It was around 18 degrees during the flight and upon landing I discovered the Prius needed a jumpstart, so I had to hoof it a ways back home to get help. Anyone else out there have trouble with needing to jumpstart their Prius a lot?

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The river ice from an 80 foot altitude. (Hot food after a chilly flight, click on this photo to reveal and support a great downtown restaurant)

The ice again from 20 feet overhead.

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          After several days of temperatures well below freezing, the Mississippi River has frozen over in St.Cloud. Absent of snowcover, it was a great opportunity to photograph and study the pattern of freezing on the river. The water on the East side of this portion of the river is generally last to freeze and first to thaw. Due to the uneven and unpredictable pattern of freezing river water, it is considerably dangerous to wander onto the river ice, especially under snowcover. It is notable that the white areas are not snow, but artifacts of the crushing ice formation.

          These images were gathered for science and safety, so I was not concerned with the nose wheel that drops into camera view. This particular airplane is the only one I use which takes off directly from the ground. Recently fitted with wheels to do video flights, it was last flown with skis during the winter of early 2009 to document the construction of the Granite City Crossing bridge

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 Most Flight Flash images are available on request at Paper Collector Gallery. 5×7, 8×10 and 13×19 sizes available.

     I hoped that the combination of heavy rain and a break in the clouds would result in an incredible rainbow today so I scrambled the airplane to Whitney Field. Unfortunately, the rainbow never materialized. The weather turned hot, muggy and hazy today, and later, I spent an hour of flying at the amazing Boomerville Lodge.

       A special thanks to everyone who came to Paper Collector Gallery for the Sizzling Summer Art Crawl, The St.Cloud Times, Star Tribune, and the new businesses and people supporting the effort to make aerial photography more affordable and accessible in Minnesota.

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ALL OF THE FOLLOWING IMAGES AND VIDEOS  IN THIS REPORT, (EXCEPT RADAR AND SATELLITE) WERE PRODUCED BY FLIGHT FLASH.

       WEATHER RE-CAP 2011. Spring in St. Cloud gave an unusual hint that things to come might be on the line of the unexpected – or maybe even extreme. An April snowfall christened the city with a beautiful, albeit unseasonable layer of snow crystals that completely vanished within hours.

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       Days after the actual snowfall, Flight Flash (RPNS) produced this screen test to chronical weather in the local media…It was only an experiment and my friend Kaylene stepped up to be the on-camera reporter.

       In the moments we began to film this, the first wave of terrible storms were beginning to unfold throughout the South. The laptop radar captures a view of  this data. We used the images to train how to spot tornadoes from the national radar mosaic. Little did we know, we were studying what was about to become one of the biggest outbreaks of tornadoes in history. This left an unforgettable urgency to document and promote weather safety in the St.Cloud area.

       A month later, a small storm followed by a display of heat lightning reminiscent of 4th of July fireworks, paid our city a visit in May. At the same time, only an hour away, Minneapolis was recovering from a tornado touchdown that claimed one life.

       Then, on the first day of summer (June 21, 2011), rain fell on our city to such an extreme that it flooded several streets…and it wouldn’t be the last time this year.

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       The sky hadn’t finished. Not much more than a week later on July 1st, a very serious wind storm dropped a weak tornado in the Waite Park area, and pushed winds into the North side of downtown St. Cloud where dozens upon dozens of trees were pushed flat. The fact that these trees blocked many routes to the St.Cloud Hospital made the situation that much more serious, and our city went directly into action.

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Compare an image of Whitney Field only a few weeks before as a thunderstorm approached…

…and then 3 weeks later as it became the city’s compost site for downed trees.

       In St.Cloud, it seemed the worst of summer storms had to be behind us for 2011, but the weather was unrelenting. Rains continued to bring flooding that swelled the Sauk River, and endangered some of our young citizens and rescue personnel. For 3 days in a row, rescues and the recovery of a swamped rescue boat on the Sauk River held our attention in the news. The oppressive heat index which pressed beyond 100 degrees for a few days in these weeks probably drew people to the river to cool down in spite of the apparent danger.

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       Then came lightning! An intense electrical storm wrought fury in the St.Cloud metro…sending 6 to the hospital and alerts of fire from lightning scrambled firefighters to the rescue. This video captures St.Mary’s Cathedral in downtown St.Cloud receiving a direct strike from lightning.

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       The math…a simple calclulation determining distance by speed of sound, supports that the lightning bolt in the video did in fact strike the Cathedral. This video by the RPNS for WJON.

       The very next day on August 2, an early morning storm focused it’s energy again on Central Minnesota and winds more than 60Mph again destroyed trees and did damage in our area. This satellite image shows the cell expanding upward directly over the St.Cloud area. 

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       Interestingly, our busy and diverse summer weather comes a year after Mn set the national record for the number of tornado touchdowns. It also came on the 125th anniversary of the 1886 tornado that did history-changing damage to our community, and weeks after storms that brought unimagineable devestation in the South. This post is written in reflection of the events this year that took lives, changed landscapes, and won’t be forgotten in our country nor in our own city and surroundings.

