Saturday 21 May 2011

Stormclouds are raging all around my door

Coming back from town with Moni last night, we could see over Wiścigi what looked like a massive fireworks display; as we headed south past the racetrack, it turned out to me an electrical storm of significant magnitude sweeping westwards across the southern horizon.

Time to get camera on tripod, set shutter to 'B', aperture to f 5.6, ISO to 100, snap and wait. Wait for the Big Flash. Then release shutter, and repeat. Select best image (above) - no need for Photoshop (other than correcting verticals) and there we go.

The storm passed by without too much water on Jeziorki; I guess Góra Kalwaria and Pruszków would have got a drenching. More expected today (I hope it will not interfere with my planned bike ride).

It is unusual to experience such storms in mid-May; they are a regular occurrence in July and August. Here's one in late June 2009 and then of course there was the famous Corpus Christi storm of early June last year.

This time last year:
Floods endanger Warsaw

This time two years ago:
Why Poland cannot afford the Grosz

This time three years ago:
Slow train from Zakopane to Kraków

This time four years ago:
The year's most beautiful day?

2 comments:

student SGH said...

Saw the beautiful theatre of lightnings. I watched it for around an hour (21:30 - 22:30), then the rain poured down for a while in NI, but today soil is stone-dry.

Hope there'll be a nice storm today. I cycled today in the morning, just because I was afraid the storm would hit before midday (clouds were setting in on the western sky). Till now just it's sultry and the storm seems to be biding its time.

Michael Dembinski said...

Well, the forecast rain did not happen today - heard much thunder while cycling along the Vistula, but only a few drops of rain ('jak na lekarstwo').