Chasing the Rainbow, Chased by Storms - KAP Jasa

This KAP session started rather innocuously …

It was a somewhat sunny day at Ljubljana Marshes; the wind was nice, the bugs and mosquitos were active, the swallows were chasing them around the sky, the crops were blissfully ripening. A typical middle-augustian Saturday afternoon.

We were at a place we rarely visit – because we had set it aside years before for a special kite experiment: catching the lightning and making fulgurites from quartz sand. Long-term lightning strike monitoring showed this place to be … productive 🙂

There were storms up and about that afternoon, but they were either far to the west or passing safely to the east; we had no plans to catch a lightning, just to have an easy, relaxed kite aerial photography session.

Storms, on the other hand, had plans.

The kites went up quickly, first The Original Blue rokkaku with the old Nikon P330, then the lovely Cindy delta carrying an Insta360 on a Suptig rotator. They both settled high above the plain and started their photography mission … everything was fine, it was time to crack open a cold one.

“Oh look, a rainbow!”

“I wonder if the kites see it too!”

They did – well, at least Cindy did, but … a rainbow means rain, and since the only clouds around were storm clouds, those pesky cumulonimbuses, we started to worry.

“Check the weather app …”

The storm map told us that the rainbow storm was indeed passing us a couple of miles to the east, and another big one was too far west to bother us. But yet another one just appeared to the north, rather small but evolving and growing.

“We’ll slowly finish the beer and then pull the kites down.”

The newborn storm was now full grown and was approaching fast. The bugs stopped their incessant buzzing, the swallows disappeared. The wind picked up, getting stronger and gustier by the minute.

“Leave the beer, let’s go!”

We rarely pull some 300 m of line down so fast. It was a hard aerobic exercise; the kites were fighting, our hands were bruised and hurt. But both kites were down safely, and just as we packed everything into the car, a thunder sounded ominously close and big drops started to fall.

The storm was here.

Oh, the drama …

Sure, storms can be unpredictable and they can come upon an unsuspecting kite flyer faster than expected – but they are not to be feared irrationally. Use common sense, check the weather, check it often, and have your eyes open.

In any case, we got some nice photos of Ljubljana Marshes, Cindy caught a rainbow – and we confirmed the place as the best for catching a lightning. Soon! 🙂