Flying in Tornado Weather, continued

[Barb-SAN]

I was just looking at the weather map this afternoon, and noticed that there is a tornado watch for the Dallas area until 1 AM. I'm still working on getting comfortable with the idea of flying (as a passenger on commercial planes) in "challenging" weather, and have found it helpful to study the radar of airplane activity in the vicinity of storms. It's reassuring to see that the planes avoid the red (severe) areas of the storms, as you can see from these 2 screenshots from DFW.

I flew back from Michigan (DTW) on Tuesday evening, and there were thunderstorms starting a couple hours before my flight. I could see the black sky and lightening from the waiting area in the terminal, and the rain...., and a long line of planes WAITING on the taxiway for the weather to improve. It was helpful for me to remember what I'd seen while tracking flights here, and remind myself of what a storm front looks like on radar, and how planes maneuver around the cells, and don't fly in the red.

[Barb-SAN]

Barb, I was going to try to find that same image for DFW. Where did you find it? I know you told us before but I forgot.

Severe weather is also a concern of mine.

PS: If you say you found it on Google Earth, I'm going to choke you.

Nope, not Google Earth...whew.... It's on Flight Aware (see link on tracking software sticky). You type in DFW in the box where it says "view airport activity" (left side of page)....then look up at the upper right corner, there's a little box with radar image and planes flying around. The first image I posted was the entire box. When you click in that box, you get a close-up radar view of the airport and surroundings...(it doesn't cover as much area as the small box, so you don't see all those planes to the west of Dallas). Note that there is a scale of miles in the first image.

Ken, I'd think you've gotten a lot of practice by now with living and flying in severe weather. We don't have that much here in S. California...maybe one or two storms with lightening a year, and no tornadoes or hurricanes (just fires). I did grow up in Michigan though...where there is plenty of "interesting" weather.

[Barb-SAN]

Practice doesn't always result in trust. I still get very nervous when the weather is bad.

Thanks for the info.

Well, I guess when you live where tornadoes touch down, and you see the devastation first hand, you know there's always a chance of getting hit, at least on the ground. It's probably safer in the air, since the planes can see and avoid the cells. If you're living in a mobile home, or driving your car, it seems like the risk is greater. And reports of deaths in storms are generally of people on the ground, not in planes.

Ken...are you flying to Dallas today, or just curious about the airport/airplane activity there? ;)

[Barb-SAN]

Was that today? I flew from El Paso to Dallas Love this morning and it was a perfectly smooth ride. Then I flew home to FLL via New Orleans. There were a couple minor bumps descending into Dallas and it was raining, but no complaints from me. Hard to believe all that severe weather was around.

Yep..today, but this afternoon (time & date is on the weather map.. 7:38PM EDT.)

[Barb-SAN]

Nah, I was just curious about the air traffic around DFW due to the storms. I probably should have just listened to ATC communications with the planes via the web.

Oh...I forgot about that...do they talk much about turbulence reports or cell avoidance? (remembering that pilots do have their own radar in the cockpit).

Something new at DTW...there are monitors with the radar of the US right at the podium at the gate. That's handy to get an idea of what weather to expect on your flight...for those who want to be constantly updated on the weather reports. Saves the staff from having to answer so many weather-related questions, I guess! :cool:

[Barb-SAN]

Oh, that's a good site. Here's another...but this just has the audio, and DFW is "down" right now. http://www.liveatc.net/feedindex.php .

[EyesSkyward]

One time one of them radioed in that they were "getting hammered up here".

I didn't know they were even allowed to drink on duty, much less get hammered.

:cheers:

- Jeff

[cshollingsworth]

When we flew home last Friday night from Las Vegas, we were getting hammered too. There was a weather system kind of hanging out from Texas up towards Kansas. The pilot told us it would get bumpy for abour 25 minutes, but instead it got really, really bumpy for about 45 or so. I was not doing great during that time. The weather system was pretty tough, kind of like the same one they are having right now. The pilot showed me a weather map and said we would have to cross over the weather and it would be about a 200 nautical mile strip. He told me the winds were really strong even at the altitudes we would be flying, but it should be fine.

It was fine, but I was nervous. I was worried as to why, despite knowing these bad weather systems are active, they still fly over them and risk it?

It was scary, but I made it. :cool:

[LeslieDEN]

He told me the winds were really strong even at the altitudes we would be flying, but it should be fine.

It was fine, but I was nervous. I was worried as to why, despite knowing these bad weather systems are active, they still fly over them and risk it?
Ah, pilots and the way they talk! In spite of the language he used, he wasn't risking anything. That was something I had to learn -- we think they're taking chances when they aren't. Just using the word "should" instead of "will" gets our minds going crazy.

Once when I was listening to channel 9, our pilot was deviating around a storm, and ATC told him there was a hole in the storm that a plane in front of us had used to break through and get back on course -- did we want to do that too? Our pilot said, "Yeah, I'll try."

TRY??? TRY??? In my fevered mind, he was saying, "I'll give it a shot, but if it doesn't work, we're goners." I put the question to a pilot -- I think it was Capt. Ray, this was a while ago -- and he explained the reason for the phrase "I'll try" rather than "I will," and it's actually pretty comforting: A pilot never commits to a single course of action with no other options. So when my pilot said, "I'll try," he meant he might not actually use the hole to break through if it turned out not to be the wisest choice. He could always stop the attempt and go back to deviating. "I'll try," although it sounded brazen and foolhardy to me, was exactly the opposite: It meant he wasn't going to commit to it until he was sure there was no risk involved.

I'd apply that thinking to what your pilot told you too -- "should be fine" probably meant he didn't expect that he'd have to change course because of the winds and prolong the flight, or something equally innocuous. I believe he was telling you, "Our flight should go as planned" and nothing more. Of course, he couldn't promise that, because it was possible he would have to deviate (options, always). He DEFINITELY wasn't saying, "We probably won't crash," and he definitely wasn't going to take any risk.

[cshollingsworth]

And we did end up doing a little deviation from our original plan. The pilot came on later and told us that he had used a different route due to the fact that the weather was nasty and that it would put us arriving about 15 minutes late in Nashville. I didn't really care about arriving late, it was after midnight anyway, and I was just happy we had made it safe and sound.

Thanks for describing to me the difference between "Should be fine," etc. :) I think you are correct in saying that those words can sometimes makes us a little queasy when there is really no need to read more into it.

[WillFlyToDisney]

Just wanted to add about taking pilots literally....

A few years ago I had to fly from Charleston to Atlanta to Nashville on the day that one of the tropical storms would be rolling thru the area. I was quite nervous about flying in that weather and had mentioned that to a CRJ pilot friend of mine who I knew would be flying in the same area and asked him if he was nervous. He said he was but knew he couldn't do anything about it. Well THAT didn't sit well with me and I asked him what he was nervous about - the wind, the thunderstorms, etc... He laughed and said that he was worried that there would most likely be enough delays during the day b/c of the weather that he would probably get stuck overnighting in a city other than his hometown and he would miss a social function he had wanted to attend at home. He wasn't worried about flying in the weather AT ALL - he was more annoyed that he wouldn't get home to follow thru with his weekend plans. :rolleyes:

[Barb-SAN]

This is too cool...Capt. Ray just posted an extremely detailed trip report that covers Mar. 29, 30, 31 where he flew through some of this same weather! Check it out on his sticky thread "Pilot Reports"!! :thumbsup: