Beautiful, Powerful but can be Deadly

The TV show I was watching gets interrupted by a weather warning. There is a large, strong thunderstorm moving into the area. I can see the storm coming in the distance from the west.

One of the good things about living on the top of a hill looking down into the river valley is that you can normally see the storms that may be developing and coming your way.

This storm has a level 2 wind threat plus tornado and hail threats. You know the storm is strong when there is a tornado warning for your area and the weather warning box is clearly showing you in its way.

I was saying to my self that the clouds dont look that bad. But the is probably why storms can be so dangerous, they catch you off guard and unprepared for what is about to occur.

The winds did pick up and blew very strong there for a while and we did get a lot of rain but did not see any wind damage close to the house in the trees. No broken branches apparent.

However when i went down the hill to get the mail, I noticed a tree that looked funny in appearance on the side of the roadway. As i got closer i could tell that is was heavily damaged.

The tree is about 10 to 15 feet off the road so I stopped to check it out. It was obvious that it had been struck by lightning as this last storm moved through. The tree was close to the highest point on the hill so an obvious target for a lightning strike.

This was not to far from the house maybe 100 to 150 feet distance. You can see the metal roof on this photo on the right hand side of the picture. I was surprised to see the hole next to the truck at ground level where the lightning bolt entered the soil. There is s mound where is pushed the dirt away from the tree.

We were very lucky not to have the house hit by it nor have a tornado in the area.