Wow – he wasn’t kidding! I don’t know about ALL day, but the last few hours were pretty darn impressive.
At about 8pm, we were just finishing dinner and we were seeing flashes of lightening outside, but it wasn’t raining and there was no thunder…which we thought was quite odd, but we weren’t one to pass up such an incredible photographic opportunity, so, without sparing a moment to digest dinner, we dashed downstairs, literally threw our dishes in the sink, grabbed our camera gear and were on the road in a flash (pardon the pun).
Based on the black, BLACK clouds to the north, we thought our best bet for shots would be to get up on a hill where we had a north west view so off we went to Harmony Road just north of Taunton. On the way there, the rain finally started. Just a few fat drops splatting on the windshield at first, then, only moments later, coming in literal sheets – the windshield wipers on their fastest setting had no effect on the sheer volume of water hitting the glass. It was like trying to drive underwater.
For about five blocks, the rain fell like that – until we got out of the city and away from the light pollution when it finally let up and we were able to find a spot to pull off the road and get the cameras out.
After 10 minutes or so, the storm had moved well away from where we were, but there still seemed to be a lot of lightening activity to the south of us, so we had the brilliant idea to go to the beach!
Where else should a person be during an electrical storm than on a beach? A large, long, flat beach?? Sounded like a great idea to me!
Darryl continued to monitor the progress of the storm while I navigated the wet roads and downed tree branches to get to the lake shore.
I expected to see maybe another die-hard photographer there – perhaps two… but the parking lot was FULL with a line up to get in out onto the road. It appears that watching mother nature put on a light show over the lake draws quite a crowd and it didn’t take us long to see why.
Each time sheet lightening snaked across the sky overhead, you heard “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”, and “Ahhhhhh!” from the appreciative crowd gathered. After a particularly impressive flash, I heard a small voice from behind me excitedly exclaim “Mom, that was the best day EVER!”
It was an amazing and humbling experience and, incredibly, it lasted well over 2 hours. In fact, we could have stayed longer, but the show was moving on to the south side of the lake and it was getting very late for a Sunday night, so around 11:30pm we finally headed home.
The first thing I did when I got home? No, it wasn’t look at my pictures, that was a very close second. I checked the hourly forecast on the Weather Network to see when the next thunderstorm is due to blow through...
- Paula
p.s. next storm due tonight 11pm!
