Transfixed by thunderstorms

I am transfixed by thunderstorms.

 

That means that this stormy summer, I have spent a fair amount of time marveling at the sky.

 

I acknowledge they are dangerous and that the strongest of them can do horrendous damage, but since they are an unremovable feature of nature, I am doing no harm by appreciating their variety, beauty and power.

 

One recent afternoon, an approaching storm was displaying constant lightning–often two and three strokes at once. Maybe just so I would have an excuse to stand there and watch it, I got out my camera and snapped a few–make that “quite a few”--photos. I wasn’t satisfied with even one of them. The single way they are useful is to remind me of how magnificent the moment was.

 

It made me think of the fiery pillar of biblical times–how intimidating it must have been to have the sky itself bearing down from above.

 

Another evening I spent 20 minutes or more finding good places to take pictures of a storm which was both dark and darker. Up above, the sun had disappeared behind a skyful of deep grey clouds. Below them near the horizon were streaks of rain in various shades of grey. Some patches were as dark as the clouds, making it clear that somewhere to the north people I know were being drenched. Drivers were very likely pulling to the side of the road, unable to see ahead of them well enough to keep moving.

 

In another part of the sky, as strange as it sounds, was a rainbow in grey. Rather than the solid wall of rain off to my right, straight ahead of me was a line that consisted of many different streaks, each in its own shade. In my head, I pictured the people underneath it responding to the different levels of intensity, maybe by racing between different places of shelter as the rain persistently altered its rate of flow, cowering under or behind something when it was coming down fast, then dashing to a larger or more solid structure when it lightened up.

 

From where I was, dry and safe miles away, it was visual poetry drawing me back to the many times I have been caught in an unexpected downpour.

 

I have seen hail twice this summer. Once during a drive in the northern half of the state when the rainfall was so dense we had pulled to the side of the ride. Suddenly the even pounding of the rain against the car roof was peppered by little plinking sounds.

 

Fortunately for us–or at least for the car’s exterior finish–the hailstones were very small, not even “pea” sized. We could see them hitting the hood and the windshield, bouncing slightly upward, falling a soundless second time, then being washed out of sight by the torrent of rain.

 

When the rain eased up and we continued our drive, we discovered we had been truly lucky in the “at least it wasn’t” sense of the term. Perhaps a mile or so on, the rain had washed the small hailstones to the edge of the road, leaving them in a white line about six inches deep.

 

My second experience with hail was surreal in another way. I was sitting on a friend’s patio during a recent visit. The view to the west was blocked by the house, but we knew a storm was coming because the sound of rumbling thunder had gradually grown to be constant as we talked. Looking upward, I could see the feathered front edge of the cloud in an open space between the house and the roof of the patio structure we were sitting under. A giant raindrop hit me square on the forehead, so I moved under the patio roof. More rain started to fall and make spray off the pavement, so I moved further in.

 

Next came that familiar “plinking” sound, much louder on the metal roof above me than it had seemed inside the car a few days earlier. The “peppering” was in three different keys since smaller-than-pea-sized hailstones were striking the roof of the house, the hollow roof of the structure, and the nearby pavement.

 

And then it stopped, much more suddenly than it had begun.

 

There had been perhaps two minutes of storm, then there wasn’t. All the anticipation inspired by the thunder and the downdrafted clouds had come to a moment of powerful eruption followed by anticlimax.

 

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I had just helped myself to the tomatoes in my friend’s garden, and would have been deeply saddened to see the harvest come to an abrupt end.

I know each of us sees the world around us from a different perspective formed by our own internal dialogues and our past experiences. For any of you who think I’m crazy because I purposely go outdoors to watch thunderstorms approach, I admit you are probably wiser than I am.

 

I plan to continue the habit, though, because I’m unavoidably drawn to the variety, beauty, power and magnificence of a sky filled with dynamic, unpredictable energy.