Any thunderstorm enthusiasts here? (1 Viewer)

[StephenA]

I love thunderstorms. Every time one comes here I go out in it and watch it. They really fascinate me. I've experienced a couple down south at my grandmother's old mobile home in Florida. Those ruled. The thunderstorms up here in the Northeast can't compare to the deep South or Mid-west. Someday I'll go out to Texas and back to Florida to catch some real good thunderstorms and lightning storms. I love seeing those videos of lightning storms in places like Dallas on TV. Very beautiful.

I'd also like to be a tornado chaser. Can't really see tornadoes up here due to the terrain being too hilly. Only small ones come sometimes, and don't do much damage.

 

[Travis Olson]

I like tornado's more then thunderstorms, but thunderstorms are more common around here. Lightning is very cool until it almost strikes you. I almost got struck once. I was on the tractor plowing our garden and the sky was starting to get dark. I didn't really think much of it until all of a sudden I saw this huge white streak fly over the top of me and hit about 25 feet away. It scared the hell out of me and the sound rumbled like no subwoofer ever could. It was pretty cool though.

I've always wanted to take a summer off and go storm chasing through Tornado Alley, but have never had the time. I'm actually in Tornado Alley (Minnesota), but I'm in the extreme North so we don't get many around here.

 

[StephenA]

My house was almost struck by lightning while my whole family and I were sleeping. It hit a tree about 20 feet away. The sound cannot be explained. The only thing I can say is that it sounds like you're right in ground zero of a bomb. It was so loud. It woke everyone up and we couldn't get back to sleep for a long time due to the adrenaline. I loved it though.

 

[Jenna]

I love thunderstorms, too...as long as I'm not driving in them. Watching them from the safety of my home is pretty cool, especially at night when the lightning flashes across the sky.

Of course, they scare my collie who takes refuge under the bed.

 

[Scott Simonian]

Yeah, I love thunderstorms. Its amazing tto watch them. Just two nights ago we had a thunderstorm go over our city. In Fresno, they are few and very far between. It was about 10:30pm when I first saw the lightning. I went out onto my backyard porch, laid back on a lounge chair and watched the lightning for an hour. What I like just as much is some nice loud, roaring thunder. Especially when its a loud abrupt slap-crack thunder and it rolls off into a deep rumble. Hehe. Too cool.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Who doesn'tlike thunderstorms? Hell, I sure do. The only problem with living in California is that violent weather is so rare.

I've managed to see three tornadoes in other parts of the country. Now, that's a lot of fun.

 

[Philip_G]

it's REALLY cool from the air. from a LONG LONG LONG way away (30 miles or so)

 

[RobertR]

I love thunderstorms too. Love lightning at night that lights up the sky. Love a good hard sudden rain.

 

[ShaneH]

I love storms too. When I was 12 I lived on a farm and a tornado took out our garage which was only about 20 feet from the house. We were home at the time and my mom saw the garage debris flying through the air out the living room window as she was trying to get us all downstairs. No damage to the house or the car parked right next to the garage which was very strange I thought. It was rainy and windy then it was dead calm for a few seconds, then all hell broke loose. Will never forget that day. I still havent seen a real tornado, which I've wanted to do since that day.

 

[Julian Reville]

I don't care for them much, although I do admit the sub-bass can be pretty impressive. I did have have a girlfriend once who got major turned on by them.

We're not together anymore; maybe that's why I don't care for them.

 

[Pamela]

I love a good thunderstorm. Like Jack said, it doesn't storm much here in Southern California. My back window faces the San Gabriel Mountains, so sometimes I get a pretty show of lightening over the mountains. Coming from Pennyslvania, I've seen my fair shair of storms. I was there last month and we had a few. I miss 'em!

NP: Rain

 

[Darren Davis]

living in the lightning capitol of the U.S. I can say, "No, they're not that great." The second a rumble is heard it's a mad dash around the house unplugging everything electronic. This house has lost many electronic devices due to lightning strikes and they're not fun to replace. One time the modem was blown right out of our fax machine. Lightning is awesome to watch, however, when it's out over the ocean.

 

[Eve T]

Yes, I too love thunderstorms.

 

[BrianW]

Count me in. I don't chase them, but I relish them when they come by North Texas. We get some pretty good ones here, but they are still a couple of notches lower in intensity compared to the ones I remember as a kid in West Texas. The Panhandle gets some real window rattlers.

