We do too have weather....sometimes

Generally CA doesn't have weather.  Nothing horrible to speak of ('cept sometimes in the summer when it's an oven)...but nothing spectacular.  No big snowstorms, no ice storms, no hurricanes (although we had a very small tornado last year that toppled a few train cars).  Rarely we have thunderstorms.

Today we had a thunderstorm.  Not just a thunderstorm but a THUNDERSTORM WITH LIGHTNING.  All day long.  

I took the boy dogs out this morning at about 6 a.m. Brought them back in about 7:30.  Walked the Zom dog down to the gate (he was leashed) to make sure there was a rock laid in the hole the other dog dug (and got out of the yard).  The weather was pleasantly cool, maybe 72 degrees.  Damp-ish but not rainy damp.

By 8:05 just as I was signing off my email here in the computer room I heard: tink, tink....tink, tink, tink, tinktinktinktinktink.  Hmmmmm, that sounds like rain.  Or maybe something is just leaking?  I open the laundry room door and it's raining!  Not terribly hard but enough you'd have to use your wipers on intermittant and could still turn them off on occasion. 

I'm wearing sandals today and capris.  I check the weather report, it's supposed to be cloudy but 82 and no chance of rain noted.  Hmmmm.  I choose not to change my pants/shoes.

I drive to work.  I'm about 1/2 mile from work when something GIANT hits my windshield.  THUNK!  I jump in my seat it's so loud.  I'm a little confused because I don't see the bird I assume just flew into my windshied.  Then THUNK, THUNK...THUNK THUNK THUNK...HUGE RAINDROPS.

It wasn't a bird at all, it was rain, giant rain.  We don't get FLA rain here, our drops are teeny; when they hit the ground they usually leave a wet spot about a half an inch or smaller as their footprint.  No these were 4 inches in diameter.

No wonder I thought it was a bird, large volume drops smacking my car.   Then I see lightning strikes and hear BIG THUNDER.  Right over my head.

I'm not normally scared of thunder or lightning or rain either.  And I wasn't scared this morning either ('cept for that one giant thump that I thought was a now-dead bird).  ALL the cars slowed because one second we were in relatively light ''weather'' and now we're in a freaking tropical storm.  

All day long we had big rain and big thunder and lightning.  By the time I drove home from work I was once again in the middle of a tropical storm.  I saw a lightning strike in a field near work.  There are fires all over 2 counties because of the lightning.  

And the unstable air mass is expected to last thru Saturday.  

The poor husband had to deal with 4 dogs who were all frightened out of their doggie wits by all the thunder.  He did it, he got them all calmed down or at least in the house so they weren't all freaking out.  I got all paranoid about the Zoms being anywhere near a leash or chain, I didn't want him electrocuted.  My sis in law had a lightning strike her metal dog run and the electricity went thru her house blowing out a few things.  She lives in PA so it's a little more common to have big storms like that and I've never forgotten the story.

I also met with signals that blew out at one point, the hub reported that the computer shut off, I assume we had either a power surge or a brownout that caused the shutdown.  Luckily no blowout.

Weather, when you get it makes you appreciate no weather.