The Beauty of a Summer Storm

It was a dark and stormy night...

Newschannel 5 kept us updated with scrolling warnings across the bottom of the tv screen.  Severe thunderstorm warning, flash flood warning, tornado watch.  Doppler radar showed a quickly approaching line of vivid color - greens, yellows, oranges and brilliant reds. 

Before I heard the first low rumble of thunder, the trees in the back yard were whipping with the wind, the undersides of their leaves shimmering mint, white, and silver.

Clouds began gathering, the blinding sun obscured.

Darkness descended upon the earth,

and the rains came down, soaking the trees and parched grass

and leaving glistening Lilliputian pools in pawprints left long ago in our freshly poured sidewalk.

The storm moved on, and the remaining clouds turned golden pink with the approaching sunset...

...and disappeared, casting a surreal golden glow upon the earth.

But the next round was upon us, and the sky grew ominous, sinister. Thunder and lightening were my constant companions as I drove to work.  A few miles down I-24, I was assaulted by a torrential downpour.  Traffic crawled at thirty miles per hour, and many people pulled to the roadside to wait out the storm.  By the time I turned onto Elm Hill Pike, the rain had abated somewhat, but I saw the most amazing sight.  A huge flash of yellow/orange streaking low in the sky - I was sure I was witnessing a meteorite about to strike the earth.  And a split second later - POOF!  The lights all around me went out.  No street lamps, no business lights, no traffic lights.

What I had witnessed was the incredible sight of lightening traveling across electric wires strung across the wide highway.  It was certainly the most bizarre thing I have ever seen.

The rain fell off and on all through the long night, and we could hear it clearly in the metal roofed warehouse of our postal facility.  When 5:15am rolled around, the storm had ended, but a heavy fog made for hazardous driving.

An ethereal world welcomed me home, bounded by layers of translucent trees.

Dewdrops fell from the leaves of Bradford Pears

and transformed Yoshino cherries into freshly polished garnets.

Thirsty impatiens drank in the fresh water.

The mist hung heavily on finely crafted webs of young garden spiders.

Emma and Bode were not discouraged by the wet grass and frolicked happily until thoroughly soaked.

The sun eventually burned off the fog, and I slept through the day.  And when I awoke...

...clouds were again gathering...

...and the rains came down.