The bad storm came last night just before sunset, and it started to leave just as the sun was going down.
This resulted in what is easily one of the most breath-taking sunsets I’ve ever witnessed.
Note that young white pine toward the center of the photograph.
This is what happened as the sun went down:
It’s like the pine tree is on fire!
Yesterday was a very strange day.
The mercury was reading into the 90’s before ten o’clock in the morning, and by the afternoon, I saw one bank thermometer read 98 degrees Fahernheit.
Hotter than, as my grandpa would have said, the hubs of hell (whatever that means).
In this part of the world, any heat is almost automatically amplified with high levels of humidity.
So yesterday, the land just appeared to boil.
The air had the feel of an ulcerated, festering wound. The heat was like the infection got worse and worse as the day progressed.
And it boiled and boiled until the clouds drew in upon the sky.
And the wind began to blow.
Just a little breeze at first.
The trees began to quake.
The branches and leaves started swirling through the sky.
It was a good thing I was inside!
The sky blackened darker and darker until it was almost as black as midnight.
And the rain came gushing from the sky.
The thunder was like something out of an ancient myth, like a great roaring demon that sudden been awakened from its lair.
And the lightning tore through the clouds like some ethereal knife.
The storm lasted about 45 minutes,and then it was gone.
But as it left, a cool gentle breeze came flowing in.
I’ve never felt a nicer breeze.
With no power, the house was becoming quite hot, and I was sweating profusely.
It just felt good to feel the cool air on me and watch this amazing sunset, as the water dripped off the trees and the little crickets made noises all around me.
Nature is still more marvelous than anything we’ve been able to contrive.
I’ve never see any human performance that can match a sunset like this one.
We might try, but even the best Hollywood special effects artists couldn’t match this one.
Beautiful!!!! Wonderful writing.
That is exactly how it is in Tucson during monsoon season- including the sunsets, but our sunsets are faboo every day…
Thank you, Kate.
I spend a lot of time practicing and experimenting.
I am glad you liked it.
Reblogged this on Mystery of My Hairless Chihuahua and commented:
I am reposting this because it is wonderful, but also reminds me of a similar piece I wrote many years ago on Live Journal
Reblogged this on Mystery of My Hairless Chihuahua.
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Agre with Kate beautifully written. Our storm hit around 10:00. First the warm breeze after over a100 degree day. I had filled a small wading pool for the dogs to cool thier feet. Suddenly, the wind kicked up as I watched a wood and metal bench be lifted off the dock. It ended sitting on a piling on the pier. Rushing to get all dogs inside to safety, a large limb from a 60 year old tree snapped. Nothing as beautiful as you describe. Nature is amazing and wild to behold.
Beautiful!
We caught that storm too, but did not get any rain, just really ferocious straight-line winds Our power went out right before the storm hit & it was out for about 30 hours, which made for a very uncomfortable day today! Another 100 degree day, after a yesterday with temp well over 100 .. at 4pm yesterday it was 106. But we have had really low humidity here; very unusual; it feels like the Southwest instead of the Southeast. They finally got my power restored a few minutes ago, but there are still thousands of people without electricity from this windstorm.
“Awesome” is a word that is over-used. But that wind was awesome, and rather frightening. It came roaring over the mountain just pushing trees down in front of it. I’ve never seen anything like it. I was out in my yard, watching the trees blowing in the wind, when I saw a couple of big branches go sailing by my head and decided to run for the porch.
There are big trees down all over the county. All over several counties. Glad you came through unscathed!
Just got a message from my son. He drove down US 52 from Williamson WV to Bluefield, on his way to the beach. He said that the storm damage on the WV side is astonshing: there are big trees down along the entire stretch from Williamson to Bluefield, and he did not see a working traffic light til he got to Bluefield VA.
British tv has a lot of coverage on extreme US weather events at the moment. Over here it just rains and we’ve been told April to June was the wettest such period on record, reportedly something to do with a shift in jet stream. Glad to be living on a hill. Heavily wooded area around here and the electricity failed last night, but reinstated by dawn. Climate changing or just coincidence? New weather records might suggest the former?
I love this type of stuff. We hardly ever get nifty sunsets here in GP. They are more common in Arizona, and some of them were pretty spectacular.
We just got our cable back last night, telephone last Tuesday.