A little Rain, A Little Thunder

 

I'm enjoying an evening summer storm, one of my favorite meteorological experiences. I'm kind of surprised because it hasn't been that hot and usually that's when I see some of the best summer storms but I'm not complaining. The roaring wind, ominous dark clouds and occasional lightning flashes accompanied by the ever present thunder totally makes my evening and afternoon of that's what's happening. Tonight's brush with the elements even brought a fairly significant cloudburst adding the unmistakable odor of moisture on concrete. If I were living on the farm in Boise some 50 years ago the older would be accompanied by sagebrush fresh from the desert just across the great New York Canal which ran behind our farm. The best part about summer storms or summer evening storms is that they tend to be quite swift. 30 minutes to an hour max. On a day like today, the day after the 1^st day of summer totally enjoying the length of sunlight which is available. Even though technically, now the days are beginning to shorten developed daylight available is undetectable unless you've got great pieces of technology to measure. So I guess I'm saying is that, I have the storm but then it moves on and brings out the sunshine again making the day feel grossly clean and enjoyable.

I'm a slave to “Weather bug” a nice app on my cell phone which pretty much gives me anything I need to know regarding the weather. The feature I like best on this application is the lightning indicator. I guess it's a fairly sophisticated piece of technology that ties in with weather stations all around the state to indicate when and where lightning strikes are happening. On the storm like today's it starts out early in the afternoon and you get the Intel on the approaching storm (S). For some reason this fascinates me. Not only does the application advise me of where lightning is happening immediately but also tells me what to do for example if it's only, close it usually writes “keep an eye to the sky” when it gets closer is like “consider finding shelter” and then when only a couple miles away you get the real hyper intense colored image with the urgent quote “find shelter immediately!”. Really makes me think the end of the world is imminent. But the storm just blows over, usually. Sometimes, when the monster front comes through, a slow mover, you just have to settle in for the night. If you have a ball game or something like that realize that it's going to be called because of rain and of course lightning. It's not like you have Park police who is going to come around and shoe you out of the park with warnings about imminent danger. I guess they just figure you're smart enough to come in out of the rain… and lightning..

I've actually out of the tarmac and gotten caught in such dismal downpours I always worry about moisture getting into my control box but it's never stopped me from going forward. I try to carry a plastic bag or plastic shopping bag with me that I can pull over my control box during such an event. It's pretty rare and is a bit of a challenge lasting through such a downpour but so far I'm okay and love enjoying such an event. I guess right now the Wasatch front is having the benefit of being in a tropical flow which means a lot of moisture is being pumped into the area which means that for the next couple of days I just might be able to experience more summer storms and that's okay with me…