Feb 22 2008
Tossed to the floor by a Thunderstorm
It was a quiet night. Dinner was cleaned up, children were tucked snug in their beds, and I was beginning to snore on my own as well. Even the animals were all tucked into their beds, sleeping peacefully. But that was only to last a few minutes! All of a sudden, out of nowhere the skies burst forth with an angry temper tantrum that flew from the skies as if God himself was throwing it!
We’d heard on the news that it was supposed to rain around here off and on over the next few days. In the desert, the words “a chance of rain” isn’t something we hold our breaths over any more, as 90% of the time that “chance” is so small that we never even see the golden water droplets that have been rumored to fall from the sky with regularity in other parts of the world. We just go about our business as if there were no weather reports. Night before last was no different.
That’s exactly what we did, too. But, the heavens weren’t going to be ignored! All of a sudden, the thunder was rolling across the sky almost non stop for about five minutes. It sounded almost like the winds of a tornado, only it wasn’t that windy outside. It just rumbled, and rumbled above our heads, constant and eerie. There was so much lightning that I was really nervous about it! The news said we’d (the valley floor) received 82 lightning strikes in a matter of 15 minutes. Holy shit! Then, the rains came. Not light and sweet, building up to a down pour. Nope. It came down in sheets, all at once, nearly flooding the front yard in a matter of a minute or so. I was still freaking out about the sound of the thunder when I realized I was hearing another sound. What the heck was it?
Freakin’ hail! Paint ball sized hail was pelting our home! I grabbed my camera determined to brave the lightning and sneak outside to get some pictures of it, but as I reached the screen door, the loudest clap of thunder I’ve ever heard rang out – shaking houses, rumbling cars, setting off car alarms all over the neighborhood and scaring the piss out of me! I nearly dropped the camera, jumped about 4 feet in the air and ran as fast as I could back into my cozy and warm home. I shook for about 5 minutes after that.
The hail didn’t last more than a minute or so, the rains soon slowed down to a mellow drizzle, leaving the thunder and lightning to entertain the skies for the next few hours. We kept the wind up lantern next to the bed, just in case we lost power at some point, but it never happened. That was the fastest moving, most violent storm we’ve had around here in quite some time.
Do it again, God, do it again!
