Forecast: Rain

This weekend during one of my skydives, a storm managed to develop over the landing area as we were flying up to altitude. We only made it to 9,000 feet AGL which was kind of annoying because the freefall time wasn't as long. However, it turned out to be better rather than worse as it was rain/snowing as we jumped out of the plane. In fact, we jumped out of the plane in the middle of a raincloud. Rain doesn't hurt too much as it hits the ground, but when you're falling through it at more than a hundred miles per hour, it hurts really bad. Imagine getting shot with a drop of water at 200 feet per second. Not fast enough to penetrate the skin, but enough to sting. Then imagine getting shot thousands of times before you are able to open your canopy. It was like that. The whole jump was a fiasco though, only three of us fun jumpers actually made it down to the landing area because of the terrible spot through the cloud and the high winds. People landed all over the place, even several miles north of the drop zone itself. I hope I never jump in the rain again, or at least if I do I hope I'm not wearing just shorts and a t-shirt. Its weird how the little things will surprise you when you least expect them. It was a fun weekend of jumping, regardless.