Hurricane Hunter

We are under a Tropical Storm warning.  Should have rain later today but this morning the sky was blue.

NOAA flies into Hurricanes, I fly near Hurricanes.  When I looked at the weather I could see the main outer band was around Daytona.  There was also a bit of rain over Saint Augustine.  My gut said that it would be building rapidly.

Departing, it was pretty blue.  I quickly climbed over the few clouds.  Originally I was thinking 6500 would keep me on top but later decided 8500 would provide more room.

As I headed South, it looked like I could slide between the rain over St. Augustine.  There were some big holes but I decide to stay to the West where I always had an escape route.

I slid by the close rain but my real target was the big storm.   You can see the storms over St. Augustine were starting to get denser.

Once I cleared the first line, I got a good look ahead.  I had ended up going further West than I initially planned so I had called Jacksonville Approach to confirm the restricted areas over by lake George were cold.  They were and I decided to head for over the lake.

This is the leading mass of the storm.  Pretty sure we will get some of this rain later today.  Oddly it was lots of rain but not much lightning.  I was watching the various displays and my lightning detector.  It was much quieter than I had expected.

I took a panorama view as well as the GPS display with all the pretty colors.  Even without lightning and the storms not being that tall, I was giving them the respect they deserved and keeping my distance, about 30 nautical miles.

This is lake George, it was a nice day when I was there.  Expecting it to deteriorate a bit.

I had seen the storm and now it was time to head back.  The rain had built over Saint Augustine and the clouds were thicker the entire way back.  This is the back side of the leading line.

I had thought ahead and filed an IFR plan just in case.  I requested it from JAX once I was in a position to go direct home without getting too close to the storms.

I was cleared down to 6000 and direct home.  This was the picture ahead, you can see the junk on the right.

Nice smooth air for the ride home and I could see the rain off to my right.

Why the IFR?  It was 2500 bases and not that dense so I could have stayed VFR.  Well it is just easier and sort of fun to zip through the clouds rather than stressing about finding a legal hole and having to detour.  Here I got to fly through a cloud tunnel.

Bases were 2500 so I was soon underneath with the field in sight.  I was transferred to tower and made a nice landing on 5.  Spent some time cleaning the hangar and now plane is away and safe from the approaching rain.