Holy Snowly

That freakish thunderstorm earlier today dumped 6 to 8 inches of snow on my town in one hour. An hour. The car was clean from the garage when I drove to the appointment, and when I saw it on my way out I could only tell which one it was by where I'd parked. I had to rock-and-gas it in three separate intersections to get it over the higher drifts, but it performed damned well for such a tiny vehicle.

Visibility in the storm was about 10-20 feet tops. All I could see was other drivers' headlights, and even then it was tricky to navigate. I'm glad I know these roads like the back of my fappin' hand, because it meant I only missed the rehab clinic entrance three times as I coasted past it doing 5mph. Fuck yeah I love Minnesota. Days like this are why I moved here.

Now I eat steamed rice with a scrambled egg and some tofu. Nommmmmmmm.

Thundersnow Returns!

Booms from this intense thunderstorm keep shaking my office chair. Oh yeah, and it's snowing so hard I can barely see across the street. Spring already?

First appointment at the sports rehab center today because of [content redacted]. I have my fingers crossed that they can help me out.

I am inking the next pages of my comic today. I can barely contain my excitement over the huge plot revelations I had the other day. It's still hard for me to believe a short side project could have evolved into something this complex with so little effort. Like it was already in my head, waiting for me to uncover it a bit at a time. I know it'll never be on par with the Great American Novel, but I'm pretty comfy with what I've got.

Skyhounding? Skyhounding!

BEST THUNDERSTORM YET.

Stills and gifs from the storm will be up tomorrow or the day after. For now, I too tired!

Thunderstorm, Complete

I uploaded the whole storm from last week:




Enjoy!

Last Week's Thunderstorm

Part one of probably five or six. Once they're all done, I'll put the whole collection to music or just reinsert the audio of the storm itself since it's incredibly noisy and intense. Enjoy!

I spent most of today sleeping, so the raffle will have to wait til tomorrow.

Weather or Not

Attention, internet. We have thundersnow. I repeat, we have thundersnow.

Edit: I went outside on my porch to record this super-rare weather, and only realized after taping for about two minutes that I could see into my neighbor's shower. I am not sure, but I think the lady in there might have seen me. Not that I could make anything out, but it did end up in-frame for a while.

Whoops.

storm country

I dreamed I was about to stay the night at a friend's house, and I went walking down the block to where my car was parked so I could pick up some gear for overnight.

I finished grabbing my stuff and stopped before heading back to blow my nose. As I did, I happened to look up at the sky, and on the horizon there was a thunderhead so gnarly and mean-looking that it was as black as midnight at the center. It was coming fast and little wisps of cloud that looked almost like smoke were swirling around underneath it.

I decided I wouldn't be going back to the house just yet, and dug out my camera to get a picture for my blog of this incredible black thunderhead.

I stepped out of the car to get a clear shot, and just then the first lightning flashed. It was spectacularly bright and jagged, and the thunder was almost simultaneous. I jumped back into the car and climbed into the rear, keeping well away from anything metal. More lightning and thunder while I climbed around, and this time it was even closer than before. Cars are safer than most places in electrical storms, but I was starting to be scared.

The storm hit so fast I barely had time to click the wheel over 'video' and start recording. I didn't have to point it any particular direction because every fork of lightning ended up in-frame. The thunder was savage. At one point I got nervous that my terrified breathing would end up in the video and spoil it, but the noise got so much louder that I didn't have to worry about that anymore after a few seconds.

Lightning started striking all around the car and the sky filled with these horribly distorted sounds. I'd never heard anything so awful in my life. I'd heard something similar once (in walking life) when lightning struck nearby and the thunder sounded like someone waving thin metal plates or wires around before it finally boomed. That had been weird and curious; this was horrifying and deadly.

The lightning was so bright and constant that it started distorting the visuals on the camera's viewscreen into meaningless jagged white wavelengths. I knew the sky was trying to get me, just as it had in all those recurring dreams that had come before. Lightning was striking the car, over and over again, and I kept recording through it all. What else could I do?

I woke up with sick jolts of fear and anticipation surging over my body from head to toe. I knew I was awake and safe, but my brain was still reacting to lightning that wasn't really there. I even checked outside to make absolutely sure, but the foot and a half of snow on the ground wasn't enough to reassure me that the storm was imaginary.

I came over here to type it down without bothering to give myself time to wake up properly, because the paranoia and chills were driving me crazy. It was so fucking real.

Last Night's Storm

Last night we had this badass electrical storm. My head was about to split from one of the nastiest headaches I can ever remember having. Two Excedrin took the edge off the pain enough that I could at least go storm-chasing.

The sky looked like this but all the spectacular and vivid strikes managed to dodge my camera.

Here are the two that did not get away:





I wish I had an actual video camera that could handle night filming without making everything grainy and wretched. More incentive to get financially stable, I reckon.

I'm still sitting on the July storm footage, but it'll be along as soon as I have a program that will join the files. VirtualDub thinks they're made of cancer.

I'm Being Teased By The Heavens

THUNDERSTORM: WHOM! WHOM! HUGE LIGHTNING! ROCK AND ROLLLL!

LUKA: OH NEAT! LET ME GET MY CAMERA!

THUNDERSTORM: BORED NOW. GOING SOMEWHERE ELSE.

LUKA: FUCKING HELL.

THUNDERSTORM: WOO HOO! SECOND WIND BABY! CHECK OUT MY LIGHT SHOW! METAL FOREVERRRRR!

LUKA: CAMERA!!!

THUNDERSTORM: OH THAT'S OKAY. I WAS JUST LEAVING.

LUKA: YOU DO NOT FOOL ME! I DRIVE SOMEPLACE WHERE I CAN GET BETTER PICTURES!

THUNDERSTORM: DOOT DOOT.

LUKA: I WAIT!

THUNDERSTORM: I'M BEHIND THE CHURCH NOW! CATCH ME IF YOU CAN! OOP TOO SLOW, I'M OVER HERE NOW!

LUKA: I ROLL DOWN THE WINDOWS FOR ACCESS TO THE ENTIRE SKY!

THUNDERSTORM: DRIVING RAIN! DRIVING RAIN ALL OVER THE PLACE! SUCK IT, MARSHALL!

LUKA: FINE WHATEVER GOING HOME NOW.

THUNDERSTORM: ...

THUNDERSTORM: ROCK AND ROLL BABY! WHOM! WHOM!

Minnesota Light Show II

More lightning, not as intense or awesome.

Click to view animations:



With love,
The Heyoka Of St. Paul

GOD HATES MINNESOTA

My entire neighborhood looks like this! Only without the house.

Como Park got ass-raped but I didn't have my camera to take pictures. Huge old trees are down all over the place. The Maryland/Dale stoplights are STILL out. Sirens went by every five minutes from 4 to 8 am. Whole streets are blocked off by police tape due to trees in the road.

I haven't seen destruction like this since the October 1997 ice storm (and subsequent federal emergency) when I was living in N*braska.

Tomorrow I will strap on my new rollerblades and go take photographs of the destruction around town. Meanwhile, another storm is rolling in...

PS - If you live around here, I'd love to hear your stories. Storms = win.

Minnesota Light Show

There's a huge electrical storm raging outside. I was lucky and captured two lightning strikes on camera. There would have been more, but as the weather reporter on Family Guy once said, "IT'S RAININ' SIDEWAYS!"

Click to view animations:



PS - Light-sensitive epileptics shouldn't have looked at this post. Now you're going to die :(

~The Heyoka Of St. Paul