I don't know what woke me up, but the percussive sound tickled at the edge of half-awake hearing...
*boom*
Huh. The neighbor just chucked a wine bottle into her recycling bin. But why is the bin still empty on Thu...
*Boom-Boom-Ba-Boom!*
Oh, jeez, that sounds like gunfire in a house nearby. That's a lotta shots, though. Maybe IMPD has some dude corne...
*K-KBOOM!*
Holy_! There was no time between the flash and the noise, and then the sound of fat raindrops smacking the window mixed with the clatter of the occasional hailstone clattering on the patio.
From the audio alone, it was obvious that if I'd been standing on open prairie instead of in a bed in a house in a wooded city, I'd have been able to watch this thunderboomer come striding at me on legs of lighting.
A bit of a break in the drought, finally.
When the TeeWee came on, the morning drive-time traffic chick was showing live footage of one of the traffic cams. In a bit of unusual frankness (or an example of internal monologue becoming external) she intoned "...And here's the intersection of Number and State and... the signal appears to be out. The drivers should be treating this as a four-way stop, which they're not. We're going to have a wreck here." Then she segued to the state of the local interstates.
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I'm thinking the mere fact it's precipitating will lead to accidents...the absence or presence of signals will have little to do with it.
That was a hell of a way to wake up. The cats were not amused.
"I'd have been able to watch this thunderboomer come striding at me on legs of lighting."
Poetry right there.
-chaz-
The "four way stop" changes from state to state, here is what the Michigan State Police have to say.
"When a signal loses power, the intersection becomes uncontrolled and reverts back to the basic right-of-way requirements found in MCL 257.649(1) and (2). It does not become a four-way stop, as is frequently stated by members of the media."
So if one does come along a failed stop light, look carefully before proceeding.
"if I'd been standing on open prairie instead of in a bed in a house in a wooded city"
Open flatland isn't far from you.
Back around the time of the 75th running of The 500 I was involved in a long distance romance with a girl from just outside Kokomo.
When I'd visit I'd always notice how flat things were compared to Central AL where I grew up or even Auburn on The Plains of Dixie where I lived at the time.
I figure absent trees and neighboring houses you could have seen the lightning walk out your bedroom window.
Scott J,
"Open flatland isn't far from you."
Gaia's bulldozer ran back and forth over the northern part of the state for hundreds of millennia. I get up around White County, north of Lafayette, and get to feeling like I'm going to fall off the planet, it's so flat.
" if I'd been standing on open prairie" they would probably have been able to bury your remains in an Electrolux bag.
presumably, though, you'd get close- but not too close! to an object much taller than you, and try very hard not to look like a lightning rod.
As the only male member of my family NOT to have ever been struck by lightning, I am particularly sensitive to this.
My theory on rain and driving accidents is that the water falls through the heat dissipation slots on the worker drones and shorts out their tiny brains, like a late 60s b/w tv at a swinger's party meeting a badly-mixed martini.
Otoh, I have a friend who was struck by a "feeder bolt" of lightning who suffered minor brain damage. He got even funnier, saying "well, I was only issued a minor brain, so that's fair."
I've seen the same, out in west Texas and New Mexico (El Paso is in the middle of the only desert I've ever been in where it rains every other day).
Look at the bright side. You don't have to shovel it.
Yet.
gvi
"striding at me on legs of lighting."
WoW....what a great way to put it!
When I lived in Northern Illinois I used to go out to the plateau on the West side of town in the summertime and watch them come roaring in.
Nothing like feeling the air temperature dropping like a rock, as the winds picked up, and the smell of rain came at you.
I had to go to the airport last night as the system pushed through the Panhandle (TX version) and when I looked west and north, I expected to see at least three of the Four Horsemen charging down on me. And that was before the wind and rain hit. Not much lightning this time, though.
LittleRed1
Get the city official to take your place on the ground in front of the bulldozer.
Eat all the peanuts at the bar, be sure to feed the cheese sandwich to the dog.
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