High winds scrap final flights at 10th Annual Cathedral City Hot Air Balloon Festival, but attendees made a day out of it anyway

Dangerous weather conditions caused officials to cancel the final competition flight for the 10th Annual Cathedral City Hot Air Balloon Festival. According to Gary Moore, a balloon pilot, high winds made ballooning nearly impossible on Sunday morning.

"We just try to not we don't want to hurt anybody, and we don't want to damage our equipment," said Moore. "Too much wind is really bad."

Several dozen of the balloons were inflated momentarily, and then deflated once conditions made flight impossible.

"If there were storms in the vicinity, downdrafts from those storms even 50 miles away could create problems," explained Moore. "So we would probably cancel a flight. It's very, very weather dependent. The balloons are as tall as six and seven story buildings, and they're 50 feet wide. So they're, they're a giant sail. And so as you saw here, when that wind picked up and they start really rocking, trying to find a landing spot safely and get on the ground safely, it's time for us to call it."

The event took place at the Westin Hotel in Rancho Mirage, between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. with several hundred people in attendance. Attendees that spoke with News Channel Three say they didn't mind that the flights were cancelled, because they had fun seeing them in person regardless.

Tune in to Tori King's full report tonight to hear from experts on the cancellation.