Yesterday's storm

During class yesterday afternoon, the room suddenly grew dark. “Must be a storm rolling in,” said Mountain Climber as he peered out the window. As we walked out, a rising wind whipped my hair into my face.

A gang of students were standing on the edge of the quad, near the top of the stairs. “Turn and look!” one woman said to me. “It’s incredible.”

I turned to look across at the city skyline. Bolts of lightning kept coming, one after another, breaking open the sky above the buildings. The sky to the south was green-blue; I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sky that colour.

“I just love storms,” Mountain Climber said. “They put things in perspective.”

“The sky is so huge, and we are so small,” said Purple Hairband.

We watched until the rain began — a pounding, drenching rain. By the time I drove home, streets were flooded and closed: sirens were going off all around me. My windshield was so fogged up that I rolled down my windows: the air was warm, despite the rain, and I noticed that other drivers had done the same. As our cars inched along, drivers talked to each other, exclaiming over the storm and comparing notes about what streets were still open.

The thunderstorms continued for another 6 hours, with short and sometimes even sunny breaks in between. A tornado touched down about 30 miles away from me, with winds up over 100 miles per hour.

Low pressure systems are a migraine trigger for me, and my head had been aching for a couple of days, making me miserable and sleepy. During the storms, I could feel the pressure inside my skull, but the full-blown migraine held off. And when I woke up this morning, the rain had finally stopped and my headache was gone for the first time in days.