Fortunately, with the weather tools available today, the words were not a surprise to me. As always, I had been carefully watching The Weather Channel and checking the online forecast charts for days. In this case, it was like watching paint dry. A stationary front from Minnesota to Philadelphia had lingered so long that it could have asked for squatters' rights in any number of states. For more than a week in mid-July, areas along the front saw daily flareups of thunderstorms as the system loitered. Meanwhile, a couple of weak high-pressure systems dominated the upper Great Lakes and Quebec. On this day, those systems would keep the stationary front from moving any farther north - my salvation as I traversed the route from Frederick, Maryland, to Duluth, Minnesota.
By dawn on the morning of the trip, I was looking at the DTN radar images on AOPA Online and The Weather Channel's radar reports. Many pilots these days get all of their weather information off of the Internet or DUATS and even file flight plans without ever talking to a briefer. I'm a chicken, I guess. On challenging weather days, I also like to talk to someone who has had some formal training in meteorology and who perhaps has a better "big picture" view of the weather than I can gather, even with all of the weather tools available today.
I've found that most briefers appreciate the fact that you have already done some weather prep before calling them. I usually say right up front that I've been watching The Weather Channel and looking at weather on the Internet and then describe my proposed route to deal with whatever weather is along the way. Within a minute or so, the briefer can usually verify my choices or suggest an alternative that I may not have considered. When the specialist understands that I've already been prebriefed, the briefing process goes much faster.
Because of my early morning departure, the weather this day would turn out to of little consequence. Soon after takeoff I plowed into some dark clouds as I headed northwest. They were dry and smooth. Just northwest of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the bumps started and about five minutes later I popped out the north side of the front - clear above and a few scattered to broken clouds below. All morning long I managed to stay out of the clouds, and I landed in Duluth after exactly five hours of flying. Had I been going to Chicago or Des Moines, though, my day would have been much more challenging. As I progressed, so did the thunderstorms to the south of my route. Eastern Iowa was doused with more than five inches of rain.
Same drill the next morning. The thunderstorms were up early, pelting the Chicago area and Lake Michigan. Ever so slowly the front was moving eastward. I knew from looking at the DTN machine that my only escape from Duluth was to go south toward Minneapolis and then on to Des Moines before hanging a left south of Chicago for the dash eastward to my first stop in Lancaster, Ohio, just southeast of Columbus. Stations from about Dayton eastward were forecasting a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Sitting next to the DTN machine with its radar images updating every couple of minutes, I planned a route with the help of a briefer. He concurred that south was the way to go, but he also noted that I might be able to cut the corner sooner than Des Moines if the system kept moving as it had.
He was right. Well before Minneapolis, I could see clear skies to the southeast. ATC graciously allowed a turn that way. With a strong tailwind, I soon found that I could easily head for the southern Chicago area and still stay south of the storms.
With Chicago behind me and Fort Wayne, Indiana, ahead, things were looking pretty good for the moment. I regularly checked in with flight watch for updates along the way. As predicted, the thunderstorms started popping up southeast of Dayton and along the front, which had moved slightly south. The eastern end now sagged into the mountains of West Virginia and just south of Washington, D.C.
A couple of cells were zeroing in on the Columbus area as I approached from the west. I made a dogleg to the south to stay visual, which should always be the goal when flying in the vicinity of storms. The Stormscope clearly showed the individual cells marching southeast. The onboard weather radar painted a large red blob just northwest of Lancaster as I descended for the airport. In the pattern, I could see the rain headed my way. I quickly parked the airplane into the wind, tied it down, and headed inside. A few minutes later the skies opened up and brought a modicum of relief to the drought-stricken area.
About two hours later when I was ready to depart for home, the thunderstorms still lingered in the area. The cell that had dampened the airport was to the southeast. Another cell was moving in from the northwest and a giant one with tops to 65,000 feet had cropped up due east. Again studying DTN's radar display, it seemed to me that a route northeast toward Pittsburgh and then a turn to the southeast would keep me north of the cell to the east. The briefer concurred and verified that the corridor to the northeast was clear.
The plan worked perfectly, and for only the second time in two days of flying, I entered the bumpy clouds for the descent into Frederick.
Although I was fortunate to be flying an aircraft with a Stormscope and radar, this was a trip that could have been made without the onboard weather gear. After several days of watching the stationary front, the briefers were pretty good at predicting its movements, so there were no surprises. But the biggest aid was the access to the near-real-time weather radar images at each stop. With those and the helpful briefers, the trip was made almost entirely in visual conditions and without a lot of angst.
The ground-based radar came to the rescue again a few days later. This time the same stationary front was still wrecking havoc over the same areas. The Friday evening forecasts showed VFR conditions along my route for a Saturday morning trip from Frederick to northwestern Pennsylvania. How-ever, the front tripped up the forecasters by firing off two lines of thunderstorms early Saturday morning. One north-south line over eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania marched eastward; another stretched from Altoona through the mountains of West Virginia.
Up early, Ichecked the DTN images on AOPA Online. I was surprised to see the unforecast weather all along the route. A call to flight service confirmed that we wouldn't be going anywhere for a while, particularly since this time I was flying my Cessna 172, which has no onboard weather detection gear.
The kids went to swimming lessons while I occupied myself with the usual Saturday morning chores - keeping one eye on The Weather Channel.
The clouds soon darkened, followed by lightning, thunder, and rain. The line moved to the southeast. Meanwhile, the radar images showed the other line dissipating over the mountains of Pennsylvania.
Staying put was the right thing to do. A few hours after our planned departure time, we took off into good VFR conditions for an uneventful flight.
As helpful as the radar images are for preflight planning, the real need is in the cockpit. Airborne weather radar for GA airplanes is expensive, heavy, and mostly underpowered. With datalink, pilots will soon be able to receive ground-based radar images in flight. You'll hear a lot about datalink in the next couple of years as companies such as UPS Aviation Technologies, Arnav, AirCell, Avidyne, Echo Flight, and others work to bring this valuable information to the cockpit. At that point, dodging thunderstorms will become less of an art and more of a science - as it should be.
E-mail the author at [email protected].
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