The last two years or so our dry season has been wetter than the wet season....not this time, wet season's back and I think it's got a score to settle ! :D

For about an hour from approximately 02:30 on Tuesday the 17th of January, 2006 we got lashed by an awesome show of natural power.

Strong, gusty winds, pelting rain with wicked lightning and thunderclaps started it off at about 02:00, after trying several times to get back to sleep because I didn't wanna be tired for work I decided that just wasn't going to happen so I got out of bed, grabbed my Canon PowerShot A520 and made the most of it. I would've used my Nikon D70S but the lightning was so widespread and so thick it would've been useless trying to capture still shots.

These avi's are all taken from the relative safety of the small verandah at the front door of my 2nd story flat (I would've gone to the back door too but that was soaking wet and rain coming in hard). My tripod was in my car but there's no way in hell I was going to get it with this thunderstorm right on top of us, I'm keen but I'm not stupid and I didn't want to have a few billion watts arcing through me !

I'd say we had at least 60mm in the hour but something was wrong with BoM's automated rain gauge and the measurements we got during the storm showed up about three hours later. Majority of noise on these avi's is rain and constant rumbling thunder, later when the rain dies down (in the avi's closer to MVI_1879 etc) you can hear the crickets while the lightnings still happening as the storm travelled away from us to the South West.

File name's give a good idea of what to expect, the FILES ARE LARGE and will take a while to download so be sure to DOWNLOAD THESE TO YOUR OWN COMPUTER BEFORE YOU WATCH THEM or the buffering will suck !

Keep in mind these movies are taken on a digital camera, which isn't as sensitive to light as a real video camera and there's more lightning going on than what's seen in the footage.

Anyway, enough talking, here's the avi's - speakers are essential (stereo headphones would be wicked for the thunder claps) ! :D