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I love the thunder

It's July.

The thunderstorms roll in nearly every afternoon. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn't. Usually it's just enough to get the air wet. Yesterday it got the ground wet and the dogs were a muddy mess.

I don't know how to describe the sound, the rumble and then crackling rip that runs in stereo across the sky. Surround sound.

We lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly 10 years. They don't have thunderstorms. There isn't any rain in the summer, typical for a Mediterranean climate, but it rains for weeks in the winter, an endless depressing drizzle. Where I grew up in Minnesota has thunderstorms. Dry grass in the morning, sunshine, and in the afternoon air so thick... and then storms rolling through. Evenings of wet grass, mosquitoes, and air sharp with ozone.

But not every day.

The locals call it the monsoons. The desert gets a little bit wet. Flowers bloom.

Comments

Ymarsakar said…
There is a certain heavy-lightness to the air during and after a storm. A fresh smell that can also combine with the tactile sensation of endless amounts of rain pounding on your back, head, or umbrella.

The thunder then adds auditory sensation to create the true experience of nature in its raw, back when humanity was building shelters out of wood and praying to Nature gods for deliverance.

That hasn't changed much, given the Church of Global Warming Salvation.

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