We had a hot and cloudy afternoon. It was one of those afternoons where it looked like a good thunderstorm could happen any minute.
Around 6:30 PM a thunder cell formed and grew rapidly. It disappeared just as rapidly an hour later without one drop of rain.
When I see the cloud build up I think of the tremendous energy that it takes to build the cloud and pile it up. I also like the beauty and movement as things build up.
You really need a horizon to show off a cloud. My neighbor's trailer isn't a pretty horizon.
I love a good old thunderstorm. Now I know some people are terrified of lightning and thunder. They have a good reason to be afraid. I know that lightning is dangerous and causes many deaths, injuries and damage.
Last night I was wakened shortly after midnight by thunder. The thunder was distant but it rolled on forever. Well, not forever, but for 20 - 30 seconds. Lightning lit up my room. Then I would wait for the thunder. Would the thunder be closer or further away? This storm was gentle. It moved slowly toward me. so there was lots of lightning and thunder. A little breeze picked up and helped to make my room cooler. After 20 - 25 minutes rain began falling. Not hard driving rain, but steady rain. Now the disappointing thing is that I went to sleep before the show ended. The Micro Manager never woke up until morning.
There's something about the power and energy contained in a lightning event that fascinates me. I know it's static electricity. I'm amazed that so much electrical energy can be formed by wind and cloud. When you think that the lightning travels for miles, that's a lot of energy. When it' rapid fire lightning that's a lot of energy forming in a very short time.
I was terrified by one lightning storm. I was on a mountain peak. We were watching a small thunder cell move through the valley below. It's cool to look down on a thunderstorm and see the lightning in the cell. All of a sudden there was static electricity all around us. We could hear the crackle. We left the mountain top at mach 1. The thunder cell was 1000 ft below us. There must have been enough energy that it spread far and wide from the cell.
Hiking in the mountains, it was common to see trees that were damaged by lightning. The tree sticks up and the lightning follows the tree into the ground.
In the old days in the country, it was quite common to see a telephone pole that had been damaged by lightning.
Now there are quite a few songs about thunder. I like Eddie Rabbit's Rainy Night.
How about you? do you like thunderstorms? Have you got music about thunder and lightning?
There's also a CD called Natural Blues that has some good thunder in it.
This panorama taken from the internet shows lightning ove Bucharest.
I like big old cumulus clouds...the ones we call thunder heads. I like the billows. I like to watch them as they are active in rising. You can watch the moisture rise and form ever new heights to the cloud. You can just imagine the powerful updrafts that carry the moist air aloft. I like to see them lit by the late afternoon or evening sun and you see the brilliant white and then you stop and think that the bottom of the cloud is very dark.
I know that sometimes these thunder cells can be 10000 to 20000 feet thick. They are massive. I've flown over or by them sometimes when I was able to have a good look.
This afternoon we had some thunder cells develop. They weren't the giants . They were alright ...good enough to try some photos. However, I was not able to get in the photo what I saw with my eye. More learning for me. I think my camera focused on the trees and the houses close to me.
All the time I was watching these clouds, behind me were dark clouds rolling in. So 40 minutes after taking these photos we had violent wind and rain for about 45 minutes.
Now I'm thinking about the thunder cells in the photos. Did they develop enough to bring rain and wind to some area? What's the story of their life. Where did they die?
