Stormy Weather

I know you've secretly been wondering 'What's the weather like down there?'  So here's a storm report.

This is our rainy season, so it's not surprising that there have been storms, but I haven't seen storms like these since I was a kid in Indiana.  That was when (I was in the third grade or so) my bed was under a double window and when a storm approached, I would be up on my knees on the bed, leaning against the window sill watching the lightning until Mom came in to check on us and shooed me away from the window ('You'll be struck by lightning!')

Living in southern California for many years, storms weren't so exciting and I had forgotten about them until last spring when I joined my sister and her husband in our old hometown of Brazil to spiff up a 1898 farmhouse.  Boy, we had some storms there. In fact, we had a weather radio that sounded an alarm when a storm was predicted to hit.

After a few dry 'rainy seasons' in SMA, this year the storms are back with a vengeance!   The last two nights it has rained, but quietly and softly.  Last night we didn't really notice the sound of the rain at all - but things were wet when we awoke.

However, two nights ago all heck broke loose!  I think this storm came in from the north; our storms usually arrive from the south and we can see them coming.  A friend with a restaurant on the northern edge of town posted on FaceBook that they're received 1.99 inches of rain -- while the rain was just starting here on the southern edge of town.

Not sure how much rain we received, but it was one humdinger of a storm.  Lots of lightning - really close and loud.  We even lost power at one point in time, coordinating with a particularly close lightning strike.

Once we went upstairs to bed, you could watch out the french doors: lightning far enough away to be behind the hills lighting up the clouds from below; lightning higher in the sky lighting up the clouds from above; and the lightning right above us, crashing and reverberating enough to send the dogs into hiding between the bed and the dressers.

Then the rain began and it was a downpour.  Not quite strong enough to wash all the dirt off the sidewalks down the block from last week's storm, but a storm proper.

I kept expecting to hear my mother's voice - 'Get away from that window!'