Two years ago, while attending the Tulip Festival, I witnessed this storm. If you can see what looks like a black veil at the top left corner of the photo, that is not a trick of the camera nor is it something added in post-production.

I saw this with my eyes and tried to zoom as close as I could with my lens to capture the faraway storm that was happening. The weather is funny here in the intermountain region. Unless it’s widespread, storms are usually brush-by like in this picture. Funnily enough, about 20 minutes after seeing this storm, it started raining at the festival, causing me to have to seek shelter.

This is the aftermath of a storm that came through on Wednesday afternoon. This was the first snowfall of January 2026. The weatherman called the storm a “baby storm.” Looking at the map, it looked like the storm clipped my area on its way to dump more snow on the east coast, at least it ended a 19-day dry spell.

I think it snowed a total of 3 or 4 hours? It ruined my commute home, that’s for sure, and not to mention dirtied my car. My visibility on the road was severely reduced and had to reduce my usual speed of 70 mile/hour to 30 mile/hour. Thankfully, I made it home okay, nothing much than an anxiety-induce drive.

This weekend is supposed to be very warm, like in the 50-degree-Fahrenheit range, so it should melt the snow on the roof and deliver the water into the water barrels, hopefully, that’s enough to fill them back up.

I like to end with this photo from 2019. This, too, was taken after a storm. It was taken during a rough time of my life. That day I decided to get away. I needed a breather from all the people that was staying in my house. My aunts and cousin had just immigrated to the U.S. and my aunt would spend her time either cooking, sleeping, or eating. Her stuff were on the furniture I want to sit on. Then when I want to go somewhere alone, she would make me bring her along.

One Sunday, I decided to not go home after church. Church is the one place the family refused to go, so it was a good way for me to get out alone. Instead of going home, I went to the mountains. The weather wasn’t great that day. It was misty and drizzling that day but I didn’t care, I needed the space. Being around so many people was making me claustrophobic. I still feel claustrophobic around my mom and her siblings to this day.

I almost forgot this is a long-exposure. This picture had a 30-second exposure time, it’s probably why it’s one of my favorites. I was obsessed with long-exposures at the time. I remember I did quite a bit of long-exposure photography a few years but there were more failures than successes, so I guess I kinda gave up. I long to try long-exposure again. Maybe 2026 is the year.

For SundayStills