30 miles is a long way. Even if the cell is moving at 30mph, that gives them an hour before it gets there.
Understand, but in this case the cells were reportedly moving about 50-60 kts. So, about 1/2 hour until arrival. The SWA that called was still 110 miles out, which at some point he would have been indicating 250 kts or less (10k or below speed limit), or perhaps 20 minutes out.
Given some vectoring in line with other arriving aircraft, it is not that hard to imagine that the second line could be a problem.
I don't know what 'minimum fuel' means exactly, but guessing that means he wants to get on the ground in less than an hour.
Minimum fuel was my choice of words. The pilot did not declare minimum fuel, but more or less implied it since he stated he needed to land without holding or extensive vectoring (essentially this is what declaring minimum fuel means).
The idea for this topic here stemmed from this and numerous other examples I have heard on various feeds (NY, Detroit, Toronto, to name a few) over the last year where I hear ATC and pilots trying to figure out a way to fly around a line, but neither having a complete radar picture of the advancing front. It seems that if one or both had a more complete picture, a more effective avoidance strategy could be developed.
I was speaking with a JetBlue pilot who told me that JetBlue is looking to install satellite-downlinked radar sometime soon that will give them exactly this tool.
Now that thunderstorm season has started here in the US, I recommend watching a radar mosaic site, such as Intellicast, then listening to a feed where the airport is about to be overtaken by a line of t-storms. See if pilot and/or controller suggests an avoidance strategy that does not necessarily account for the bigger picture that you see on the radar (i.e "Request 010 heading for the next 10 miles to see if I can get around this line" when in reality a level 4 to level 5 line of precipitation extends north about 100 miles or so).