We have just had one of the craziest thunderstorms I've ever witnessed. The wind wasn't so bad but we had almost torrential rain, see photos below. And something really strange has happened:

I had three windows tilted because I love thunderstorms and the freshness they bring. When it was directly above us, i.e. not much time delay between lightning and thunder, we had one flash that for a second made the two lights in my aquarium sizzle and brighten up! The air must have been soooo extremely charged that it affected them!

This particular flash was followed by a *BANG* kind of thunder that literally shook the house. I swear I'm not exaggerating!

When the rain had subsided a bit, I heard LOTS of fire trucks via the open windows, I hear another one as I type this.

Three even drove up my road but I dare say it wasn't a fire (no smoke to be seen, as far as I could tell against the pitch-dark clouds), more than likely some basement got flooded.

This photo below was taken before everything started, you can see the "danger clouds" very well. BTW, the photos aren't particularly good but they depict what I want to show you:

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This next photo looks a bit as if there was a windhose building. Not sure if there was one but what you really should look at is the village / church you can see on the horizon, left of the chimney / windhose:

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See the church? Now look at the next photo:

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This is RAIN!! The rain was so bad that it made everything disappear behind the chimney! This was taken after the thunderstorm, BTW - it was moving in their direction.

WOW! I'm still all shook up and fascinated and excited and ... :D