What a Storm!

Mother Nature has been busy in southern Ontario the past few days.  First she dropped a tornado in the town of Goderich, causing much devastation there by destroying not only houses but also several historical buildings built in the mid 1800's, injuring several and killing one poor gentleman.

Photo courtesy of windsorstar.com

Then on Tuesday, the East Coast had itself an earthquake, registering 5.8 on the Richter scale at its source in Virginia and one that many here in Toronto felt as well (yours truly did not, unlike last year's quake, which got everything in my office shaking for a few seconds).

Last night, it was a thunderstorm, which brought with it heavy rains and high winds and in some places, even hail - enough activity to cause more tornado watches and warnings in many areas.  Not just any thunderstorm, mind you, but a very active one at that.

I sat out on my balcony watching the light show, which was quite astounding.  My apartment has a great view looking south towards Lake Ontario in the far distance and many of the lightning strikes seemed to focused on that area.  The sound of it was like hanging out in a fully occupied bowling alley, the rumblings didn't stop and the strikes were constantly occurring (ha! strikes, get it? A totally unintentional pun, I almost missed it myself!).  I heard today on the news that there were more than 1,000 strikes over a 2 minute time period.  It was beautiful to watch.  I couldn't see the CN Tower through the clouds from my distance but it is always a magnetic for lightning, seeing as how it's tall and pointy and built like a giant lightning rod.

Photo courtesy globaltoronto.com

I did try to capture some of the strikes on film but my camera kept telling me "subject is too dark".  Apparently, other people had better luck than I did - check out some of their amazing photos here.  And then go here to watch a short but amazing video by someone named Jon Simonassi.

Hopefully the rest of the week will be quieter and event free, weather-wise.  Luckily, we're not currently in the path of the active turbulence they are calling Hurricane Irene...