Thunderstorm season

Position: Approx 50 miles south of Chicago
Destination: Jacksonville, FL

It's starting to be that time of year again. Ice season is over (mostly), and it's now time to start dodging powerful spring and summer thunderstorms. The Weather Channel warned me of the chance of severe storms from Texas all the way up towards Michigan, as I got ready in the hotel room. Some cold front pushing across the country, lifting the warm, unstable air ahead of it resulting in thunderstorms. Sounds like fun.

Heading to KJAX, the storms are fighting to gain strength and form a huge line as we easily pass above and north of the weak cells. Well that was easy... I wonder what it will be like heading back tomorrow.

A typical flight between KMSP and KJAX... fairly direct.

Today the Weather Channel is talking again about the cold front and the associated storms. But today they are much more organized and severe. A quick glance at the radar shows an amazing line, seemingly without breaks, all the way from Louisiana to New York. The weather section in our dispatch release talks of thunderstorms with tops as high as FL500... 50,000'! No way we can top those...

Dispatch has filed us to the west, then turning north towards MSP. I guess that's probably shorter than heading northeast first, then cutting across. We have a couple thousand more pounds of fuel than the normal route requires... hopefully that will be enough.

Airborne: Our radar can only 'paint' thunderstorms a couple hundred miles away (still pretty impressive!) giving us a limited view of the overall picture. A quick call to ATC confirms our doubts: They suggest flying all the way to Alexandria, LA before hanging a 90 degree right turn and heading north to MSP. Ok... after entering it into the computer, it adds almost 300 miles to our flight. We'll be 45 minutes late, and landing with just a few hundred pounds above our minimum required landing fuel, IF we can even find a way through the line near Louisiana. No thanks..

Another call to ATC, and we get news that the tops are lower up near Nashville, and a few planes are picking their way through the line there. Ok, that sounds better.. change of plans, let's head towards Nashville and hope we can get through the line there.



ATC was right. The tops are much lower, in the 30's.. allowing us to pick our way between and above the weaker areas. As we approach the line, the Captain calls back and has the flight attendants take their seats; this could get bumpy. A few faint flashes of lighting illuminate the clouds as we start to enter the area, but our radar is showing weak returns. We're able to top most of the storms in this area...

After a surprisingly smooth ride through the line, we turn direct to the arrival fix into MSP, and arrive 10 minutes behind schedule. Not too bad. Wonder how many more times we'll have to do that this summer... let the fun begin!