Friday evening on the balcony of my hotel room in Irving, TX. There's a tornado watch and a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for the next hour. The weather channel is predicting golf-ball sized hailstones. The bad weather is coming from the west, but my enclosed balcony faces east. I can tell the storm is approaching because, firstly, I can see lightning reflected in the mirrored walls of the sizable building opposite; secondly, the shrubbery surrounding the pool, previously still, is now increasingly agitated by the incoming high speed winds; and thirdly, the number of planes overhead (the hotel is directly under the flight path from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport) is increasing, as if they're trying to get the flights out of the area ahead of the storm.
The air is still warm and muggy, the sky leaden, though darkening now. The floodlit pool is empty, but its surface ripples under the stiffening breeze.
Suddenly, the sky is ripped open by forked lightning clawing in every direction, followed, at a respectful distance, by low thunderous rumblings. The storm seems to be passing to the north of us, but I still would not like to be on a flight out of DFW tonight, as I watch the lightning licking lasciviously across the now uniformly grey sky.
And then the rain starts, first as a light pitter-patter, then as giant wet splodges on the concrete paths below, exuding petrichor, that delicious fresh smell of newly dampened warm concrete. The planes are still taking off, but now heading on a southerly path to avoid the storm. The sky is bright with lightning, and the thunder, plane engines and pounding rain compete for attention.
The wind drops, and the rain, highlighted by nearby streetlamps, is falling heavily, but vertically. The thunder that accompanies the torrential rain is the kind that sounds initially like a distant crackling, gradually intensifying until it explodes overhead in an earsplitting belch. Flights have ceased for the moment; the paths and adjacent parking lot are running with water.
As quickly as it arrives, the storm passes. What is left is the echo of lightning, the unfulfilled threat of thunder, the constant swoosh of car tyres on the highway, still swilling with water, and the gentler showering of raindrops on the pool.
Nature is telling us, once again, that despite global warming, depletion of the rain forests, and regular extinction of entire species of insects or animals, she will have her way with us.