Once I was in The Home Depot, and a storm rolled in very quickly. It rattled the roof fiercely and made the entire store sound like Dorothy's house. I quickly made my purchases so I could head home and watch the storm from the safety of my house. As I headed to my car, the water in the parking lot rose to above ankle level. Then it hit me. Literally – I was struck by lightning. I saw a blinding flash between the palm of my hand and the umbrella I was holding. I fell face down in the six-inch deep water and had to be rescued by my wife who was waiting for me in the car. I had a lingering pain in my hand and both feet, but no visible burns, so it couldn’t have been very bad. But it was, as you say, like being in the middle of a bomb. Ironically, I was in greater danger of drowning than being electrocuted. That would have made for a strange headline: “Local Man Drowns in Parking Lot”

After that, when I got home to watch the storm, the thunder just didn’t seem quite as loud.

 

[BrianW]

And I've got a great big frowny face for the first person who says, "Well, that explains a lot."

 

[Philip_G]

wow brian, that's a pretty amazing story!

 

[StephenA]

That definitely is a crazy story.

 

[Philip_G]

one night I was flying with an instructor in some rain, no thunderstoms forcast, or on the radar. and all of a sudden the cockpit looked like daylight. I thought it was the strobe lights flashing off the rain, then it did it again and again, so I mentioned it to my instructor that didn't seem to notice, he said "aw it's just the stro..." then it did it again and it was full throttles and haul ass back to the airport LoL

 

[Scott Leopold]

I love a great storm. I lived in Xenia, Ohio when I was a kid (lived through the big twister of '74), and our house was one of the few around that had a basement. We'd have big parties when there was a tornado warning, with us and several other neighborhood families.

I was once in a Meijer when a terribly nasty storm hit. The rain and hail on the roof, combined with the nearly non-stop thunder made it nearly impossible to hear anything else. I was at the back of the store when the power went out. From what a manager later told me, they're supposed to have two separate lines to the store, plus battery backup, but all these failed. It was eery making my way to the entrance in the near-darkness.

I used to work at a comic shop, and one day a torrential downpour appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It was neat because you couldn't see the parking lot through the rain. It lasted a few minutes, then tapered off to a slight drizzle as instantly as it had started. There were some guys playing Dungeons & Dragons at the back of the store, and I mentioned to them that I was glad I wasn't out in that. One of the guys suddenly yelled "Oh, sh*t!" then ran outside--he had left the window down on his car. He ran out, opened his car door, and was nearly knocked down by the water that rushed out.

I was at a friend's house about ten years ago playing PC games until about 4am. His dad came down and asked why we hadn't turned off the PC in this nasty storm. We'd been so engrossed in the game (Scorched Earth, I believe) that we didn't notice anything else. It was so bad that the house was rumbling constantly from the thunder. The church across the street had been hit by lightning, and the bell was ringing non-stop. I decided to leave, and ran half a block to my car. The rain was intense enough that I was soaked to the bone after taking two or three steps. The rain and lightning were so bad that I drove home with my wipers and lights off--the wipers made it more difficult to see, while the lights were unnecessary due to the constant lightning that bathed the entire landscape in a bright but eery blue light.

My parents' house was hit by lightning twice when I was growing up. Once it blew some tiles off the roof. Another time, my sister and I were watching TV. I was laying on the floor with my feet right by the cable box. There was a bright flash outside the back door and an unbelievably loud boom. A split second later, the cable box exploded! A few pieces blew off, while the main unit burst into flames. I threw a towel over it to put out the fire. Somehow, the carpet was not damaged, but the wall had two black streaks 12-18 inches high coming from both the electrical outlet and the cable outlet. The electrical outlet and the cable box both had to be replaced.

My grandparents had a mobile home at Rocky Fork Lake. One year they went down after a nasty storm to see if they'd sufferred any damage. The trailer was somehow unharmed after a bolt of lightning had hit the tree out front. The 20 foot high tree literally exploded, leaving nothing more than a 2 foot high, splintered stump. The lightning had apparently traveled through the tree and into a root leading straight to the trailer. The root had also exploded, digging a trench about 12 feet long and up to 6 inches deep.

 

[Nick Sievers]

I love a good thunderstorm (come on who doesn't), whenever we have one I go out on the porch and sit in a chair watching. Being close to the Ocean we have a fair number of storms pass through, some of those lightning crashes are truly awesome to look at. I've never heard it crash close to me though.