Lightning

[poliphilo]

The window goes white. I listen and listen and finally the thunder happens- like someone muttering and chewing at the same time. Not close. But the lightning was so bright. They say you should turn your computer off when there's thunder around.

The way I picture it the electicity comes surging up the cables, gathers in the monitor, then leaps out at your face.

I was in a car once sitting on a hill top watching a thunderstorm come up the valley towards us. "We're safe," said my wife. "The tyres will earth us." The lightning came nearer and nearer.

It's odd but I don't remember any climax. Just the storm coming, not its passing over. Maybe we were hit after all and I'm writing this in some sort of an afterlife. No, that's silly.

That wife (the first one) had a cousin whose husband and child were killed by lightning. They were out swimming in the lake and the storm snuck up without them noticing it and...... my wife's cousin wasn't there on the beach; the news had to be delivered to her. (Picture the sherrif driving up. His walk to the door.) Afterwards people were always muttering about her just out of her hearing.

I turn off the computer. It takes so long to close. As it goes through its procedure I feel like we're running ahead of the storm. Only not running- dawdling. Your settings are being saved. Yes, yes- come on!

Blue screen.

Blue screen

Blue screen

Black.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"Would it stop grounding?"

Hmm. I don't know- but it could be that dakegra (above) has the answer. It has to do with the enclosed space forming a Faraday cage.

My two lightning stories both have to do with your part of the world. that was a Kentucky hilltop we were sitting on and a Kentucky lake that was hit.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

My son and I ventured out after a lightning storm one hot summer day, and just as we walked out onto our sidewalk, we both saw a blinding flash of white light all around us filling our visual field completely, followed instantly by an eardrum shattering boom!

We dashed, of course, into the house.

I wonder--if we had gone outside even seconds earlier, would we have been struck? My understanding is that leaders of positive charge come from the ground--from objects on the ground--and attract opposite charges in the air, which produces a strike. Something else nearby had sent up a charge and it had been answered, but not by us that time.

I have been out on the lake when a sudden storm blows in. It can get as dark as night. There is an ominous humid calm just before the winds come, and at that moment if you are in a boat, you row to shore quickly.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Weather just doesn't seem to move that fast over here.

I treasure my experiences of extreme American weather.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

We do have the great storms here. I love them.

It could rain every day and I would be happy. Rain in any form is thrilling and musical to me, but the great storms are best.

When we were kids in Texas and Kansas, we couldn't resist going outside and joining nature as the storms rolled in off the prairies. It is exhiliarating and a little frightening--one stays close to the house!

My brother and I would toss a ball back and forth--something to do, but really it took great restraint to stop myself from running off with exhaltation down the road with the tumbleweeds in the rushing wind!

Once my dad and brother and I were at the park, and the rain swept toward us. We ran as fast as we could, but it was faster. We watched the sheet of rain drenching the pavement and rolling inexorably toward us, and we loved it! And ran like sprinters!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

though they might not compare to your prairie storms, we have some good ones here. A few years ago a tornado came through during state fair week and took a corner off the horsebarn. Unfortunately a few years later we got some kind of weird weather event that nearly leveled the city - and two people were killed at the State Fair. There are still places where the treetops are snapped. That seemed to sweep in off Lake Ontario (which is where I was, watching the green lightning!) and take on all comers.

But your story made me think of sitting on the shore, watching the rain come across the lake. One moment you're standing watching the rain as it comes toward you, and the next you are being drenched.

I like to swim in the rain...well, maybe I should say while it's raining - but not during thunderstorms. Of course. NOt that I haven't thought of it...

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Green lightning--yes. It comes in many colors.

And have you seen the Technicolor that sometimes suffuses everything after a storm, while the blue clouds are still in the sky? The grass is golden, the leaves are golden-green, and often you can find a rainbow against the dark clouds.

the Labor Day Storm

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

The Labor Day Storm of 1998

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wish I had stories like that....

It rains a lot over here, but it's mostly a gentle rain. Heavy downpours are exceptional.

I remember eating in a basement restaurant when I was a kid and looking out through the windows- the pavement was about level with my eyes- and being amazed to see how high the rain bounced.