When I was a kid, we called it "sheet lightning"; the bolt was obscured, by an obstacle, by clouds, by sheer distance, but the light of its flash lit the sky.
Tonight, as I was heading for the bus stop to go home, one of the greatest flares of sheet lightning I've ever seen flashed across, it seemed, half the sky, bright as a harvest moon. A moment, and a deafening thunderclap. There were perhaps half a dozen people in view; all of them - all of us - ducked involuntarily, and two raced for the safety of the nearest building. As the echoes died, I could hear at least three car alarms in the parking lot off to my right.
After that, the show seemed over. The bus ride was uneventful, though it had begun to rain lightly as I debarked. The lightning, then, started to close in; halfway home, I detoured into the middle of the deserted street to avoid the trees that loomed over the sidewalk. I took the shortest cut I knew, and got inside a minute or two before the skies opened. Battering rain, a spatter of hail, lightning flashing around - I shut down the computer, and could not pick up anything on the satellite dish. It lasted only fifteen minutes or so, but we got hammered pretty good in that interval.
The forecast is for more thunder tonight and tomorrow. Fortunately, I won't be going onto campus....
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