Wild Weather June 29th
Severe weather was forecast for that evening but not before the humid and hot day.
I remember it being very muggy with the sun doing its best to peak
through the overcast skies for most of the day. I had watched weather
radar most of the day but this developed with little warning.
I could see lightning strikes several miles away, lots of them. They were mixed in with the rain and their flashes were shrouded by the storm clouds. I knew I had a pretty good chance of getting some good pictures, as long as the rain did not lead too far ahead of the stormfront.
It was really wild how it went from daylight to overcast to dark as night in just a short amount of time. I wasnt sure what the best method to catch lightning would be in this situation, so I opted to just use a burst photo mode and hope for the best. The storm crept closer and closer and you could feel the thunder, the sky constantly illuminated by the repetitive lightning flashes. I was running out of time before it got to me and I was not sure if I had gotten anything worthwhile or not so I just kept snapping pictures until it was just too close and I had to get out of there. My daughter was standing beside me watching and she said “I think I am going to go inside now…” as she looked up at the pitch black sky- the wind had REALLY picked up and I was already bringing the drone down. I told her “RUN!” and by now the storm was right in front of us. Now things started rapidly changing- the wind direction immediately changed and a strong uplift was keeping my drone from coming back down. The rain started falling all around me. The wind started pushing my drone horizontally even though it was only a few feet off the ground-still trying to land. I grabbed the drone and ran inside - that’s when things really hit. Traffic on US 23 immediately slowed to a crawl, the rain crashed down in waves. That is when they sounded the Tornado Sirens. Luckily, just as a precaution. Apparently several people had called in to Emergency services reporting they could see a tornado. Fortunately this turned out to not be the case. Although storm brought heavy rain and lightning with wild winds, damage seemed minimal. Turns out I did get some pretty decent shots afterall.
