Leslie - Jun 1, 2021
We’ve had some seriously unpredictable weather lately around here. Storms expected that don’t happen, unexpected storms that do, surprise sunny days, surprise humidity… Whew! Glad you missed that storm. Walking and the rain is one thing, but that sort of massive storm (replete with lightning!) would not have been safe.
Today I saw that they were expecting a storm and I was really looking forward to a sudden downpour, lightning and more. I also thought that it would trap me at home and that I’d have a day without walking or cycling. In the end I saw that the doppler radar no longer expected any rain etc so I got ready for a bike ride and went out. I could see that the clouds over the Jura were nice and dark, threatening to become an active storm. I still continued my bike ride. I went from near Nyon to Mies, up from there towards Commugny, then towards the Versoix, up a road and had not explored yet.
Today I had a ride towards storm clouds. I was cycling in the sun but as I looked towards Geneva I could see that it was dark and grey. I questioned whether to turn around or whether to keep going. It started to rain but I was reaching the half way point.
I didn’t turn around. I continued going and I passed families or groups on their bikes going slower than me. I flew by them and then I headed down towards the lake before turning right and going through a forest road. On this forest road, I saw children and parents on the road so I had to slow down as I passed them.
Today I was caught outdoors during a thunderstorm but rather than run to shelter or rush home I continued taking a timelapse video of some flowers. According to the apps we were meant to get some rain at 1800 so I expected it to be short lived.
This didn’t stop my clothes or my bag from getting wet but I was wearing hiking trousers and I wasn’t worried about the shoes. I didn’t expect anything to be soaked through and I did prepare to run home if need be. By the time I was ready to run the rain was stopping so I took out the phone and waited, and tried to capture lightning.