Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Nothing Like a Good Thunderstorm..


... And that was nothing like a good thunderstorm. In fact it amounted to nothing more than an overnight shower of rain. But the build-up was ever so exciting. It all began about noon the previous day when the National Weather Service dramatically changed their forecast and announced a "Thunderstorm Watch" for our part of the island. That's the basic announcement, which includes advice about lightning being the nation's number one killer, and that if we are sensible people we really ought not to go outside in such circumstances. Increased certainty may raise this to a "Thunderstorm Warning" when the forecasters say, "Yep, it's coming!" They then repeat the bit about lightning and death. If it's a really nasty piece of storm then it's re-titled "Severe Thunderstorm Warning" when anything from hail the size of golf balls to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse may descend on us. Fortunately we never reached such danger levels that evening, but all sorts of flashing red banners on the websites, and loud bleeps on the weather radio continued to make us feel that we might just lose a bit of sleep that night.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. From now on I shall trust in a wet finger, and maybe hang a piece of seaweed outside a window. And if I do hear thunder I will probably wander outside to see if there's any lightning.

1 comment:

Rev. Richard Thornburgh said...

All you need to do is sniff the air on a hot muggy day ... the increased levels of ozone usually are a good predictor of a coming storm.

Or you could go out in the rain with a kite ......