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Driving in a heavy rain and hail storm (onboard video)

Costas Athan

Costas Athan

Senior member
An onboard video of me driving in a heavy rain and hail storm. Visibility since 3:00 mark of the video decreases significantly and from 4:00 is almost zero. I have left some clips of the orginal sound cuptured with the GoPro to hear the intense of the rain (1:26, 8:35) and the severity of the hail (5:00), as well as the sound of a huge water splash (11:57).

Watch the video in 1080p or 3D:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ti8a30XEZE&hd=1

If you like this video or any other of the videos I have uploaded you can subscribe to my channel. Thanks for watching!
 
Here in Kansas we call that a sprinkle. Until the sky turns green and hail cracks your windshield, its not a bad storm.

Visibility was great the entire time from what I saw but then again, I wasn't driving in the storm and didn't have to make the decisions you did.
 
Where is the "heavy rain"? I didn't watch the whole thing. I kept skipping chunks to find "heavy rain". Did not deliver.
 
brianmanahan said:
whats with europeans and dash cams?
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Do a search on YouTube and you 'll find thousands of videos from US too!

slag said:
Here in Kansas we call that a sprinkle. Until the sky turns green and hail cracks your windshield, its not a bad storm.

Visibility was great the entire time from what I saw but then again, I wasn't driving in the storm and didn't have to make the decisions you did.
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If you watched the first two minutes of the video then yes it is heavy rain but not that bad. But for example watch it from here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ti8a30XEZE&hd=1&t=7m24s on and watch it in full screen and 1080p. Even with the wipers working at full speed you can see that the windshield is full of water most of the time. It gets worse in here too (I'm talking about mountainous Greece) but I don't think it is clever to drive when the visibility is even worse than in this video. And as I mentioned in video's description GoPro gives somewhat a better visibility than human eyes
 
Ferzerp said:
Where is the "heavy rain"? I didn't watch the whole thing. I kept skipping chunks to find "heavy rain". Did not deliver.
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Watch it from 5th or 6th minute...

tfinch2 said:
Heavy rain is when you have to pull over because you can not see the front of your own car.
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Well when the rain and hail are at their worst you can't see over 50 meters and that's a very small distance for driving a car.
 
404: Heavy rain not found.

You want heavy rain, try 2 inches in ten minutes like we had here the other week. THAT is heavy rain. The weird part though is that on the other side of town (3-4miles) they didnt get any rain at all.
 
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FuzzyDunlop said:
404: Heavy rain not found.

You want heavy rain, try 2 inches in ten minutes like we had here the other week. THAT is heavy rain. The weird part though is that on the other side of town (3-4miles) they didnt get any rain at all.
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2 years ago we got 13.6" of rain in 2 days (apparently 19" in some places). That made a huge mess.
 
purbeast0 said:
sorry but at the 4 minute mark, visibility is not even close to being "zero" in any way.
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Really. At no time was the rain what I'd consider heavy at all, just raining. Visibility was pretty darned good throughout that video. I just don't see the concern that you had, OP, about how hard it's raining.
 
LOL, tell that driver to experience a FL rain/thunderstorm while driving, that's like a sprinkle in comparison..
 
That's nothing. Try having a hail storm dumping baseball and softball sized hail during rush hour.
I was following the storm and there were cars all up and down the high way and in parking lots with no windows left in them and the tops of cars looked like golf balls.
Not many peoples cars were spared that day. So much so, that when my truck was hit a few weeks later, there was still a month waiting time for any body shop to get to working on my truck.

I've also been in rain so heavy I couldn't see the hood of my car. It was literally like driving into a lake.
 
FuzzyDunlop said:
or this, watch as the tree just shreds to bits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=T-QQTLfHImo&NR=1
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I meant heavy for driving. I know there are hurricanes and monsoons but in these situations I don't think it is possible to drive without risking your life.

purbeast0 said:
sorry but at the 4 minute mark, visibility is not even close to being "zero" in any way.
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I just had to give a point of the video were the rain starts to get worse. The intensity changes continuously and I can't describe it second by second... As for the zero visibility I didn't use it literally, but I consider it very bad. I don't do more than 30 - 40 mph and with the wipers on full speed the windshield stays full of water (from 6th minute and on). Think of how much more water would stay on the windshield if the car was traveling on a freeway with 70 - 80 mph. And if you pay attention at 10:23 the road on the left has turned into a small river in a few minutes time. That's not due to drizzle.
 
JeffreyLebowski said:
That's nothing. Try having a hail storm dumping baseball and softball sized hail during rush hour.
I was following the storm and there were cars all up and down the high way and in parking lots with no windows left in them and the tops of cars looked like golf balls.
Not many peoples cars were spared that day. So much so, that when my truck was hit a few weeks later, there was still a month waiting time for any body shop to get to working on my truck.

I've also been in rain so heavy I couldn't see the hood of my car. It was literally like driving into a lake.
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I agree! If you compare it with a catastrophic event it is nothing... But I don't characterize as heavy the rain that brings buildings and trees down. In the case of the video it was impossible to do over 50 mph without a serious risk of missing the next turn and drive the car out of the road. For me that qualifies the rain as heavy...
 
Your country has wimpy rain and so you don't know how to drive in real rain. Just accept it. What you seem so impressed with happens every few weeks in the spring/summer here and no one stops their travel because of it.

There are times when individuals pull over on the freeway, but it is far, far more rain than that little sprinkle.
 
Ferzerp said:
Your country has wimpy rain and so you don't know how to drive in real rain. Just accept it. What you seem so impressed with happens every few weeks in the spring/summer here and no one stops their travel because of it.

There are times when individuals pull over on the freeway, but it is far, far more rain than that little sprinkle.
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You are wrong about Greece's climate. During Winter up the mountains the weather is not as friendly as you think. Thankfully there aren't any hurricanes as in US, but there are extreme weather phenomena here too.

I would like to see an onboard video of what you call a heavy storm because the word "heavy" isn't scientifically defined and every person can use it in a different way. In my case as I said visibility at 30-40 mph wasn't more than 160 feet so I don't think if the rain was more intense it would be responsible to continue driving. If you can provide a link of an onboard video with what you call heavy rain. It would be useful to make the comparison.
 
Costas Athan said:
You are wrong about Greece's climate. During Winter up the mountains the weather is not as friendly as you think. Thankfully there aren't any hurricanes as in US, but there are extreme weather phenomena here too.

I would like to see an onboard video of what you call a heavy storm because the word "heavy" isn't scientifically defined and every person can use it in a different way. In my case as I said visibility at 30-40 mph wasn't more than 160 feet so I don't think if the rain was more intense it would be responsible to continue driving. If you can provide a link of an onboard video with what you call heavy rain. It would be useful to make the comparison.
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Here is some fairly heavy rain, although I have driven through heavier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNTTf6dIygA

Skip to 2:00 or so for the goodies. If water isn't sheeting across your windscreen even with the wipers on high, it's not "heavy".
 
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