As a native Floridian, I have seen many thunderstorms, but the one that came to call at half-past eleven last night was a rare breed, indeed. Lightning struck the street near our house three times in ten minutes. Fortunately, because of prior experience in which lightning has burnt down my house and destroyed many of my cherished electronics, I am a complete paranoiac who unplugs everything at the first flash, and so nothing was damaged. It did kill the power for a minute, and I sat in the hallway and listened to "BOOMPOW! BOOMPOW! BOOMPOW!" I strongly suspect that if anything had been plugged in, it would have been destroyed, high-caliber surge protectors notwithstanding. I screamed like a little girl and started hyperventilating after the second roaring strike, and my startle reflex went into overdrive. I never want to do that ever again.
The locals on the town message board are claiming that a tornado skirted us last night, but I'm quite dubious of the claim, as I have seen no evidence of even minor wind damage--no downed limbs or felled saplings or loose siding. I suspect it was just a very fierce, dangerous squall. One of the purported perks of living on the outskirts of modern civilization was to escape such violent weather. So much for that idea.
( AMC's The Killing Thoughts and Early Predictions--MAJOR SPOILERS )