Earlier in August we had several storms moving across Estonia. For some reason many storms pass the capital area where I live and I figured that this is probably the case this time as well. So I decided to go storm chasing and drive 130km to Pärnu because storms were moving towards this place.
When I reached to the Pärnu beach, the view of the upcoming storm was insane. Those clouds really looked like a doomsday was upon us. I didn't have a lot of time to take photos because it moved quickly towards us.
First thing I took 3 landscape photos that I was able to stitch together and make a panorama.
Here I have also a couple of single-frame photos but it was impossible to fit the whole thing in the frame.
I stayed there for about 5 minutes when the wind got extremely strong. All the sand was blowing and it was time to run away. Basically, I ran to the car and escaped from Pärnu, and drove fast towards the capital Tallinn. I was afraid of massive hail that destroyed cars. Earlier that day we had 7cm large hail in Saaremaa. That's the island of Estonia. It smashed roofs and totaled cars wreaking havoc in many other ways.
Also, Latvia had some crazy hail that destroyed property. Latvia is basically next door to Pärnu where I went. I didn't want to risk having my car destroyed. Fortunately Pärnu ultimately just got a thunderstorm, strong wind and heavy rain. No Hail. It was a fun day for sure. I drove almost 300km in total to only stay 5 min in the beach but these photos are really cool so it was worth the time and spent money on fuel.
