Lightning Storm

We had an awe-inspiring lightening storm Friday night. Lightening constantly flickered thru the sky, accompanied by a gentle, far-away rumbling. I pulled out the camera to capture some of it. Not many of the flashes were detected by the camera, and you can't even hear the thunder, rather just the rain.

Counting lightning

An hour or so after this, I was reading in bed when there was a bright flash of light. Our phone half-rang, and then BOOM--the kind of boom that shakes your house. S and I wondered what had been hit. The next day we saw one of our neighbor's trees (two houses down) had been severely damaged by the storm, and although it wasn't obvious at first, we later learned it likely was from that lightening strike. We're grateful it was a smaller tree, compared to the trees easily twice its height that surround all the homes in this area, and that the main branches were blown off toward the street, rather than toward the house. A damaged fence is always better than a damaged home. I'd understood lightning hits the tallest thing in an area--but apparently not always!