American Airlines has canceled all flights in and out of Dallas-Fort Worth after funnel clouds were spotted. [USAToday]
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Better than ending up in Oz. Those Munchkins were dastardly devils.
Wouldn't want to get any funnel cloud in my hair on an AA flight.
i love spring time in dallas.
Sometimes it IS a weather-related delay.
Heard this a few hours ago from my Mom who was scheduled to fly back this morning. Luckily they got the last room in their previous hotel and just have to wait until tomorrow. Others weren't so lucky...
Being in Dallas, let me confirm right now that currently the DFW area is a rain-drenched clusterf*ck. Funnel clouds? I'm not surprised.
mmmm funnel clouds with chocolate and powdered sugar mmmmmmm
As this seems to be the Fly Over State Weather Report it is partly cloudy and 42 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
I'm not surprised. It was hailing in Missouri yesterday. I usually expect Texas to get the same but worse in Spring.
@Atsumi: Here in STL it's been raining all day, rain yesterday but no hail. Are you south from here? The reports have said that the severe weather is in that direction.
Funnel cake?
@arch05: PeteyNice was saying Iowa is a flyover state, and I have to agree. I know I would certainly fly over it instead of drive through it.
My office directly faces the beginning of runway 17C at DFW -- I'm serious, I'm looking at it right now... well, I'm trying to, through the rain, anyway. It's kind of eerie -- the first time I have seen it dark outsied without the approach lights on. It looks like DFW turned out all of the lights on the field -- at least from my vantage point.
Normally, every couple of minutes, you can go outside and look up and just about see the valve stems on the landing gear of the planes making their approach to 17C.
On the other side, it seems that my employer didn't see fit to notify us that there were funnel clouds in the area.
I live about 5 miles from the airport, and I've heard planes all day. I can't believe they had been flying in this crap. Lightening, tons of rain, and possible tornadoes. Fun times to fly.
Give me a break... I've flown BETWEEN waterspouts down in the FL Keys in a Cessna 172. Yes, the storms have some rotation in them, but it's not like they're dropping F5 tornadoes all over the place.
I hate DFW airport. If there is a drop of water falling anywhere in the state of texas that place shuts down.
Apparently if there is lightning anywhere within a 50mile radius they shut down all of the ground crew. I've been told this policy is actually in the union contract. It was apparently added after someone got struck and killed on the tarmac.
It is very odd though. Whenever I fly in and out of St. Louis there can be lightning all around and it doesn't impact their organization.
@FLConsumer: Waterspouts are a completely different creature...they can form from non-tornadic clouds. Tornadoes are almost always much stronger, and the thunderstorms that form them are a bit more, shall I say, menacing than the average big puffy cumulus cloud in the Keys with a spout dangling from it. Apples to oranges, IMO (no, I don't have a meteorology degree, but I'm both a commercial pilot and a storm chaser, and I've seen both).
I think I read a while back about a guy who tried to fly through a waterspout (or at least tow an instrument package through them) with a 182 (or similar) years ago. That takes cajones of steel.
@RBecho: Agreed. I drove though Iowa and couldn't tell the difference between it, Nebraska or Illinois...
@ywgflyer: Huge difference between a tornado and funnel cloud 'though. Most funnels are about as piss-weak as the garden-variety FL Keys waterspout.
I won't say that I'm 100% comfortable flying with waterspouts in the vicinity, and I certainly fly in the opposite direction that they're moving. I can't imagine trying to fly a small plane into one. Even flying a fighter plane into one wouldn't be fun.
If this were jetBlue, all the union-folk would be bashing. How do you like them apples?
Mmmmm, delicious funnel clouds.