Lightning Everywhere

Written by Dave:  While staying near Motovun, Croatia, we experienced several amazing lightning storms.  Finally I decided I needed to get some pictures and video to remember how beautiful it was.  As the storm approached, I was lucky enough to capture some pictures.

Capturing lightning in a picture was much more difficult than I anticipated.  I must have shot fifteen pictures for every one that happened to catch a piece of lightning.  Luckily, I’m quite patient.  Or as Nancy would say, quite crazy.  Anyway, here are some of the pictures I captured.

Much of the lightning was behind the mass of clouds, but this made for quite ominous and beautiful pictures.

It was night time, and pitch black.  There was so much lighting, however, that it lit up the countryside.

Every time I thought I captured the “Big One,” I would look at the pictures and see I shot just a bit too early, or too late.  Oh well, keep shooting.

Summer was in the WiFi area with me, which was under an awning, so we were able to keep dry.  She kept looking at me with concern, saying “Is this normal, daddy?”  I assured her that this was normal for the area, just not what we were used to.  The flashes were non-stop, and it felt like we were in a dance club with strobe lights going.  The constant rolling thunder was impressive also.

We kept watching as the storm rolled in to us from the Adriatic Sea.  The thunder started coming quicker following the bolts of lightning.

Soon we decided that it was time to go back to the camper.  Luie and Nancy were, amazingly, fast asleep.

We went to bed, but about one hour later the storm became much more real for us.  The lightning became blinding, and the thunder was making us all jump with each crack and boom.  Luie bolted awake and started wandering around the camper in a sleepy but concerned stupor.  He kept saying “I think the roof of the camper is going to tear off.”

Summer got out of bed, and was looking from window to window, convinced that we were about to be struck at any moment.  She was sure by now that this was in no way normal.

I continued to console the kids with the fact that the tall trees would be hit long before we were.  Incidentally, I am convinced that a couple of the trees near us were hit.  An apple tree near us bore the marks of a lightning strike.

In reality, Nancy and I were a bit concerned.  Neither of us have been quite as exposed and close to repetitive lightning strikes.  The noise was deafening.  It stayed directly over us for about 45 minutes to an hour, then moved on to the next mountain.

We have had several storms here, but none as close up and personal as that one.  I did capture some video of the storm coming towards us from the coast, but was not foolish enough to go out when it was right over us.