Storm

In theory we will get a storm this afternoon and I am impatient for it. I am impatient for heavy rain to cool the roof and walls of this nightmare minergie building. As great as it is to have a cheap building to heat in winter, it is a deadly building in summer, especially when neighbours open their windows to aerate and let hot air in.

In normal buildings, if you open windows you get a draft, and that draft circulates air and it’s refreshing, and when you close windows that freshness lingers. In a minergie building, if you leave the window blinds open the sun heats every surface, and the air. The space heats up just like a car.

Last night at around 05:30 the alarm went off and either before or afterwards I heard lightning. I also heard very heavy rain. The question was whether the weather app was to be trusted. I could see that it would rain heavily while I walked from home to the meeting point but that for the duration of the rain it would remain dry.

I chose to take a good raincoat and walked in the rain towards the meeting point. For a moment I thought that I would be alone. Luckily two others turned up, including the person that suggested the run.

Bike rides have been cancelled because of rain, rather than wind or other factors. When it rains cyclists don’t want to ride because it gets their bike dirty and they have to clean it, lubricate it and more. With hikers rain is also an excuse to be lazy, within some groups. With other groups rain is just rain and the walks and hikes go ahead.

Yesterday morning we had stormy weather. It was raining very hard, and so windy that rain was aerosolised rather than falling as raindrops. As gusts blew, so you saw a cloud of rain move with the wind. You could see gutters overflowing as the wind blew water out over the lip of the edge. It was strong enough to change the direction of water flowing with gravity.

On RTS Info they warn about Erin, the ex-cyclone probably hitting Switzerland, dumping a lot of rain. The alert for some areas is level 5.

This is for a narrow band in the Alps on the Italo-Swiss border. The possible impacts are ’extreme rise in water of rivers and lakes, flooding in many areas, and landslides. Rail and road traffic could be impacted.

Around Nyon there is a chance of localised flooding, dry ditches filling with water, and in some places localised flooding in basements and other places.

Yesterday I went for a walk and during this walk I kept looking at the Jura. Above the Jura I could see a cumolonimbus cloud mushroom and grow upwards, before spreading out. This morning I read about a huge hail storm. I photographed that storm cell as it was growing. Yesterday I could see a few storm systems growing and I thought “maybe we’ll have storms this evening.” We didn’t, but some of them did.

https://youtu.be/UwJuKemh4VE

A stormy Leman

The weather was finally dynamic today. The storm warnings were flashing towards Hermance, on the French side of the lake. This gave a nice contrast between the yellow of the Colza fields and the dark threatening clouds behind.

At moments I thought that rain would begin to fall but luckily the doppler radar, and my instincs were correct, so I did not get drenched in rain or pelted with hail. At one point it did feel as though hail could be a possibility.

A Walk Under Clouds

Sometimes you look at the sky above you and you think that walking underneath it is not wise because a storm could break but you remember that you saw that rain should not come before 1800 so you take the risk and you go for a walk. You look towards Geneva and you see that it is dark and that it looks as if it may be raining. You feel the wind coming from that direction and you worry that the weather forecast was wrong so you change the course of your walk.

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.