Dull and Dreary Days

It seems that every Prov Trip has a "The weather got us story."

Back in '03, it was a little town called Hugoton that the students called home for a couple of days as they waited for the fog to clear out and the ceilings to improve. In '08 it was a place called Xenia, where a giant winter storm ripped through the region. This storm managed to dump amounts of snow that were measured in feet, not centimeters or inches. Last year's group had to contend with a snowstorm in Yankton, South Dakota.

This year's group hasn't been immune to its own share of weather woes. As you know, we have been stuck for the past few days in Pierre, South Dakota. However, what makes this year's trip unique is the amount of time that we have been stuck, (today is starting our SIXTH day!) and both the extent and amount of bad weather. 

The Low that has been impeding us is big, slow, and lazy. Everywhere we look there is Instrument Meteorological Flight Conditions, both in terms of IFR or Low IFR. A glance at the chart to the left will show this. Each dot is a weather reporting station, and the dots are color coded to help determine what sort of weather is at each station.

For a pilot, green is generally good weather. Blue can be alright as well, but problems start to creep in when you see red or pink. These are the IFR and Low IFR conditions, and for those of us who fly visually (like we do on  this trip!) you had best stay in bed.

You can see from this that the conditions are horrible right from Oklahoma all the way to Manitoba. In fact, even a good chunk of Texas is in question, particularly the regions along the coast. As we talked about in the previous blogs, there is a low that has been sitting in the central plains sucking up moisture from the Gulf. Due to something that meteorologists call a Rex Block,  this low has become detached from the jetstream.

For flyers, this isn't good.

Although an attachment to the jetstream will usually deepen a low and cause the weather to get even worse (high winds, lotsa precipitation and whatnot!) it will also help "steer" and move the low on a generally easterly path. Like a high speed freight train, a low connected to the jetstream will hit you hard and then move on quickly to smash into the next city or person down the line.

However, if this low becomes detached from these steering winds in the high troposphere, then it will be allowed to essentially wander about as it wills... That is, if it wanders at all.

The low that has been holding us up is just one of these lows. A closed low. It has been sitting on the plains for days, barely moving. While it sits, it continues to feed moisture into the high plains, creating fog and low ceilings. If one looks a the photo at right, they will see that it looks not at all unlike all unlike a mini-hurricane.

Hmmm... wait, what's this? Studying the image closely, We can see that there is some hope! Overnight, it has moved just a SMIDGE eastwards... and it looks like we will start to have clearing skies in a few hours. Looking at the rest of the WX for today, and it appears that we may be able to migrate north... perhaps as far as Minot. Winnipeg and Steinbach, (for today, however) look doubtful as the low continues to slingshot moisture into those areas.

We will know more as the day goes on!

We have not been completely idle the past few days. Some of us took in the local bowling lanes, and quite a bit of exploring has been done on foot. The Missouri is a HUGE river... dwarfing either the Red or Assiniboine in width. A number of dams have been set up along the river to generate power, and they have created huge lakes that are well know for their fishing and hunting.

Pierre is the Capital of South Dakota, and as the seat of government, the Capital Building is located here.

There is also a lot of history here. Explorers like La Verendrye, Lewis, and Clarke all charted the banks that we are near in the hopes of both expanding the fur trade and finding a route to the "Western Sea." Sitting Bull, Custer, and Buffalo Bill all had stints and starts in this area. 

As some of you may know, La Verendrye also managed to explore portions of the Red and the Assiniboine rivers in his travels. As we close, we do so with the hope that we, too, can come a little bit closer to these two rivers.

Not so much to explore, but to finally arrive back in Manitoba!