{"id":25307,"date":"2024-10-18T18:21:22","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T00:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rain-lightning-make-for-slow-start-to-2024-animas-valley-balloon-rally\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:14:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:14:17","slug":"rain-lightning-make-for-slow-start-to-2024-animas-valley-balloon-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rain-lightning-make-for-slow-start-to-2024-animas-valley-balloon-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"Rain, lightning make for slow start to 2024 Animas Valley Balloon Rally"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Hot
Hot air balloons in the Animas Valley during the 2017 Animas Valley Balloon Rally. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The 2024 Animas Valley Balloon Rally was off to a slow start Friday morning as storm clouds darkened the skies above Hermosa Meadows Road north of Durango and rain and lightning forced pilots to stick to the ground.<\/p>\n

Despite abundant storm clouds floating near the Animas Valley around 7:30 a.m., there were not yet traces of rain, lightning or even wind in the valley, said Doug Lemberg, balloon rally organizer.<\/p>\n

But right when pilots stepped out of their flight briefing to set out for Hermosa Meadows Road, the launchpoint for pilots, rain began to fall and lightning struck, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe walked outside and visibility became IFR (Instrument Flight Rules),\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re only allowed to fly VFR, Visual Flight Rule, so we don\u2019t have instruments, so we\u2019re automatically grounded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lightning poses a great risk to balloonists, and rain is incompatible with the balloons pilots are using, Lemberg said. The balloon fabrics have a special coating that can wash or \u201cburn\u201d off, and in short, if the balloons get wet, they can\u2019t fly.<\/p>\n

Twenty-eight balloon pilots from Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas \u201cbraved the elements\u201d to attend this year\u2019s balloon rally, Lemberg said. Despite the weather, it did not damper Lemberg\u2019s spirits.<\/p>\n

He said pilots will take each planned flight through the weekend one event at a time. At 3 p.m., the pilots will check with flight services to see if the traditional Balloon Glow is a go Friday evening. And balloonists will be back at Hermosa Meadows Road on Saturday for another pilot briefing.<\/p>\n

A public announcement will be made well in advance if the Balloon Glow downtown is canceled, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so proud of these people,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 It\u2019s just a great outpouring of love for everybody to come up and try to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

night\u2019s Balloon Glow up in the air until afternoon weather check<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1920,950,510,28,475],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-animas-valley","tag-durango","tag-festive-event-including-carnival","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78884,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25307\/revisions\/78884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25307"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}