Thank you for the good points, Dale!
After watching literally hundreds of thunderstorm videos on YouTube, there are so few out of those hundred or so videos that are really worth watching. I’m not saying everyone should be an expert at filming thunderstorms, but everyone should be aware of how to capture the best videos. I’ve seen some where people are commenting mercilessly and it bugs me to death!
There’s one video of a guy filming an incoming storm where the lightning is flashing all around him, but he’s commenting on how close it’s getting, how the temperature is changing, whether he should go inside or not, and he’s moving the camera all around the deck pointing it at various parts of the sky waiting for the best flashes, but wherever he points the camera, the lightning is off to either side of his line of vision! He’s saying things like, “Wow, that was a big one!” and “It’s getting closer!” and “The trees are really swaying!”. Who the F cares about all of that? Shut up and let us watch the video without all the commentary! Call it a pet-peeve of mine. I just think thunderstorms should be filmed without all the nattering.
As a small child, I was petrified of thunderstorms. I remember my mom and I watching TV in the den, and there was a small window above the TV set. I kept seeing what I thought was lightning, and remember (like it was yesterday), asking my mom if that was lightning. Of course, she knew I was scared, and kept telling me that it was just car headlights passing by the house, so as to calm me down before the storm. I grew up in a small town in Southern Ontario and during the summer we’d get some awful thunderstorms and I recall being so scared during some of them and be yelling out for my mom to come to my rescue in the middle of the night. She’d come by my bed, sit down, and tell me to close my eyes and I’d never see the lightning, but if I did that, all I could see was the light coming through my eye lids, which didn’t help! Then she’d start to sing a lullaby to get me to relax and fall asleep again. It helped, and I’m glad she was there. I also remember one Canada Day where myself and my siblings all got sparklers to light and take outside, but it was about to storm so I remember having my sparkler lit and putting my arm outside the door and swinging it around so at least I was inside and away from the storm but too close for comfort. I remember mom laughing about this and she said it was OK to go outside and enjoy my sparkler but I wasn’t going out there! No way man!
Then as time went on, I became less and less afraid of thunderstorms, and more interested in weather phenomena. Today, I live in a region of Canada where I see maybe 2 or 3 thunderstorms per year, as I’m too close to the Pacific Ocean. If the front comes up from the south to the Vancouver lower mainland area from Washington state, then we might see the occasional thunderstorm, but this is rare. Most fronts come in off the ocean from the west which really pisses me off because to see a good storm one has to travel literally hundreds of kilometers away from Vancouver.
Today at 50 years of age, when a thunderstorm occurs, I can’t get enough of it. I want to be there when the storm produces lots of great lightning and loud thunder! And sometimes I have to kick myself for not carrying around my video camera and tripod! Whenever there’s the slightest hint that we could get a storm, I’m charging the camera! Over the last few days, there’s been a chance of storms in the forecast but none have materialized. Bummer.
What’s your favourite storm memory?