What A Storm!

This past weekend I was out at the Starland Recreation Area to do some observing. While napping on Sunday I awoke to the sound of thunder. I had just enough time to batten down the hatches (about 3 minutes) before an intense thunder storm hit. Winds upwards of 100 km/h and sheeting hail pummelled the campground for about 30-45 minutes (video after the cut).

Here is some video from the view from inside my wee trailer:

The storm blew over my telescope tripod (all 50 pounds of it), fortunately the telescope was in my car at the time. The only damage was to my solar panel which was thrown about 15 metres away from my trailer. Some of the trees in the campground weren't so lucky:

This small tree was broken right off:

I was parked in the middle of one of the fields that make up the camping areas

as this makes it easier to see the sky for astronomy. It also had me completely unprotected from the storm.

About an hour after the storm, it was as if nothing had happened (as the photos show). Just the debris was left to mark the storm's passage. So I sat and began the wait for night and more observing. Around 8 pm the wind started to pick up again, though the sky was clear. A quick check of the forcast for the two closest towns indicated that there was a possibility of repeat storms similar to this one hitting the area. Since once is enough for a weekend, I cut my trip short and picked up and headed home.

I was able to get some photos from the night before the storm, I hope to be able to process them this week and get them posted here soon, so the trip wasn't a write-off.