The storms around us!

Like life storms come and go. Some are small and short lived and some are what we call Big Mommas. The small ones you can easily fly around even though they are a little inconvenient but the big mommas can tear you up. The way we fly around the big momma's is to slow up, keep alert and navigate through the rough ride. Much like life. Not always smooth but we do get past the turbulence.

The top picture is a drawing of how a storm grows to be a big momma. The weather must be just right. Usually there is cold air that moves over warm and moist air. The warm air lifts up the cold air which then freezes and gets heavy and falls. As it falls it warms up and rises to repeat the process all over. This creates great energy and a lot of turbulence until eventually it blows the top off and starts to shrink or dissipate.

The second picture is a medium size thunderstorm that is building. Note the top of the cell. It looks as if it has a hat. The third picture is a big momma. If you look closely you can see the rolling clouds all around. Big mommas can be very destructfull and suck everything in all around it. We are very careful to stay away from those. As a rule of thumb we will fly 20 miles around a storm that size as it is very powerful and can disrupt the airflow around it for miles.

We flew past all of the storms yesterday and I am in Spokane, Washington today and it is very beautiful. It is cool and crisp and smells like pine trees. We leave in a little bit and on to Philadelphia. We will see what we see today.