If a Plane Left Dallas for Omaha at 5 and a Plane Left Omaha for Dallas at the Same Time…

How long would it take?

No, this is a a sixth grade math question, but it is an interesting story tonight, underscoring the impressiveness of the weather system approaching Alabama.

Up where the big jets fly at around 300 millibars constant pressure, or 30,000 feet, winds are screaming at over 150 mph on the front side of the huge trough to our west tonight. The maximum winds extend roughly from the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex to Omaha.

The northbound flight between those two cities would have quite a tailwind! Conversely, the southbound flight would have a heckuva a headwind to contend with.

If an American Airlines MD-80 was flying from DFW to Eppley Airfield in Omaha this afternoon, for a flight that was scheduled to take 1 hour and 45 minutes, how long do you think that flight took today? (Well, of course there is a little padding in that schedule, as the average time is only 1 hour and 19 minutes according to FlightAware.com.)

But today, that MD-80 did it in 1 hour and 8 minutes. The pilot filed a flight plan calling for a speed of 449 knots (516 mph), but the plane achieved groundspeeds of 687 mph as it streaked along in the fast moving river of air.

It left DFW at 5 p.m., and touched down at OMA at 6:08. And that was despite having to take off to the south on runway 18 and turn back to the north!

Here is a graph of the plane’s speed and altitude from late this afternoon.

Of course, there was probably some severe turbulence on the plane’s descent into Omaha. The was a SIGMET (Significant Meteorological Information) advisory in effect along the flight path for severe turbulence between 10,000 and 20,000 feet.

Of course, the flights flying the reverse route told a different story. AA Flight 1286 left Omaha tonight at 6:03 p.m., and still had not made it to DFW as of this writing (7:35 p.m.) despite flying a more direct route. That MD80 has not even been able to go faster that 362 mph. And it has burned a bunch more fuel!

Category: Alabama's Weather