       Meet Steve of Flight Flash and view a large collection of his aerial photographs at Paper Collector Gallery during the Sizzling Summer Art Crawl on August 19-20 in Downtown St. Cloud, right across from the historic Stearns County Courthouse in the heart of St.Cloud.

Check out this post from the Flight Flash archives: It was June 17, 2010 and we were the first to spot and report a weak tornado that hovered over the Buffalo, Mn area that day. http://flightflash.com/buffalo-storm-spotting

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A recent file photo (7.8.11) of the Sauk River near to where the rescue call was made.

 

On Tuesday afternoon, as the Sauk River approached flood stage in St.Cloud, a report that a woman was spotted clinging to a tree in the swift flowing waters of the Sauk sent rescue teams into action. Upon her retrieval, it was learned that up to 7 more members of a group who had gone tubing that day were unaccounted for. The rescue effort immediately intensified.

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The news service provided this video report for www.WJON.com

Exclusive extra – THE RISK TO RESCUERS: On a sidebar to the rescue of 8 teeneagers from the flooded Sauk River, 2 kayakers also risked their lives to assist them (A civilian and an off-duty firefighter). The kayakers eventually drifted downstream into the rescue staging area where the Sauk enters the Mississippi. Having slipped past a rope dropped down to catch them, the Zodiac watercraft eventually retrieved them as they were pulled into the swollen Mississippi.

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          I’m very thankful to have been present as a television viewer. I thought the launch would be scrubbed due to weather but the Shuttle beat the odds this morning…even after a countdown hold at 31 seconds likely confused many spectators. What happened was that computers wrongly sensed that the fueling gantry hadn’t fully retracted seconds before launch. It was only a matter of verifying that it had actually retracted by taking a look through launch pad video cameras before continuing with the countdown.

          A few minutes later, the countdown re-commenced…and everything was go. The main engine’s fired, and then the solid rocket boosters…there was no turning back at this moment. Atlantis lifted away, and cleared the tower.

The N.A.S.A. Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) The largest building in the world by volume. Rockets from the Saturn V to the Space Shuttle have been assembled in this structure prior to transportation to the launch pad.

          I have been transfixed with the space program from an early age. I experienced the first Shuttle launch with NBC commentator Tom Brokaw in 6th grade from elementary school. Visited Kennedy Space Center several times on family road trips…seeing Challenger ready on the launch pad for one of it’s flights…and knowing the indelible feeling of one of those dreaded historical moments…I was walking down the hallway of Tech Highschool after lunch when I first heard a mention that the space shuttle had exploded. I couldn’t believe it…and didn’t until I saw it with my own eyes on cable TV in the library some hours later. I’ll never forget that day.

          The loss of the Columbia and her crew is immeasurable as well. With the help of an early smart phone, I knew of them passing directly overhead one evening not long before their fateful re-entry, but could not see them through a cloudy sky.

          Today is a time to reflect on how our successes in leaving our Earth, almost like achieving flight for the first time, is an endeavor that has inspired our age, and has propelled us forward where reality touches our dreams.

           I was very fortunate to have viewed a shuttle launch. At Cape Canaveral in 1998, my brother Jeremy and I (who a few short years later found himself sharing lunch with none other than Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13, at the South Pole…) ventured down to witness the launch of  John Glenn’s return to orbit aboard the shuttle.

          For those who are a part of our younger generation, John Glenn has a very important place in history. He isn’t the first American astronaut in space, but he is the first American in space to orbit the planet…believe me, there is a big difference. It is the difference between launching straight up into the air (suborbital), and falling back down…compared to achieveing a startling speed in a rocket (about 5 miles per second!), that allows an astronaut to be propelled completely around the world…with no chance of falling back down to Earth unless that speed is reduced and re-entry can occur.

          Well, John Glenn hadn’t returned to space since his only spaceflight in 1962…and I definitely sensed an appreciation to experience this historic launch. My first,last, only…ever space shuttle launch experience.

          The good news is, for the only shuttle launch I attended in person, I did bring my Super 8mm film camera. Yes, filmed in B&W, but that was my tone in that day. Film was on the verge of ending. The chemistry and mechanical reality of cellulose as cinema was begining to fade, and, if you know my story…I pretty much had to represent.

          Beyond that, I’ll share some of the science and my observations.

          Shortley, you’ll see the film I photographed that day. Note: The 747 jet you see in the video is AIR FORCE ONE with President Bill Clinton arriving to view the launch.

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          I rehearsed the movements of the camera a dozen times prior to the launch….I wasn’t gonna mess this up! The opening shot is in slow motion. After the initial lift-off, I switch to normal speed. An initial suprise – the solid rocket boosters are incredibly bright…not easy to look at. It’s not something you can notice on TV. You need to be there and witness it with your own eyes.

