Thunder Storms

A short 35 minute flight to Regina today was proof of how every flight a pilot flies is not the same as a previous one, even if it includes the same destination. After waiting for a CRJ200 to land and then watching both a C172 and another CRJ200 take off out of Saskatoon, we pushed the power levers forward up to 700 degrees C, which usually we set to 1680 flbs/torque, but as summer is taking over it's the temps that govern our takeoff power setting. We started rolling down the runway with my captain calling first the power set and gauges green, then the alertness call at 80knots then the 100knot call and rotation. Our wheels left the runway at 105 knots and we climbed off RWY15 for 15'000 feet. The climb was smoother than I anticiapated with a long line of thunder storms streching from Regina to Saskatoon, but when we leveled off at 15'000 the turbulance was makeing for an uncomfortable ride so we got permission and dropped down 2000 feet. We quickly reached Regina and began our descent for the visual onto RWY13, the tower informed us of the TSs rolling in and told us we weren't gonna be able to get out if it didn't happen in 45mins. So we landed in Regina and taxied to the Aerocenter, it was a good feeling parking there in a plane as that was were I spent the previous three years working on the ground parking planes and fueling them.

We ended up on the ground for only about 25 mins and than hopped back in the plane, fired up and got clearance for RWY31 so we could stay away from the looming storm that was only minutes away. We lifted off 31 and immediatly asked departure for 12000 (instead of our flight planned 16000) and for deviations to the right for weather. We were approved for it all and proceeded to fly about 15 degrees to the East of our course. Within 5 mins our storm scope was showing lighting only about 15 miles behind us, we continued to the flight with a nice 30 knot tail wind and the line of TSs on our right side the whole way to Saskatoon. We arrived along with about 4 other planes trying to get into Saskatoon, thanks to a hard working Terminal and Tower we where able to land without any delays, we got the visual for RWY15 about 15 miles back and where told to land and hold short of RWY 09, which wasn't a problem for us. We landed along with a B737 which was touching down on 09 just before we touched down on 15. We landed and slowed down to exit on Alpha, the taxi back was nice with the whole day still before me. And it's now evening and we haven't seen those thunder storms yet.