Africa has the best thunderstorms

Saturday turned out to be a fairly typical one of driving to Piet Retief for shopping and coming back and relaxing at Klipwal in the afternoon. That was until another afternoon thunderstorm hit. And this one just didn't want to go away.

At about 4 I was getting a little antsy after reading on the patio in front of my house so I went on a little run. I started down the dirt road towards the 6 level entrance and figured I'd run about 15 minutes downhill and it would take a half an hour or so to run back up. Only 5 minutes into the run though, I had just passed a donkey when I saw an impressive flash of lightning almost directly above me. It seemed to have moved horizontally across the sky, and there was no rain yet to accompany it. Still, that was plenty of a warning for me to immediately turn around and hot-foot it back to the house. I arrived about 10 minutes later, unlocked the door, went inside, and sure enough, there was a boom of thunder followed by heavy rain. Impeccable timing.

Fortunately this storm lasted only about half an hour, and soon it was dry outside again. My neighbor Nick invited me over for a braai so I walked over around 6 and we started a log fire. By 6:15, I was sitting on his patio, looking south over the Pongola River and the rugged terrain of the Ithala game reserve, experiencing without a doubt the most amazing lightning storm I have ever seen. The actual storm at this point was at least 10 or 15 miles away, but the frequency and brightness of the lightning was nothing like anything I've ever seen. Far away on the horizon, jagged bolts tore down from the grey clouds and momentarily lit up the skyline as if it were midday. Sometimes there would be sheet lightning that illuminated the sky for miles on either side of where we were sitting. The visual spectacle was enhanced by the light from the flashes reflecting of the rushing river some 400 meters below. Some of the bolts that struck were so bright that they left that temporarily blinding imprint in your eye, like somebody just shined a flashlight in your face. And this storm was still miles away. The thunder we heard was just a dull, distant roar.

Around 6:45 the charcoal was ready so we put the meat over the BBQ, and still sat watching the distant storm. I realised however, that it definitely was getting a little bit closer. The thunder was definitely louder, with less of a delay from the initial lightning strikes, and the crickets had silenced themselves. Nick was explaining to me earlier, when I was a bit nervous about starting a braai with a lightning storm nearby, that if the crickets are chirping, which they were very loudly and incessantly at the time, it means that there is no rain coming and it should stay dry. With the meat now over the burning embers, we both noticed that the crickets had gone silent. A gust of wind blew very hard, kicking up dust and the smoke from the fire, and before we knew it, some loud, sharp banging noises started to come from behind his house. Confused about what the noise was, I stood in the doorway with my camera, while Nick rushed to take the meat of the braai.

Not 30 seconds later, Nick was safely inside with meat (perfectly cooked), and I figured out what the banging noises were. Those were the hailstones from the front of the storm hitting the metal roof. It had arrived. I soon witnessed another first: the biggest hailstones I've ever scene. Most were easily the size of golf balls and exploded into pieces as the hit the concrete on the patio. After about two minutes of the icy stuff, I was thrown off guard by a lightning strike, this time the kind that is so close it makes a much louder, sharper cracking sound than the normal low thunderous boom. And after that followed what is probably the heaviest rain I have ever witnessed.

An hour earlier, Nick and I stood out on the patio enamoured with the show taking place miles away, with a new lightning strike literally every one to three seconds. Now that was happening right above our heads. There was another close strike and immediately the power went out. Nick got a flashlight and went to the circuit breaker and saw that they had tripped, so we soon were up and running again. I finished my dinner and waited for a small lull in the heavy rain, and ran back the 40 yards to my house at around 8. And the storm rolled on, without seeming to move from Klipwal.

I desperately tried to take photos showing the impressive blasts of lightning, but couldn't even manage to capture one even though the strikes seemed virtually constant and coming from all directions. I ended up getting a few videos captured, and have some serious respect for anyone who has caught lightning on film. Maybe I'm just a crap photographer.

Then, at around 10 o'clock, it happened. Sitting on the couch in my house, I was shaken by the loudest noise I ever heard. An enormous blast of a whip-crack sound exploded into my eardrums, and I thought a tree had fallen on to my roof. It was another lightning strike, and I don't know for sure but it either hit my roof or a tree right next to the house. The blinding flash that accompanied the noise was immediately followed by complete darkness. And then another flash about 4 seconds later. And another, and another. The power was out again, and this time for a lot longer.

I'm glad I like thunderstorms, and I'm glad that my internet here is on cell phone reception, because I just stayed up, accompanied by my flashlight, candle, and Lego man lantern, and talked to some friends online. The constant lightning flashes and the heavy rain lasted a good 5 hours, as the storm finally petered out around 1 in the morning. The next morning the power came on around 8 am, and I learned that there were dozens of transformers in the area that failed, so the surrounding villages for about 40 miles were all without power too. As I type this account on Sunday evening at 5, I can just begin to hear distant rumbles of thunder (which always reminds me of Jurassic Park when they hear the footsteps of the T-rex). Can't wait to see what happens tonight!