Pilot’s Logbook During the summer, I used to refer to the area between Dallas and Corpus as thunderstorm alley. Unless there was a strong high pressure area sitting over central Texas, it was almost a guarantee that the summer’s sizzling heat mixed with the moisture pouring in from the Gulf were going to turn the soft white fluffy morning clouds into towering cumulus by noon, and from there they’d keep on rising into thunderstorm cells by around 3 p.m. Getting from Brownsville to Houston or Dallas and back was usually a challenge. To say I hated thunderstorms would be an understatement. When ...