Storm light

On Monday, Labor Day here in the U.S., we had the strangest weather. It was overcast most of the day—a rare enough event in the summer—and just after sunset the sky lit up in the most amazing hues of salmon, orange and raspberry. “It looks just like before a tornado,” said a friend from Colorado who has been visiting.

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Tornados in our area are exceedingly rare—and we didn’t get one that evening—but there was something so unusual about this light that it brought out most of the neighborhood, causing an impromptu gathering in the middle of the street.

We even had a full rainbow although I wasn’t able to capture it all.

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About thirty minutes later—it had just gotten dark—it started to rain. It wasn’t the no-holds-barred downpour I’d been hoping for and it lasted barely twenty minutes, but it filled the whole house with that first-rain-of-the-season smell I so love.

As you may remember, we rarely receive any rain in the summer so this little interlude was definitely noteworthy. Now we’re back to normal—blue sky and sun—and we may not see another rain shower until mid or late October.

Comments

  1. I've experienced that a couple of times, and it's just magical, isn't it? Makes it easy to imagine what your house would look like on Mars... if you ever tried to imagine that I mean. :)

    To think, your garden has gotten more rain in the last 4 weeks than mine has!

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    1. I often say that we have the most boring weather, especially in the summer. That's why, when something like this happens, you're guaranteed to find a blurb about on the front page of next day's newspaper--and that's exactly what happened this time :-).

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  2. We had a bit of that color this eveningt, but no blue sky breaks. Tonight we're supposed to get a little thunder and lightening with downpours tomorrow. Also a little odd for this time of the year but the 3rd (or so) such episode int eh last week. Oh summer...don't abandon me yet!

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    1. Summer hasn't loosened its grip down here yet. Close to 100°F today...

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  3. It does look amazing, such rich and unusual colour, the first pic looks like it's been photoshopped even. And it complements the colour of your house too!

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  4. Gerhard, this is so amazing. I could not imagine how you must have felt seeing these colors and being able to capture. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. It was surreal, especially once the lightning started. In hindsight, we weren't being very safe, standing there in the middle of the street!

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  5. Fabulous, colorful photos! I was up in the mountains during the storm and it poured buckets. The boys Jeeps got soaked. We had to drive home in the pouring rain. And found out it rained for hours on Sunday in Roseville. We needed it.

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    1. Wow, you got way more rain than we did. What little we had didn't even wash the dust off the cars. We need rain so badly!

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