Watch These Planes Land During Massive Windy Conditions in Minnesota
Just how windy was it in Minnesota? It was so windy that planes had to use an unusual flight path and different runway to land as they battled strong winds Thursday.
While we're used to the weather usually being somewhat windy here in southeast Minnesota (Rochester has been ranked as one of the Windiest Cities in the Country), Mother Nature really kicked those winds up a notch or two on Thursday.
The National Weather Service issued a Wind Advisory for most of the Land of 10,000 Lakes on Thursday (Apr. 14th) which called for sustained winds of between 20 to 30 miles an hour, with gusts of up to 50 miles an hour or more. And sure enough, as predicted, those winds delivered.
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While we had wind gusts in the mid 40 miles an hour range here in Rah-Rah-Rochester, Fox-9 TV reported that at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport (MSP) in Bloomington, gusts of nearly 60 miles an hour were reported.
And that caused the flight controllers at MSP to take some unusual action: they switched incoming flights to a different runway (Runway 22) so that they were taking off and landing with the wind, all to avoid those gusty crosswinds.
Seeing as MSP usually allows planes to land on two runways, using only one during those windy conditions Thursday did cause some delays. MSP said there were 45 flights canceled and 187 delayed flights through 9 pm Thursday.
And while the old aviation adage that says 'any landing you can walk away from is a good landing,' certainly still applies, that wind made for some tricky landings at MSP yesterday. Check it out in the video below.
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