* Thanks to my sister for providing extra sound-recordings as mine were botched due to microphone-troubles *
Around 5 in the afternoon a friend of mine signals me of possible thunderstorms in the evening.
It's April, so I don't expect much of it for my region.
When I want to go to sleep around 15 minutes before 11 and have to wait a while for my dad to finish,
I decide to watch the lightning.
It is distant at that time and really shows no signs at all that it will get closer.
Even so, I've got a videocamera running already, allthough I am badly prepared (hence only some bad mono sound in most clips)
I brush my teeth and when I get back into my room around 11 'o clock, a bright flash of lightning lights up the room.
When distant rumbling follows 30 seconds later, things have gotten significantly closer.
From that point on everything changes in less than 7 minutes: from distant lightning things go to well visible strikes
that produce eerie loud crackling thunder, in a just as eerie windless silence.
At 2:04 I try to get my soundrecorder going, but I just can't get it to work.
While trying, I suddenly hear a strange motorway-like noise in the distance.
I grab the camera and point it to the outside world immediately. Considering the quick increase in electric activity
and loud thunders, this was by all means a very scary sound.
At 3:05 the first, lonely hailstone hits somewhere in the garden, with the next 20 seconds seeing the full
fury of this hailcluster unleashed.
I was ready to close the window as I had no idea what was coming (a windfield or worse) but just as I want to close
the window, a hailstone hits the windowsill, sending sharp bits through the mesh-holes of my bugscreen.
After that the windows is opened in the tilt-position, with the rest of the severe thunderstorm following, with the RMIN eventually issuing a warning for thunderstorms at about 15 minutes till midnight (better late then never).
This was a great storm with a power I only saw the last time 17 years ago, but not in April...
1 окт 2024
