Well, some of the official figures from the storm last night are coming in. (Read the blog below this one if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) It was the talk of the town though. From what I heard, Riga, Talsi (where we live) & Valdemarpils (where the base is) got the worst of it. After school we went driving and I took some shots… nothing catastrophic, but interesting nonetheless, especially if you’re somehwat of a stormchaser-wannabe, like me. :) The base is still out of power. Reports are 50,000 customers are out, which, in a country this size, that’s substantial. In Riga they were advising parents to take escort their kids to school cause many roads were flooded and billboards and such were down everywhere.

We did have school, though I only had 7 of my 13 students. I think attendance was down everywhere today.

This picture is from our balcony that Chris took this morning. It’s the building next to ours. (Remember you can click on a picture to make it bigger.) The “official” wind reading closest to us reported 27 meters/second, which converts to 60mph. The highest recorded in the country was on the coast in Liepaja and Ventspils… 32 meters/second, which is 71.5 mph. Stop lights in Liepaja were not just out but down… and they weren’t the ones that hang, but on poles. You can see more pictures (and try out your latvian) here.
The rest of the pics are from my drive between Talsi & Valdemarpils.