Thunderstorms

Drought in Alabama, Lightening in Colorado.

I heard it was sunny here 300+ days a year. What I didn't hear was that there are rain showers every afternoon. Almost like clockwork. I could just about set my watch by the 3:45 raindrops. Oh, I don't mean to confuse anyone. I don't mean the cute little rains that LA or Hawaii has every day to cool things off.

What I'm talking about is that every afternoon, I look west to Pike's Peak. Ugly, nasty, black, terrifying wall clouds ominously crawl over the top of the Front Range. I can see the sheets of rain coming with them. These clouds bear down over the Garden of the Gods and lift like a groundswell full of lightening, hail, and torrential downpours -- crashing and cracking the entire way. Coming my way, I feel the wind. Lightening hits and the darkness passes over. Trees are bending near sideways. It sits over the house. The noise is deafening. Long trails of lightening strikes on one side and then another. Enormous rain pounds on the roof like a giant stomping. All of it together surges up over the hills and sweeps over the plains taking their gale winds and updrafts with them.

After an hour or so, the dark clouds break apart to grey and then to white, the sun shines through again to sparkle on the wet pavement and grass. And then it's over.
Til tomorrow.