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Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 10:56PM

Two-day Pittsburgh trip, Hurricane Dean

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

I took a short trip to Washington, PA (a Pittsburgh suburb) for a couple of days for a quick family get-together at my parents' house. I decided to fly from Raleigh, since the fare for early morning flights was going to be about the same cost to drive. The early morning flights allowed for some nice scenes as we flew over downtown Pittsburgh as well as downtown Washington. Haze and dirty airplane windows kept these from being real keepers, but it was still good to be able to get a few of the shots.

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Washington (the house is visible in some of these):

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Kind of blurry due to the haze and very dirty airplane window, but the house is visible here, across the street from the school (the big white building):

Wind turbine farm on a mountain ridge in northeastern West Virginia:

Mountains west of Washington, DC:

Flying around a dying thunderstorm complex in central WV:

We flew through a small line of showers just before landing in Pittsburgh. Here is a video clip.

Well-defined wingtip vortex while landing at Pittsburgh:

Some family photos (my 8 month old nephew, my sister, brother, mom, dad, grandmother and the dogs):

Hurricane Dean
Keeping this blog on its weather theme, I have to give mention to the current hurricane in the Carribean. Dean didn't take its potential northerly turn toward us here in the Carolinas, but rather is heading due west. Dean is an unusually strong hurricane, expected to reach Category 5 as it crosses Jamaica. The storm's track is then forecast to maintain a general westerly direction across the Yucatan and into Mexico, barely missing a US landfall. As a result, we will be sitting this one out. Another tropical wave is right behind Dean in the Atlantic, also forecast to develop further.