Love a good thunderstorm
We've had some excellent storms this past week. I love a good thunderstorm.
The exact science is a little shaky for me but I have the basics. I have complete sympathy for people in the thenadays losing their minds. If I lived in a cave forty thousand years ago I would absolutely believe some higher power was angry with me.
One particular storm was so good I honour the anniversary of it. I was out for a walk and got soaked - not an unusual occurrence - but it felt so good I came home and wrote a scene about a character walking in a storm and having a fine old time.
TV Tropes's Dramatic Thunder points out that in visual media the thunder and lightning usually occur at the same time. Also that the standard sound effect was called Castle Thunder, an extremely cool name.
In Jurassic Park obviously the moral is that life uh finds a way but it is also a cautionary tale about a tropical storm and a robbing hacker coinciding. Try to avoid this if possible!
In my favourite episode of Xena she not only invents the kite but manipulates the electrical discharge to kill a giant. One of her many skills being science a millenia ahead of her time.
There's a thunderstorm in the Summer section of Vivaldi's Four Seasons - which I only know because it is explicitly explained in a film. That's me being cultured. "Oh, yeah, the insects are agitated."
When I was a kid if there was a proper thunderstorm we just accepted the power would go out. Not for long, maybe only ten minutes. I can't remember the last time that happened.
We were at my mother-in-law's during a spectacular example this week and she said when there was a storm her grandma used to turn the mirrors round, take the pins out of her hair, and sit on the stairs. And that's definitely not the weirdest superstition people have about storms.
The Coming Storm