Storm of storms

WOW!

We had quite the storm brewing most of the early evening last night, then an incredible storm of storms hit with a vengeance. Intense lightning lit the skies, gusty winds downed trees, and a rain shower dripped it's precipitations heartily flooding many of the areas basements. I understand though, the storm continued to grow and built up in such abundance as it moved east, there were areas declared a state of emergency to the east and power outages galore!

I took this photo while sitting on our deck eating dinner. There we listened to thunder booming in the distance as it worked its way towards us.

Strange how storms slowly “brew” here, allowing folks to become prepared with the thunder in the distance rolling in, certainly filled with lightning and rain following it. Last night was no exception as we sat outdoors for dinner enjoying a bit of a hot breeze while the sun was slowly making its way west. Almost three hours passed with thunder in the distance, allowing time to cover the pool, get the dogs out for their nightly walk then bunk them down for the night, gather the towels and swim suits inside, pack up the chairs and other sorted furniture to protect them from whatever was on its way, and generally prepare another storm. This storm had a warning accompanying it, therefore we calmly went about our evening.

No one would ever know such a storm was coming soon

Sitting up the steel chairs helps the rain roll off them, but two blew to the ground with such a force last night, we had to check to see what the racket was.

It was still hot outside when the thunder clapped overhead closer and closer, and then the lightning began sometime around 9:30pm. As the storm gathered momentum, the lightning was incredible and we became spellbound. Not wanting to go to sleep, we sat in the darkened family room, walking back and forth to the front of the house. The storm had surrounded us with a lazar light show, flashes of lightning bolts side to side, forks hitting the ground with streaks of light, but most of all, the skies were so lit up it was hard to believe this was “just a storm”. Hubby thought it was something in a science fiction movie; maybe a satellite war above, maybe many rockets exploding, as we’d both marveled on the “surround storm” overhead.

Still the sky looked pretty as the storm was slowly covering the sunset for us and the storm continued on.

The night was spent drifting in and out of our slumber, everyone was restless and waking with the noise. Our little one scared from the thunder and torrential rains hitting her window hard enough to wake her up, so in she came to cuddle up with us for a while. But, we were drawn to the windows to watch the heavens above in the wee hours whenever we awoke. Our power went on, then off, on, then off many times, but for short periods of time only. The sump pump was working hard, humming gently as it dumped its water out the drains. Luckily we had no problems, but others weren't so fortunate.