A Storm without Mountains

I am accustomed to storms with mountains.  I don’t mean storms that cause mountains to fall from the sky; I mean I am accustomed to having mountains surrounding me during storms.

Mountains make storms behave differently.  They shove clouds higher into the atmosphere.  They attract lightning and pull snow down onto themselves.  They fight against storms and sometimes make storms veer away.

Last night, we experienced a fierce thunder and lightning storm where I am staying here in Ohio.  Without mountains to attract the lightning, strikes stabbed directly into the orderly allotment where I am staying.  Several strikes strobed a jarring, unholy brightness across the streets below my room and crashed so loudly the windows rattled.

Heavy rain—sounding like a bunch of toddlers running across the roof in slippers—followed the most intense strikes of lightning.

I actually lost an hour or so of sleep as the storm roved around the place wondering where in the hell the mountains had gone.     

--Mitchell Hegman