I left for Munshiganj as a compromise target and after the long ferry and slow ride through winding small roads full of rickshaws, arrived to grab some lunch and visit local people.
Here’s a proud Bangladeshi farmer who works near the river.
In villages I’m usually surrounded by kids. Some people know a little English like “how are you” and they will yell it out when they see you walk by. I love the expression on the girl to the left.
Unfortunately, peak heating past with little in the way of storm development. But there were some developing echoes NW and WNW. So I decided to head into Dhaka and assume the tallest hotel with a room facing that direction (this is my standard backup plan every single night). It took 3.5 hours to get back into central Dhaka and it was indescribably crazy. Rickshaws and cars ramming each other, people jumping out in front, being hit and going about like nothing happened. Moment after moment of head on acceleration and last minute swerving. One thing to remember here is there is basically no traffic laws enforced.
When we finally arrived and after an hour to settle down, a supercell hit the town from the west with all of its fury.
The winds picked up considerably and briefly blew from the south, a single power flash was seen as was well a deep red flash. The winds then aimed directly at my 9th story hotel room and gave me a beating with the giant glass windows open. Hail filled the room.
After this, the storm started to move off but not before producing crawler lightning over and over again just out of my field of photography.
I then went to sleep only to awake again at around 4:25 to the sound of an even stronger storm bearing down on the city of 16,000,000 people. This time the storm which had displayed no CG lightning before was full of it. Crashing down nearly every second on various parts of the city. As the lightning started to strike around my building and the old buildings of Dhaka, the Muslim call to prayer rang out and echoed through the early morning tempest – one of the most present and interesting moments I have been able to witness.
