Wow!!! An actual thunderstorm!!! :-o

[BraytonAK]

Wow, I can't believe my timing and luck. Not only do I have a day off, but I'm sitting next to my open window when...what do I hear? Thunder! Blow me down! I kept listening, thinking it was something from either the Air Force, Army or Airport. Nope, it was the real Macoy.

So I waited a little more to be rewarded with a loud thunder clap that just kept rolling and rolling. Waaaa!!! Then another rumble in the distance.

I know this sounds petty to most of you, but we simply don't get thunderstorms in this city. The mountains bording the east side of the city block them. (Water to the north, west and south. Then more mountains.) We get maybe one thunderstorm a year, which, if audbile, is one thunder boom and it's gone. (Reminiscent of Charlie Brown walking with a thunder cloud over his head.)

Now it's actually raining pretty well. I don't even mind that I polished my PT yesterday, because this is my PT's first thunderstorm. I really wish I lived somewhere that had more thunderstorms, but I'm not willing to endure the Fairbanks heat and cold to do it, and I don't know where I'd be able to live in the Lower 48.

Anyway, I just had to share my excitement with 'someone'. I think the thunder is probably done. My two cats are freaked about this occurance. It was extremely warm yesterday (75°) so that must be the cause for thunder today? I guess it's about time, though. Summer Solstice is next week. (Still had blue sky last night at 12:15am.)

See ya later, peoples!

[kwoozn]

Hey Brayton, I'll trade you a thunderstorm for some Northern Lights! Dumb question, but can you see the Northern Lights that close?

[BraytonAK]

Well, if you can find a dark place in the city (without streetlights) or anywhere outside of town, you can see them extremely well. They're very beautiful. They look as though you could just reach up and touch them, yet they are way up on the outter edge of the atmosphere. Some of them move and sway slowly, and others zip around the sky.

I usually see the green northern lights, but I've seen red once. Apparently a side-effect is that they can interfere with radio / television reception. (Logical, since they're basically an electromagnetic occurance.)

Just as you can see clouds in the sky during the day, northern lights look like colored, self illuminated clouds at night that move all over. Sometimes you'll think you're seeing a reflection of city lights, but if you watch closely, you can see them move.

I did get to see satellites moving in space when I was down in the St. Louis area a few years ago. Almost like shooting stars.

[bigdogdad]

I live in Florida, one of the lighting capitals of the world.! I say one because I believe one is in Africa, but anyway we get tons of lighting. I have lived here for over ten years now and I am still amazed at some of the lighting storms. Some are so close they rock the house. Kinda scary but cool at the same time. In fact right now we are having one, very heavy rains and my dogs are at my feet.

[ptcruiser363]

Lighting storms are great to watch
I'll sit on the back porch and watch them

[dreamer]

Glag you enjoyed the storm Brayton.

I lived in California for a time, and during part of it, we had a drought. My friends and I longed for a thunderstorm....

Originally posted by BraytonAK
(Still had blue sky last night at 12:15am.)

See ya later, peoples!

Awesome. What time do you get Sunrise?
And to further my education, if it was approaching Winter solstice, approx when would sun rise and set.
Thunderstorms are neat, get a lot around here in SW Ontario. The really neat ones are in the winter when you don't expect them.

[KanCruiser]

You want thunderstorms? Come to Kansas! We have plenty of them.
Only problems is, they sometimes come with accessories like tornadoes and baseball-sized hail! Not good news if your car is outside. And the lightning often gets way too close for comfort -- my garage door opener and set-back thermostat were taken out when a bolt hit one corner of our house in Dodge City years ago.

I would love to see the Northern Lights, though.

Originally posted by KanCruiser

I would love to see the Northern Lights, though.

Ditto, I would too.
Are they seasonal or year round???

[BraytonAK]

Apparently there are lots of lightning storms up north around Fairbanks. It gets hot and dry there in the summer. (Although, just the opposite in the winter.)
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The newspaper has a good sunrise/sunset scale. The rise/set times for today are Sunrise @ 4:20am and Sunset at 11:40pm. Although they list actual rise and set times, the sun (this close to solstice) doesn't let the sky go dark. The sun sets in the northwest, swings under the horizon and pops back up in the northeast. (In contrast, at winter solstice, the sun rises in the south south east, and sets in the south south west. Like an extended dusk cycle at times, but it doesn't just 'stay dark' all the time. That's WAY up north.) Years ago, I stayed up all night just to see what happens overnight. It's odd to see the sun looking like it's trying to rise in the north. Blue sky to the north, almost dark to the south. The newspaper has an actual slide-bar scale on the weather page that shows the maximum and minimum daylight hours, and then widgets to show where we currently are. (The bar is dark at either end to signify darkness, yellow in the middle to signify light.)
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I've been to London, ON, before. My best friend lived there (albeit illegally) for a few years. She's back again doing an externship for cullinary arts school. I really like the London area. It's impressively clean.
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KanCruiser: I laughed my butt off at your 'weather accessories' comment. We should all learn to accessorize our weather patterns as well. Hail is only pea sized here, but it rarely happens. My boyfriend's dad just said the other day that his house and boat dock in St. Louis got banged up pretty bad by a hail storm recently. Whoops!
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dreamwerxx: Yeah, the northern lights are year-'round, but you can't really see them in the summer because it's too light out. Whenever you see the news people warn of solar flares that could knock out satellite communications for a bit, then you know that the northern lights will be kicked up. I've heard that it has been visible as far south as Kansas, and it really does light up the sky if it's that big.
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I've become a firm believer in what they say about tourists vs residents, too. People who only visit a place will generally learn more about the place they are visiting than the people who actually live there. I've lived here since before the 4th Grade, thus it's home. But I've barely traveled the state and seen any sights. There are tourists running around in their silly jackets and caps (usually elderly people) that know more about this place than I. I need to fix that. ...STOP THE TOURISTS!