Lightning up close

I have lived in south Florida all of my life and thunderstorms are very
common. I know to use caution when I hear thunder since lightning kills
many in Florida, an average of about 50 a year.

Here I am in Pennsylvania and what an experince we had tonight. As we
were finishing up our family baby shower there were several of us on the
back patio watching the rain. All of a sudden...

BOOM^3

Lightning struck about 30 feet away, mutliple times. It was like
fireworks, colors and sound. Karen said that she saw red and blue
twisted together. Never had I been so close.

Since nobody was hurt I can say it was neat, but this area has had
numerous trees and wires down. Come morning we will take a closer look
at the tree that was hit and the other that had a large branch broken
off in the 50 plus mph wind that accompanied the thunderstorm.

As I finish this post we have another thunderstorm and a severe
thunderstorm warning just expired for this area.

Good night and be safe.
--howpomp