          Then the sound…where is it? It depends on how close you are to the launch pad. Anderson Cooper attended the final launch from the press area which is quite close to the pad…about 5 miles away. I like how he shared the same reaction…wow, those boosters are bright! He felt the powerful rumble of liftoff. At the John Glenn launch in 1998, I was more than 8 miles away…and the rumble was only a very delayed noise where I was. Truly, my impression on that day was…where is the sound? After a great delay, it was a very quiet thunder.

          What is amazing, however, was speed and distance. In the film clip…notice when the camera is stationary…and then realize the relative speed the shuttle is moving through the frame. Then, consider that this is a view from below.  The shuttle is accellerating spaceward with incredible momentum. The scale of speed is truly amazing to recognize.

          My final observation as I could still see the Space Shuttle during John Glenn’s second historic launch – the shuttle was at an incredible speed and distance from Cape Canaveral…70 miles downrange, moving more than 3000 mph…but I could see it with my own eyes, glowing like a star. It was incredible…nothing less that I expected, but more than I ever dreamed a moment like this might be. It’s hard to see, but in the last seconds of the film, the Solid Rocket Boosters have seperated and are tumbling away.

          The Shuttle program has been a star to our country all of these years…it has represented what we’ve been, have become, and what we’ve dreamed, and accomplished…the inspiration it brought our generation is that will be missed as we realize we have to let it go.

Join the mission live by clicking this link >>>http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html 

NOTE: Take the opportunity to view this shuttle in orbit with your own eyes. You can look up into the night sky and see it pass by. In orbit it is only a few hundred miles overhead and will appear as a quickly moving star. Use this link to find it! Experience history right where you are.

>>>http://www.n2yo.com/<<<

          I have to admit, I didn’t like the feeling of driving up my street this morning to do this flight. Thankfully, no homes were badly damaged, but the number of trees down and volume of visible debris was unsettling. As this damage began to occur, I was in front of my largest window that became white with the blinding wind, rain, and hail…unsafe…I raced downstairs to warn my house residents that we needed to get to the basement…but as it turns out I was home alone.

As this event began to unfurl, I was studying the radar, trying to pull up satellite images, and wondering what this storm would bring. When a report over emergency radio came that an experienced storm spotter had seen a funnel cloud in the area of 94W and 23. I didn’t doubt it for a moment. It was go time. Scanning the sky to the South, the clouds looked dark and ominous, but typical of a large thunderstorm. When I stepped outside clutching my hand-held scanner in the light wind-driven rain, the air told a different story. There was certainly unconcentrated cloud rotation at low level just to the NW, almost overhead…definitely a cause for concern. I went back inside to get the rest of my gear.

Moments later, the downburst hit. The intense rain poured through my open windows as I worked to close them…and then hail appeared, it was pea or nickel-sized. That was the cue I was trying to discover by satellite. We were under a super-cell high enough to freeze rain on a day when the heat index was unbearably hot. That was even more cause for concern.

I now became worried for my other house occupants who I feared were asleep on the second floor. Reaching that level, I heard an alarming sound. The balcony door facing the storm was holding back a strong wind…and when it does this it lets an erie vibration roar as some air slips through. It was screaming with a loud intensity that I’ve never heard to be this powerful before. During these moments trees were toppling in our neighborhood.

          Scrambling my gear to cover this storm, I headed out into the wind and rain, but only a block away from my house I hit a deep puddle that caused my car to stall. I spent the next 20 minutes there scanning the sky, and listening to reports on radio that we were in a tornado warning, and that there were trees down on 9th Ave and 6th Ave N…restricting access to the hospital.

          When my car started again, I moved into the damaged area, and was taken aback at what I discovered. Along with magnificent trees that withstood the years of history in our town, and were now toppled into the street, I found  vehicles that had been crushed…emergency services that had gone into action…and a good samaritan with a chain saw went directly to work to free our busy 9th Ave from a tree that was obstructing traffic.

          When I returned home, I found there was neither electricity nor internet. Hours later…I feel we were very lucky to be spared from the ultimate dangers a storm like this can bring.

          In the above photo, there are two trees down. One is easy to see, the other not as much. (Frame left and frame right)  Hester Park has several trees down and is perhaps the epicenter of damage. Only 24 hours before, I was there doing a helicopter training flight. Change can come so fast. This image was captured in a dawn flight approximately 12 hours after the event.

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Sidebar…third weather story in a row I was completely drenched in rain…I had to laugh a little as a metro bus rolled past and sprayed me with water in one of the closing shots…would have loved it more if the camera was fully enclosed, and I could have filmed the “splash”…

for additional coverage: visit www.WJON.com

As seen on www.WJON.com. The sky was an intriguing blend of calm air and sunshine on the East side of this small approaching storm today, so I knew it would be a great opportunity to send the plane up hoping to catch a new aerial weather image. Although expecting turbulent downdrafts at any moment to bring my flight to an end, suprisingly, I was able to continue flying in relatively calm skies until only moments before the storm arrived. (North Jr. High is in the center-left foreground)