Dear ,
It happened again at the weekend - I was outside in a thunderstorm. I shouldn't complain; it's the first one I've been outside in this year, so I'm doing better than last year.
Back when I was a child, I can't remember us having many thunderstorms. We lived in a cool part of the world. I'm not sure if this is correct, but I remember them as something that happened when the weather was cooler; they weren't a summer thing.
Then I spent a few holidays in the tropics and experienced 'real' thunderstorms.
Wow! They were powerful!
The sound of the lightning as it flashed through the air and the deafening (1) crash of thunder directly overhead The amount of rain that fell totally amazed me, but then a short time later it would all be gone - the ground would be almost dry.
Tropical thunderstorms made me understand how mild the ones I had known at home were.
So I was surprised at the thunderstorms when I moved to Germany.
I thought the storms would be mild, cool, climate ones - but I was wrong!
Maybe it's because of the geography of the Main and Rhine Rivers, but thunderstorms in Frankfurt remind me of the tropics.
First, you can see the clouds building up. Sometimes it becomes so dark that the street lights come on, even during the day. Then the wind: strong wind that can blow branches (2) off trees. And next the rain. Really heavy rain.
By this time, lightning is flashing in the sky and thunder is rumbling (3) - or crashing - depending on how close the storm is. It can be very close - right overhead!
I wasn't in the centre of the storm at the weekend. I heard thunder rumble once or twice but I can't remember seeing any lightning. And the bit of rain only lasted ten minutes or so.
I watched what was happening because I was standing under a shelter made of metal. Probably not a good place to be in a storm!
Do you like thunderstorms, ? Are you sometimes stuck outside when one starts? What do you do to stay safe?
Wishing you a storm-free week,
Andrea
(1) deafening - makes you deaf, makes it so you can't hear
(2) branches - the 'pieces' of a plant that grow off the central 'trunk' (for a tree) or 'stem' (of a smaller plant)
(3) rumbling - making a low, heavy rolling sound
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