High Hopes Adventures: Busy Week

TGIF (or at least for me)... It has been an incredibly long week this week with mother nature copping a little bit of an attitude and the balloon event in town. On Wednesday, I worked a day shift but the atmosphere was primed for a decent severe weather outbreak so I stayed well beyond my scheduled shift to help out. My primary duty was to serve as a second radar operator in an outbreak that required up to three radar operators at times. On Thursday, I was given the opportunity to go out and conduct a damage survey with the Science Operations Officer of our office. Together we rated three tornado tracks, two in southwest Minnesota and one just to the south of Spencer, IA. For pictures and a summary of our ratings, check out http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fsd/?n=tor2008jun11. The hamlet of Spencer was incredibly lucky as the tornado came within a mile of the southeast side of town. While completing the last survey in southwest Minnesota, we noticed some thunderstorms trying to develop off to our west. These thunderstorms became severe about the time we returned to the office, and I ended up working the phones for high based thunderstorms that were kicking out some good wind. All in all, I put 27 hours in at the office on Wednesday and Thursday.

After I got out of the office on Friday afternoon, I headed over to a local hotel to put the final touches on the check in party for the balloon event in town for the weekend. After the party wound down, I went home to hook up the trailer for what looked to be a flyable morning.
3 am on Saturday morning came quicker than I would like. The weather was quite tricky, with west winds of 25+ knots a few hundred feet above the surface and a band of showers to the north threatening to kickout an outflow boundary or two. After pouring over the data and calling my office, I headed to the field to give John Ninomiya a briefing for his cluster balloon. While the conditions appeared to be less than ideal, we decided to give it a shot with this being his third attempt in as many years. Winds were quite brisk while filling the helium balloons, gusting up to 10-15 mph in the pre-dawn hours. As sunrise approached, the gusts began to die off and I called the office quick to get an update on the showers to the north. I was informed the showers had produced multiple outflow boundaries that were headed towards Sioux Falls, producing north winds of 10-15 mph. John launched right at sunrise, and shortly thereafter I was on deck to give my briefing. As I gave my briefing, an outflow boundary came through changing the prevailing winds from the southwest to the north. The winds were not overly strong, and a hare and hound was called. A secondary outflow boundary hit as the hare balloon began to add heat, reinforcing the north winds. He took off fairly quickly heading south south east for 20 minutes before finding a landing spot. Balloons began quickly taking to the air, and before I knew it, I was the last balloon on the field. By this time the winds behind the outflow boundary had moderated to 6-7 mph. Throughout the flight the winds continued to slow, and by the time we had made it a mile south, the synoptic conditions began to take over with a light west wind developing at the surface. With the conditions changing, only three balloons made it to the target area...those that took off immediately after the hare.

I was fairly confident Saturday night was going to be characterized by thunderstorms, as moisture was expected to return from the south. However, as the day wore on (while I was at work), it became more and more evident that the moisture was going to stay to the south in Iowa (where there don't need the rain). Because the moisture stayed south, we were able to get another flight in that night. It was another hare and hound, but no one was able to catch the hare. He ended up just north of Madison while the rest of us stayed south. I ended up landing in the middle of Pine Lake Hills Estates, a beautiful neighborhood just outside the city.

It was a little breezy with a wind out of the southwest.