5/1/08 driveway irony and mayhem/ mini chase: Olathe/Kansas City

5/1/08 driveway irony/ mayhem and mini chase: Olathe, KS/Kansas City
4:30- 6:34 pm
self
66 miles
using Canon Rebel XT
While watching the impending stormweather on doppler, on 5/1/08, I saw that pre mammatus clouds were boiling into the skies.

I headed out 4:30, pm 151 Street in Olathe, KS at 4:30 and stopped off to take photos of the imposing looming super
cell and anvil (wide angle) with my canon rebel XT.

Storm warnings indicated possible wallclouds and dangerous storms near Edwardsville, off of I-70 and I-435. Instead of going North on I-435 to be closer to that town I decided to head on to I-35 to get in front of it and anything else that was coming East. Before I got infront it, the network said the storm had subsided. But the sky still had some nice scenes to photograph.
sunrays and the cloud shadows (called corpuscular rays). These shadows were piercing the clouds and the sun going down in the West. But another dangerous storm was moving into Olathe, so I headed back up south on I-35.

There was blinding rain all over. I was amazed to see the sun in the West still showing through the clouds and the blinding rain. I wanted to take a good picture of but I could not drive and take a pic at the same time. I should have instead had the camcorder ready and at least manuver it to get some video to at least take some screen snaps. It seemed an eternity as the traffic was going really slow in this heavy rain. I got off at College Blvd on the west side of I-35 (Olathe) to try to get a good photo of this nice sight. But trying to work off the exit first and then battling the rain, I just missed being able to photograph this sight.Instead I had to settlefor corpuscular ray show again (which was not all that bad). I headed back home.

Monitoring the weather, I had an inkling that another round of storms were moving in later in the morning but we went to sleep anyway. At 1:30am we got another surprise as we could hear hurricane force 1 winds blowing through the area. We stopped to now look out the window. Our fragile Bradford pare tree had, for the 3rd time, snapped and blew down in our driveway. I should have had a cut down after the 2nd time a few years ago.

But this time, a small piece of wood from the tree had hit the bottom of my Green Saturn's (now backed out for the insurance guy) windshield and cracked it. If I had parked in the driveway just about 1 inch away the wind shield would not have cracked as the piece of wood would have missed it. Insurance kicked in but still had to pay $200 for deductible. What was nice is that the company brought a van and the windshield was replaced right in the driveway. I did not have to go for bids, take time out by taking it somewhere etc etc.

It's ironic that instead of stormchasing somewhere , my car gets hit right in our driveway! Forces of nature can occur in your driveway too!