Tag Archives: hail

Thun-Dah

We had a mega storm yesterday and the freaking airport flooded but I can’t take it seriously because TRÈS GROSSE GRÊLE sounds like a badass French metal band.

HAHAHA THANKS WEATHER I TOTALLY WANTED TO GET ABSOLUTELY DRENCHED TODAY

So Nate’s down visiting his family but I’m still in Calgary ‘cause I’m a fart but at least karma got me back in the form of the BIGGEST TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR I’VE EVER WALKED IN.*

I decided to walk up to the northeast part of Calgary (mistake #1). Basically, I go up about 7.5 miles to the UPS/FedEx buildings past Deefoot Mall and then go back the same way I go up.

Simple, right?

It was pretty hot today, also, so by the time I was about a mile away from turning around, I was happy that it was starting to get cloudy. Then I happened to look behind me and saw that it was getting REALLY cloudy. Like, dark death clouds.

Like summer storm clouds.

I keep walking, though, because I don’t want to shelter in the mall (COVID, obviously) and figure if I get rained on, it won’t be too bad.

I WAS WRONG OH MY WAS I WRONG.

I got freaking DRENCHED. It was insanely rainy and windy for a good ten minutes and there was nowhere I could take shelter – that part of Calgary looks like this…

…and the sparse buildings up there are like “LOL what are eaves?”

I remember that the FedEx building has a small overhang in front of its main entrance, so I finally make it up there and take shelter for a bit.

(Not that it matters at this point; I am SUPER wet.)

Another ten minutes or so and the storm finally passes. And it’s sunny and warm out again.

Here’s a video of the dramatic change in sky as I pan from west to east (after those clouds in the east had tried to drown me).

And here’s a cool shot of the dark sky behind a sunlit field.

Adventures on the Canadian prairies, am I right?

*This was NOT, however, the wettest I’ve ever gotten on a walk. That honor goes to a walk I did a few years ago where I spent the whole 15 miles in a very steady downpour. Absolutely soaked. I hated it.

Hail Mary!

So a huge storm system moved through here a few days ago. All we got where we live was a little bit of wind and hail, but holy hell, look what other parts of the city (mainly the northwest quadrant) had to deal with:

Holy crapples. I’m glad I didn’t get stuck walking in that.

Edit: Apparently this is now the 4th most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history, beating out the 2013 Calgary floods. Wild.

Aw Hail No!

Haha, so we got caught in a flash hailstorm on our way back from watching the new Spider Man movie. Observe:

We had just passed a bus stop when the hail started, otherwise we would have had to run a bit to find cover. The hail doesn’t look super big in the video, but some of them were probably dime-sized, I’d say. It sounds so loud ‘cause it was hitting the glass roof of the bus shelter.

I was yelling at Nate ‘cause that was the only way he could hear me.