Storm season has arrived in South Central Alberta. I took a casual look out the back window as the room seemed to have darkened and then the next thirty minutes that followed weren’t casual at all. The sky was blackening, the wind was up, and worst of all, the temperature was dropping quickly. It had been at a blistering 31C, but I could tell by the feel of the air we were already at 25C and still heading downward.
I quickly launched the drone into the air to see if I could get a piece of the action. Yes I did, but I had nothing but wind warnings through the entire shoot at an elevation of 70m. I was half expecting the drone to fall out of the sky because of how bad it was for wind. I shot my bracketed sets for the panoramic and quickly brought the drone back in.
We don’t have a garage, just a car port, and my daughter’s Hyundai lives there now. It used to be home to Vlad the Impala. Gilgamesh simply won’t fit into that small spot, so he lives on the street. I moved my wife’s van to the driveway as the direction of the wind meant it would have some shelter from the trailer my neighbour parks in his front yard. Gilgamesh is the highest worth vehicle we have and won’t be written off for hail damage, so that was the safe choice to leave on the street. Sort of. I moved it to a different side of the street so the now dead weeping birch our landlords need to remove, but haven’t, didn’t fall on it.
My travel trailer was wide open as I was in the middle of doing some work on it. I frantically raced around and shoved openings back closed. The water inlet that I’m halfway through the hose repair on was hanging out the side of the trailer and any water going in there goes in behind my cabinets. I covered that with plastic and taped it off. Everything else on the top and west side of the trailer was closed off.
And then we waited while the wind howled.
For nothing.
The storm skirted around town to the south of us and that was fine by me. I know from the rapid drop in air temperature that someone got hailed on and I feel badly for them. I’m sure it’ll be in the news today. This is probably unkind, but I am glad it’s them and not me. I have enough on my plate right now.
I’d sure like to live somewhere else and not have to deal with this every year, but that’s not an option yet. I’m stuck in this craptastic province for now. I suppose the trade-off is good pictures of skylifes. It didn’t feel like a good deal last night and it still doesn’t this morning.
Blah.
Another DJI Mini 3 panoramic. The big story here is that this is the worst weather I have had a drone up in yet and it didn’t crash. It was good to learn that the newer model has better storm tolerance.