Evening storm

I knew before yoga class ending last evening that we were in for a big blow. I felt the rumble of thunder before hearing it. 

Even with the shades drawn, you could see light pulsing around the edges of the window like a strobe.  

Jilda sensed the weather was getting worse, so she let class out a little early so that people could scurry to their car and hopefully make it home before the deluge.

We could have left too, but there was a group of high school kids in the basement in a first-aid class. When we gathered our stuff up and headed for the door. The kids were clustered around the front windows expectantly looking for the headlights of their parents coming to collect them. 

The trainer was a young woman who didn't look much older than the kids and she wasn't about to leave until all the kids were collected.

Jilda and I could tell she was a little freaked by the weather, so we, along with a few others from yoga buddies, chose to stay until the storm passed.

I stepped out and shot this picture from under the portico. I tried to catch threads of lightning as it forked across the sky like a window slowly breaking.  Soon the wind began to howl, causing a horizontal rain. 

The instructor had a weather app on her phone that allowed her to get snapshots of lightning strikes, wind speed, and any reported damage. The wind outside our window was blowing at 66 mph, which is just 8 mph below hurricane force on the Fujitsu scale.

All through the torrent, parents pulled in, collected their kids and disappeared into the storm. 

We waited until they all left and the worst of the storm had moved off to the east before darting to our cars. 

Even though the lights flickered a few times, the power was on when we pulled into our driveway. I was grateful.