Lightning Strikes

“Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while,
nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation.”
Kim Hubbard, Editor at Large, People Magazine

Alright, I know I said I would not talk about the weather, but really! We have had the most amazing five days.

Torrential rain, almost gale force winds, thunder and lightning. In fact, according to the DomPost, our local paper “New Zealand saw nearly 20,000 lightning strikes in the 24 hours to 8am, and MetService say there’s more to come with a severe thunderstorm watch …” and this was only until 10am on Friday. And nothing much changed over the weekend.

“The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.”
 Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

Today is Monday here and the newspaper records “There were 9700 lightning strikes over land from 6pm Sunday to 6am on Monday, and 150mm of rain for some, as a cold front with thunderstorms attached moved onto the North Island.” and Severe thunderstorms, high winds, heavy rain, large hail, and even tornados are likely today.”

So may I be forgiven? This is a storm rarely seen in our corner of the world. And it’s still raining.

In much of the South Island, hail and rain have been replaced with snow. And here’s a lighthearted end to this blog on Windy Wellington’s Worst Weather.

and

Pooh that really clever little bear says

So from a miserable day here in Wellington at 41.2924° S, 174.7787° E, I am off now t read my book, to keep warm and dry.

Oh, look. There’s Chris in the corner of the photo.