All photos taken on May 8, 2024.

Our road trip is well underway and we are now travelling in the United States. We left Medicine Hat, Alberta, early this morning during a rather intense rain storm.

During the night prior to our departure, the wind was howling and the rain was furiously pounding down.

I checked aviation weather several times and saw that there was a huge trough of seriously bad weather stretching all the way from northern Alberta across most of Saskatchewan and into North Dakota. That’s an enormous area.

This system is expected to last for two days and drop a lot of moisture on an area that has been extremely dry over the last year, so while it wasn’t bringing the best driving conditions, it was at least bringing much needed water.

The clouds were huge and only about 150 metres (500 ft) above the ground. Comprised of dense, multiple layers, they were not to be ignored.

After many hours of these conditions, we finally saw some cloud breaks as we neared Minnesota.

It was a difficult drive with the high crosswind continuously pushing the vehicle and the rain beating the windshield to the point of occasionally obscured visibility, so we were very happy to stop for the day! I hope tomorrow’s weather is better.

Cheers from the North Dakota/Minnesota boundary.