getting down into Kansas about breakfast time with no holes, so I called up Minneapolis Center and air field IFR down to Fort Scott (KFSK), a fuel stop I?ve used many times. Center wasn?t busy and they were happy to take our flight plan and clear us ?Direct? at 8,000?. After listening to the exchange, Louise was once again storing up energy for her leg later on, and I settled in to watch the autopilot ? and the XM.
Sure enough, Iowa was already warming up the Cumulous for the day, and strong cells were popping up from Lamoni eastward. Our course was west of that, so we were fine (after getting past that line in the Dakotas, but I started to see little blobs of green with an occasional yellow pixel showing to the west of St. Joseph (MO) when we were about 45 minutes to the north. Hmm?.those bear watching! Because of the headwinds, I had mentally book-kept Lawrence (KS) as a good place to stop short if necessary, and now I thought about St. Jo as a possible escape as well ? if (as happened on our way up), Kansas City suddenly decided to build major storms, we might just have to pick a spot and find shelter. This little blob looked to me to be a nasty potential start ? but since it was still only 0730 in the morning, I crossed my fingers that it did not yet have enough energy to get serious.
What we had, basically, was a ?slot? in the weather about 60 miles wide, centered on Kansas City. Ceilings and Visibilities were reported good pretty much everywhere, and as I got closer, I could see that the bases of the storms were above us ? probably around 10,000?. I am used to the gulf coast, where the bases of thunderstorms are always about 2,000 or so ? having them higher made it a lot easier to stay below and look for options. In this case, I held our course ? the little cell of green and yellow was barely, barely moving, maybe a pixel every ten minutes, to the east. Once I saw a red pixel, then it went back to yellow. The little course line on the 696 that tells me where I would be in ten minutes time crawled much too slowly towards St. Jo ? the place I would now need to reach if I wanted to make a turn towards Lawrence. The road south was still clear, and fuel was not going to be a problem to KFSK, so I crossed Lawrence of the list ? and just in time, for a line of green pixels was beginning to form up to the east of there. It looked like we?d be good once we got past KMCI, and we only had about ten more minutes to get there when the ?Little Storm that Could? finally ?DID! Oranges, Reds ? we were past St. Jo, but it suddenly expanded laterally as it strengthened, and as I hit the northern edge of the Kansas City Class B, I had to call Approach for a deviation to the left. ?Deviation as required approved? came the quick response from the controller ? he didn?t want me in a storm any more than I did, and I turned out to the east about 30 degrees to get around it. Directly over the big airport, we were able to turn back south, under a little shade form the high clouds. We hit a couple of good bumps just as Louise was waking up, and I told here to tighten up her harness, just in case I had misjudged the turn ? but that was it ? nothing more but smooth air and we never got any rain to wash the bugs over the windshield?dang! (And with three hours of IFR, I didn?t get to log more than a minute in IMC?.)
Approach handed us back to Center as we crossed just east of Garmin?s headquarters in Olathe, and our GPS waved?.Center wanted to know what approach we?d like at fort Scott, but it was clear all the way to Texas, so I canceled and stayed high in the morning air to keep cool as long as possible. We touched down on the nice paved runway among the corn fields just as the clock struck 0830, which was good because Louise had a teleconference she wand to tie in to for an hour ? and I was ready for a nap. Of course, the nap came after a nice break on the ground ? I was riding in back the rest of the day, and napping was not an issue?..
Paul
