Well I got there, I had to walk to the Chalet of the Mount-Royal because could not get anyone to come with me, cause of the weather forecast

despite all the mosquitoes and the heat and the wind and the heavy unbreathable smog, the show did indeed start, just a little late

I guess there was not much wind at La Ronde however cause the smoke would not move away after the explosions - this, coupled with lightning which would light up the entire sky including the huge clouds of smoke - it was a trying experience

Here are 3 of my images and I will post more tomorrow night on my website (pbase.com/rachelita/feux2007

Now it is almost 2am and I got to get sleep before going to work tomorrow hehe

Hi Rachel,

Thank you, once again, for sharing the pictures. Indeed, the forecast was very threatening, as was the presentation of the mighty cumulonimbus cloud starting to form at about 8:00 to the North and West surrounding us. I watched it develop until in grew so large that it produced electrical activity; it was amazing, but also scary because it threatened to ruin the display. The display was delayed for about 5 mins because (I think) they wanted to wait until the lightning activity calmed down and/or for the storm to move out altogether. The remaining lightning in the distance, though, was actually at times integrative during the beginning of the display.

In any case, indeed, despite the strong wind downdrafts from the storm occurring for some time, there wasn't that much wind present to clear the smoke during the display due to the storm moving off. Thankfully, at least from my viewing perspective, the smoke did not totally cover most of the display, but it was more prevalent in the finale perhaps because of the shear rate of firing of all those shells, thus allowing copious amounts of smoke to build at mid to high levels.

In any case, I love the pictures and I look forward to also seeing them on the photos page. I had a wild day, especially in trying to keep everyone up to date with the weather and then monitoring the movement of the storm on site!

Trav.

Thanks once again Rachel. Your pictures are now up on the photo page, together with Bob's.

Paul.