Lightening… thunderstorm ~ SEVERE

Okay, here’s your lesson on thunderstorms!  “Despite their small size, all thunderstorms are dangerous!  Every thunderstorm produces lightening.  The typical thunderstorm is 15 miles in diameter and lasts an average of 30 minutes.”  You can estimate how many miles away a storm is by counting the number of seconds between the flash of lightning and the clap of thunder. Divide the number of seconds by five to get the distance in miles. The lightning is seen before the thunder is heard because light travels faster than sound.

A severe thunderstorm warning indicates the warned area is in impending danger. …

I get alerts all the time that there’s a severe thunderstorm in my area.  Usually I pay no attention – we have a lot of thunderstorms!  Now, I also have a LOT of very large trees close to my house.  Any one of them could do MAJOR damage if one were hit.  I have the trees because I wanted them.  Most were very small when we moved here and hubby left them because “I wanted them”.  Did I mention, “I love trees”.  This picture shows lightening hitting a tree 😢

So why am I talking about thunderstorms and lightening?  Because I had a really scary experience recently.  Early morning, sitting with my coffee, Koda beside me and laptop in my lap hearing and watching it rain.  Got a warning – paid no attention.  Heard some close thunder, looked up and BANG!  ⚡The noise and bright light came at exactly the same time.  I actually thought it had hit my deck where I was looking out.  Both Koda and I were totally freaked out.  It takes a lot to scare me – that scared me.

I’m okay, trees and house seem okay.  However, some strange things seemed to randomly happen inside my house.

• One picture fell off the wall in my living room (you know I have a wall full of pictures?!),
• one light bulb blew out on my buffet lamp,
• my bread maker was fried (huge loss there – you know how I feel about cooking 🤨 my #1 DIL is the only one who ever uses that),
• the TV in my bedroom (across the house from the kitchen) was fried,
• the circuit breaker to my fridge and microwave blew (seemed okay when I switched it back),
• the receiver for my VOIP phone was fried,
• my router got it….
• and of course my internet was immediately out!

I’m so thankful it was no worse.  “Things” can be replaced and these were very minor things in the big picture.  However, I think I’ll pay more attention the next time I get a severe thunderstorm alert!