Nature's fury and beauty

We got an unexpected thunderstorm last night a little after 10:00 pm. On the 6:00 o'clock news, the weatherman said that there might be some rain (no storms) well to the east of us around 2:00 am. So he was wrong on every count. I didn't even realize a storm was coming until I took the dog out for a walk around 10:00 and saw the western horizon light up with lightening. Since I didn't hear any thunder, I figured it was safe to walk the dog, and then stand outside and take some pictures of the lightening. Here are the best shots I got.

We also got golf ball size hail. Some areas not too far away got baseball size hail.

Erin asked if I caught these hail stones as they were falling from the sky. No, I'm not that brave, or dumb. I collected them off the ground after the storm passed. Although standing in an electrical storm to take pictures probably isn't much smarter.

I got this picture this morning as I was taking Erin to school. It's the last of the storm clouds moving out and the sun starting to break through.

Both kids were asleep when the hail storm hit. Garrett woke up screaming at the first sound of hail hitting the roof (it was LOUD). Erin slept through the whole thing. She is deathly afraid of thunder and will wake up to even distant thunder, but this storm didn't have very loud thunder, so she slept right through it.