Photos, Videos and Full Recap of Storm Chasin' from July 17

As promised, here are a few shots (finally uploaded!) from my storm chasing travel adventure west of Minneapolis on July 17, 2010. This first image, one of the last from the trip, was of a rapidly approaching shelf cloud south of Anoka, MN. In one of the videos (link below) you see me drop the camera and hear my car racing away to take cover. Pretty scary stuff for a California native.

Here is a map and summary of the severe weather events of the day, and specific incidents reported to the National Weather Service in Minneapolis.

This blog from the Minneapolis Star Tribune provides outstanding graphical updates throughout the day (latest entry first) as the storms progressed throughout the region.

Video to my YouTube site with a few videos including footage of the shelf cloud approaching and sitting it out (in both fear and excitement) as severe weather passes overhead.

Half-dollar sized hailstones pounding on my windshield will be a sound to never forget. The helpless feeling and thought the windshield might shatter at any moment was enough for me temporarily withdraw from this particular storm chase. On my escape out, I captured these after-the-fact shots of golfball size hail lying around on a baseball field near Rockford, MN. There were reports of baseball, even SOFTBALL size hail in the region earlier in the day. (Yikes!)

Although I fared well, other windshields in the path of these severe storms provided little to no barrier as shown in this image from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Sun Country Declares Bankruptcy, Plans To Continue Flights

In a press release today, Sun Country airlines, facing a significant cash shortage, announced it has filed for bankruptcy. Petters Aviation, which owns all of Sun Country's voting shares, also filed.

"We were forced to take this action as a result of recent events at Petters Group Worldwide," Sun Country CEO Stan Gadek said in a prepared statement.

The airline plans to continue operating a regular flight schedule, but last week warned employees of significant layoffs or a complete shutdown by December 1st if the cash problems were not resolved.

Sun Country currently offers flights between San Francisco (SFO) and Minneapolis.

Good Fare.
San Francisco to Minneapolis, MN $128rt+ tax (About $168) on United Airlines
Valid for most of the remaining 2007 year.

A lack of "Sun" at San Francisco Airport (soon to change)

Have you seen this plane hanging around at San Francisco Airport?
(probably not)

Sun Country Airlines, recently named top 5 on the list of Top Domestic Airlines in Travel+Leisure’s 2007 World’s Best Service Awards has daily service out of SFO. So where are their planes?
Well according to its schedule, the planes are on the ground at SFO for a mere 50 minutes - a quick drop off and reload of passengers, hardly time to gatch a glipse of their fairly new & crisp planes.

So who are they? The privatly owned company initiated its first flight in 1999 and today has over 1200 employees on staff. Based in Minneapolis, Sun Country offers year round service from San Francisco to destinations in the U.S such as New York's JFK, Washington Dulles and Dallas via its Minneapolis hub. Sun Country is really known however for its flights to Sunny destinations including Miami, St.Petersburg/Tampa, South Padre Island, Puerto Vallarta, Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa, Acapulco, Montego Bay and San Juan.

The airline just announced a "UFLY" frequent flyer program in attempt to attract new business. For coach passengers this means 10 round-trip flights=1 free flight with no blackout dates or restrictions.

Beginning later this month, Sun Country will add to its existing 1240am "red eye" service to include a 605pm departure to its Minneapolis hub (arriving at almost midnight). The airline's entire 737 fleet is young, averaging less than 5 years old. Each plane has leather seats in both first and coach class, along with high fidelity audio programming.

With this added 2nd plane you may be seeing more "Sun" at SFO.
More information about the airline can be found here.