Monday, September 05, 2011

Watching the Storm

When I was a small girl, one of my favorite things was to sit out on the back stoop at my grandmother's house in Salem when a storm was approaching.

My grandfather would often sit with me. He'd light up a cigarette and together we'd watch the lightning as it danced across the sky.

He was not a demonstrative man, but if the thunder cracked loudly and I jumped, he would sometimes put an arm around me, and chuckle.

I still love to watch storms, but we seldom see lightning streaks anymore. We're not situated in a good spot.

However, Friday evening a storm came up and settled over Stone Coal Gap. Stone Coal Gap is a cut in the mountains, and I have a good view of it out my front door.

Capturing lightning on film has eluded me, and I have given up doing so with a camera. But I did want to try it with the video camera.

I placed the camera out on the porch and I went back in the house to watch from the safety of the glass door.

Here's 20 minutes of video distilled down to about a minute. You can hear the thunder and see a few lightning bolts. It's not a tornado or hurricane or anything spectacular like that; it's just a storm. But it brought me great memories of my grandpa.


3 comments:

  1. I have always loved listening to or watching a thunderstorm--so long as I am not caught out in one. While many are afraid of storms, I love the way the air feels charged with energy before a good thunderstorm hits, and find the sound of rolling thunder soothing.

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  2. I'm still frightened of storms, even though I have learned not to show it. That was a scary storm! There doesn't seem to have been a breath of wind where you were. I was surprised by that.

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  3. love to sit on the screened porch. It faces the Peaks of Otter. We often watch the storms form and move right up the Blue Ridge. Beautiful. Nice memories I'm sure.

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