Thunderstorms at Clearview

Ottawa got thunderstorms. Vancouver largely didn't. Neither Hillary nor I missed a lot of things about Ottawa weather, but we missed the thunderstorms.

Hillary missed them because she grew up with them. It was a thing that could be relied upon a few times per year and they almost never happened out here. I missed them because they were impressive and an experience I didn't have growing up.

During our time at Clearview there were a couple of impressive storms. One of which is now baked into my memory as what I think about whenever I hear thunder.

It was a warm, sunny summer day. The forecast likely called for the thunderstorms which were approaching. From the balcony on the 16th floor, we could see the black clouds off in the distance across the Ottawa river in Quebec.

From that height, we could see the storm from several kilometres away. This meant the storm front from that perspective was wide. Every minute or two, we could see a fork of lightning arcing between the clouds and the ground. Initially the thunder was faint, this was one of the only times in my life that I can remember seeing fork lightning and it being far enough away that I couldn't hear the thunder.

As it got closer and closer, the volume increased.

As the storm crossed the Ottawa river the rain started. The flashes and thunder were on top of each other by this point. We retreated off the balcony and cuddled on the couch, listening to the storm hammer the building.