Dark & Stormy

No doubt, you’ve heard that cliché story opener, “It was a dark and stormy night.”  That overused line actually applied here last night.  It was a little after two AM when I awoke.  I hadn’t been asleep very long, so why was I awake?

Then a light came on.  Went back out.  What?  Out of bed.  On my feet.  A bit more alert.  It happened again.

Lightning!  A muted rolling thunder followed sometime later.  It was far away.

I looked out the bedroom window.  The action is to the south.

In the office, I lifted the blinds.  There was a light show going on over Kalamazoo.

Thirty second exposure

Caught in the act

You can see lightning bolts in this image.  They are not as bright as you might like.  This is the result of average brightness over the 30-sec exposure time.  Still, they are clearly visible if not as dramatic as they appeared to my eye.

The colored lights in the lower center frame are not part of an alien navigation beacon system.  It’s just a reflection on the window I was shooting through.  The light on the right is in my neighbor’s house.

Come four AM, I was finally asleep.  Heavy rain had started to fall on the roof a couple of minutes earlier.

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About Chuck

I am retired after a career in electronics and in publishing. Today, my wife of 50+ years, Sylvia, and I live in a house on a hill beside a dirt road in rural west Michigan. We enjoy living in this country environment where livestock and wild life out number the human population.

4 thoughts on “Dark & Stormy

  1. I have never caught lightning in a photo at all. Well done. I sort of like stormy nights. Well, maybe not a high wind in a tent!

    • My father taught my sisters and I how to watch weather. Each of us still enjoys weather observing.

      I can understand not enjoying high wind in a tent.

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