The season has begun!

Finally, the sound has returned! Thunder! Today is the first day of thunder! Excitement and electricity is in the air! Tell tail of a thunderstorm is in the birds. They become erratic. It is as if they know something is coming and fly with urgency for cover. My camcorder is out! Rumbling in the distance begins. Unfortunately the storm is a bit further than I would want it to be. So we hear the thunder, but see no lightning. The lightning is behind some distant cloud formations. The thunder started south east of Windhoek, but steadily changed to northwest during the afternoon hours. Not long and there was cloud-to-cloud lightning, which I have hopefully managed to capture a couple of shots on my camcorder. Any captures will be uploaded here as soon as I have processed them from camcorder to PC. Time from flash to thunder is about 10 seconds. We can smell the rain in the distance. It is a welcome feeling. Finally the small rain season has arrived and I can look forward to some awesome lightning storms, and finally try and get some new lightning pictures for my website and this blog. Currently the thunder has stopped and it has begun to rain. This is the first bit of rain so far this season and it sounds amazing on our tin roof here in Africa!

Introduction

First of let me start by saying that I will be blogging this years lightning storm season. Last season was amazing. I had only just started taking pictures of Lightning with my newly aquired camcorder. Yes well the reason for the camcorder is because we get lightning strikes extreamly close by (closest about 40 meters!) Yes well - you don't want to be outside holding the shutter open on a remote control cable for the camera on the tri-pod! Obviously because I use a camcorder the picture resolution is not that great, but it is still a thrill and a bit safer than standing outside with your tri-pod waiting for God to unleash his wrath on you!
The season should be starting any week now - I wait in anticipation, and hope for a safe season!
The picture in this insert was taken last season. Yes I was still outside when this bolt came down about 320 meters away!