Thunderstorm

Psalm 77:18
“The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.”

When I was a boy, my bedroom was on the second floor of our family house and afforded me a magnificent view southwards across the Tame Valley, east of Manchester, England. It was always fascinating to watch the weather patterns appearing from over the Pennines. My favorite weather was a thunderstorm. Dark clouds gradually pushed away the sunshine from the valley, and the houses and mills took on a menacing appearance, even before the torrential rain would begin.

With this being an industrial area, I could see the electrical switching station down the road, which would sometimes attract the lightning. The lightning flashed safely off the lightning conductors in a blaze of white light. But before the storm arrived, I would listen for the distant thunder and watch for the lightning. When the lightning flashed, I would count the seconds until I heard the thunder, and divide by five. That would tell me how many miles away the storm was. Lightning is a rapid discharge of pent-up static electricity, and thunder is the sound that the huge spark makes. Lightning travels at the speed of light, which is too fast to notice at those distances, but sound takes time to travel – about 0.2 miles per second.

I have met some people who are terrified by lightning, as they thought it could mean the end. For me, I am still in awe of the awesome power of God, demonstrated in a small way by the storm.

Prayer: Lord God, Heavenly King, we stand in awe at Your awesome power! Amen.

Author: Paul F. Taylor

Ref: Cloudy with a Chance of Awesome, < https://answersingenesis.org/environmental-science/cloudy-chance-awesome/ >, accessed 8/29/2019. Image: CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported.

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