I Saw A Sun Dog Today

As I walked off the plane Sully was leaving the cockpit. Southwest dresses their flight crews in leather jackets. Exactly the right look. “At what altitude did we break out,” I asked? “A hundred feet with an RVR of 1,600.” He was saying he could not see the ground until we were 100 feet above it.

I’m upstairs at my sister and brother-in-law’s place in Mequon. I am exhausted.

I slept most of the way from John Wayne to San Francisco. That’s only an hour or so.

I then fidgeted my way to Milwaukee. You don’t want to be my seatmate when I fidget. Ask Helaine.

Most of America was cloudy this afternoon. We flew right over Norfolk, Nebraska, a city I forecast for. They were socked in again as was/is Milwaukee. BTW — I did wave.

As I walked off the plane Sully was leaving the cockpit. Southwest dresses their flight crews in leather jackets. Exactly the right look.

“At what altitude did we break out,” I asked?

“A hundred feet with an RVR of 1,600.”

He was saying he could not see the ground until we were 100 feet above it. Even then he could only see around a quarter mile down the runway. Left unsaid was we landed at around 155 knots, nearly 180 MPH. If anything appeared out of the fog it was already too late!

While we were still in-the-air I took out my phone to get some shots. As the Sun got lower in the sky I caught a “sun dog.” The actual Sun is near the tip of the winglet. The sun dog is off to its left.

Sun dogs have a lot in common with rainbows in that light is being refracted. In this case the bending comes from tiny ice crystal which are triangular and act as prisms.

Science lesson over. Going to rest.

5 thoughts on “I Saw A Sun Dog Today”

  1. We waved back when you flew over but you did not see us. Darned fog! I would recommend that you honk when you go back on Sunday but we would probably just think you were another goose.

    Enjoy your visit and predict us only nice weather when you get back home.

    Russ in Norfolk, NE

  2. Thanks for the explanation and lesson. I couldn’t imagine what you were talking about til I went back to the picture after reading your explanation. Glad you made connections OK. I had read that flights were delayed in SF on Friday.

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