A few days after the summer solstice this past June, we were sitting on the deck at the cottage overlooking Lake Mendota, in Madison, Wisconsin. Our grandsons were happily mudding on the little beach nearby, and we were chatting with our daughter and son-in-law, everyone relaxing after a busy day Oh, this just couldn’t be nicer, I thought. Such a beautiful evening, the long daylight stretching ahead— and my favorite time of year.
Then my son-in-law got a phone message: Thunderstorm alert! Take shelter! A wheezy siren also blew, warning all swimmers, kayakers, and paddle boarders off the water. Large drops began plopping down. Hastily gathering themselves, our family scooted for home and we rushed indoors.
The air felt heavy, damp, and it smelled, almost tasted, like water. It feels as though the sky were somehow getting lower . . Raindrops came closer and closer together, stippling the lake surface with dots. The wind revved up, the sky darkened. Lightning flashed jagged strips and streaks across the sky. Thunder pulled out all the sound-effect stops, and the opposite shore vanished into a wet gray void.

Inside, pressed against the window, I kept trying to photograph the lightning . . . The Gods are sure wound up about something! Or are they showing off? Soon I almost gave up on photographs, the action was so fast. Great show, guys!
After a while, rain diminished, lightning died down, but thunder kept rumbling ominously, as if venting buried resentment. The skies began to open up, with only high-level clouds remaining, even a bit of blue below. How strange–there’s still a sunset going on out there. . . it looks almost normal.

Clouds descended, the lower levels turning deep mauve; above, serious blue gray took over, though a long narrow streak of light persisted. The water was netted in scurrying rushes of wind, and appeared to seethe from below, as though its underlying springs were restless and churning. Eventually, about nine o’clock, darkness fell, though for a while, stubborn flat licks of light hung in the sky.

To Californians like Andy and me, that thunderstorm was a kind of natural show: “What I Saw On My Summer Vacation.” A great treat, even, and something we remember from our New England upbringing, such a storm is what he calls “real” weather.
But to most of the people around us in Wisconsin, such a storm is an ordinary happening.
Yet another “lake scene” provided by our (for three weeks) cottage with the shore just thirty feet ahead, almost an extension of our lawn. Something kept happening just about every hour of every day.
And so that I don’t cut the storm down to size, as just a single astonishing scene in the pageant of Lake Mendota, here are a couple more scenes from the show.