I guess I didn’t realize that not everyone in the US are not familiar with thunderstorms like we in the hot, humid south are. Lightning that bangs and crackles the air, if you’re close enough, thunder that rumbles and vibrates your

windows and doors if its close enough. I know the midwest experiences them as well, combined with the threat of tornadoes.

Last summer, in a discussion over lunch with friends about our thunderstorms, one said, “I miss Georgia thunderstorms. In ___ we have wimpy storms. Two little rumbles of thunder and then it rains and that’s a thunderstorm.” Another friend said when she moved to Georgia from the northeast, thunderstorms were quite frightening to her. She was not used to them.

I am no longer frightened by thunderstorms, but as a child, I was terrified of the thunder booming as I was trying to go to sleep in a second-floor bedroom. The branches on the tree outside my window would scratch on the screens and let me know just how “terrible” the weather was outside. I think I had the typical overactive childhood imagination because it probably wasn’t near as bad as I thought (this coming from a child who was scared that all of a sudden a train track would appear over my bed and a train would run over me 🙂 .)

I do respect the power of the storm. I have seen and heard of the damage that they can do if you’re outside and unprotected.

When I was about 8 years old, I was outside on our front porch. This house was surrounded by massive pine trees aka lightning magnets. Our dog, Collie (yes, that’s his name. Bet you can’t guess what kind he is. ha ha), was about 10 feet from a tree that was hit with a random bolt of lightning. I don’t remember his immediate response other than him flying onto the porch about 50 feet away where I was. Ever after that, when we had a thunderstorm, Collie would fight to get in the house. If the door was opened even a crack, he would push his way inside. We were/are not house-dog people so  he didn’t get to enjoy the privilege very often.

One thing that we rarely deal with in stormy weather is tornadoes. This past January was an exception, at least on the threat of a twister. One Sunday we had warnings off and on from about 4 or 5 am until 10 that night. Waking up to the phone alerts was disconcerting.

While there were trees upended and at least one house had windows blown out (microburst, they called it), we had nothing in comparison to Adel, Georgia, where an entire trailer park was wiped out, or the street in Albany where nearly every

Wow! I didn’t realize I had so many storm photos!