"Men are struck and killed more than four times as often as women.... The United States has seen 12 lightning fatalities so far this year."

"The vast majority (90 percent) of lightning-strike victims survive. Most who don’t suffer cardiac arrest or stop breathing. Most victims can be revived by immediate CPR. Strike victims do not hold a charge and are safe to touch.... In many cases, people are struck and killed even when it’s not raining. Lightning bolts can leap up to 10 miles from a parent thunderstorm, and often the more errant, farther-venturing bolts carry more charge. If you can hear thunder, you are close enough to be struck by lightning."

From "Woman and her 2-year-old daughter killed by lightning in Florida/Four people have now died from lightning in the state this year. Florida averages seven such fatalities annually" (WaPo).

The news from Sicily.

1. "American Hiker Dies After Lightning Strike on Mount Etna in Italy/Rescuers found a 29-year-old man in serious condition on the volcano’s eastern slope on Sunday. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital in Catania" (NYT gift link)("On Monday, Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology reported that another volcanic vent had opened in the valley, with fresh lava flowing overnight.... During a volcanic eruption, tiny collisions among the rising particles of ash can create static electricity, which may in turn produce volcanic lightning").

2. "Thieves Steal 4 Renaissance Paintings From Italian Museum in Brazen Heist/The works, by Antonello da Messina, were taken as the Sicilian city of Messina held a religious celebration" (NYT gift link)("The celebration, the Procession of the Vara, is a religious ritual that takes places every Aug. 15. Some 100,000 people attended the celebration and the city’s law enforcement officials were focused on maintaining order there, city officials said....The theft is a blow to the city.... [F]or the past few years the city has focused on the 'Messina, City of Antonello' brand...).

3. The Procession of the Vara:

Meteotsunami.

"While the Appleton/Menasha tornado was occurring, Lake Winnebago appeared to drop by 1-2 ft at my location near Adella Beach/ Neenah, WI. At 12:29 - likely after the tornado had ended - I observed an unnaturally-long wave approaching from the northeast as the water rushed back into the bay. I moved my vehicle multiple times to stay clear of the rising water which spilled over the bank. I observed flying/falling debris such as shingles, small stick, and a projectile plastic kiddie pool as part of the broader event":

Pyrocumulonimbus — a thundercloud caused by fire.

I'm reading "Firefighters in France Encounter a 'Fire Cloud'/A pyrocumulonimbus — a thundercloud created by intense heat — is a phenomenon that can spark new blazes and is 'unprecedented in France,' officials said" (NYT gift link).

These large, fire-fueled thunderstorms, also known as pyroCbs, are created by intense heat from large blazes or volcanic eruptions. They produce lightning and burning embers that can spark more fires, and they generate high and unpredictable winds that fan the flames and spread the embers. But they rarely bring rain....

"The storm comes and splits at the White House and goes around the White House and the Ellipse. The President believes that… it was divine intervention."

Dana White on the storm going around UFC Freedom 250: “The storm comes and splits at the White House and goes around the White House and the Ellipse. The President believes that… it was divine intervention.” pic.twitter.com/uWFETwVL9H

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) June 17, 2026

"In the event of a thunderstorm, the beach is a very dangerous place to be. So if you feel things like a wind shift, if it’s fluttering back and forth between hot and cold..."

"... you see the clouds, you hear little rumbles of thunder — those are signs to get off the beach.... By definition, every thunderstorm contains lightning. Therefore, every thunderstorm is potentially dangerous"/"Lightning is always looking for the easiest path from cloud-to-ground.... On a wide open beach — with no trees, buildings, or structures around — a person can often be the most effective conductor around."

Advice from a lifeguards and a weatherman, quoted in "Man Dies After Being Struck By Lightning While Trying To Get Kids Off Beach During Thunderstorm/Patrick Dispoto, 59, died after being struck by lightning in Seaside Park, N.J., on Sunday, June 23" (People).

After the big storm.

Too much of a bad thing.

I'm reading "Headwind Cycling Race Called Off Over Too Much Wind Storm/Ciarán, which has battered Western Europe this week, proved too much for a quirky Dutch cycling competition" (NYT).

Even in a country where cycling is one of the most popular modes of transportation, many might wonder why anyone would submit themselves to cycling through such treacherous weather conditions. “I wonder that myself sometimes,” Mr. Stoekenbroek said. “There’s a group of people that likes to suffer.”

The country is the Netherlands. 

"I waited until morning to listen to Biden's nighttime speech... I went out for my sunrise run and thought about what I'd heard. I'll tell you some more about that later."

I wrote that yesterday in a post I published at 9:58 a.m. — a post that combed through the text of the speech. It's now a day later and I haven't followed through, and I could just forget about. Would anyone remember? Is anyone thinking, yeah, what did she think about, while running and viewing the sunrise, about a speech she'd listened to but not yet read? It's highly unlikely, and "I'll tell you some more about that later" isn't even a promise.

We're having a big thunderstorm here at that moment:

 

I'm thinking of keeping my non-promise. I made notes to myself — audio notes — as I was watching the sunrise yesterday, and I've listened to the notes and can see there is something I wanted to say that I haven't said yet. Let me get something to eat and settle in and see if I can find a way to put it in writing without it seeming too... internal.

ADDED: This is a rewriting and an expansion of my audio notes to myself. 

Just 5 TikToks made my list tonight. Let me know what you like

1. Lightning strike.

2. Parrots kiss.

3. The return of the influencer.

4. Asking people to name 3 songs by the band whose name is on their shirt.

5. The turtle sandbox is full of gender.

"A pickup truck in front of her — driven by her husband, with her children aboard — took a powerful hit from a cloud-to-ground lightning bolt."

"He and the kids were fine, although the truck was reported to be 'completely fried.'... [T]he steel-framed vehicle acted as a 'faraday cage,' in which the current of the lightning bolt goes around the metal body and typically exits to the ground from the tires. The strike will avoid people as long as everyone is inside the vehicle and not touching the outside metal. This is also a reason aircraft are often struck by lightning without major damage. Concurrently with the first flash, a bright orange sheath surrounds the spot where it connects with the truck as sparks erupt in all directions. In less than a blink of an eye, two more rapid-fire flashes are seen, as is smoke rising from the impact location."

WaPo reports.

Here's the amazing video.

What a violent storm we had yesterday!

This morning at sunrise, I was out on the 0.8-mile-long stretch of lakeshore trail and I encountered 2 newly fallen trees:

 

... and then another...

 

... and another...

Here's a news report about the storm: "Roofs ripped off buildings, trees topple onto homes as severe storms move through Dane County" (Channel 3000).

"While tornadoes garner a lot of attention because of their destructive ability, derechos can rival tornadoes in terms of destruction an impact."

"Derecho damage is typically 'in one direction along a relatively straight swath,' according to the National Weather Service."

From "From Midwest prepares for intense severe storms, threat of derecho/A derecho moving through Iowa last year killed four people" (ABC News).

The derecho has certainly garnered our attention here in Madison.

"During most severe thunderstorms, there is a brief period of very gusty winds. A location that is hit by a derecho will see long-lived, extremely severe winds. The derecho itself may travel several hundred miles or more over the course of several hours. Because the period of peak wind gusts may last for an extended period, some have compared the destruction of a derecho to that of a hurricane."

The storm was about to hit.

Here's how the radar map looked when we got back to the car:



About 12 minutes before that, this was the view of the western sky:



This was the north:



This was the east:

Things that feel more substantively meaningful than they are...

INSANE Video from our @wusa9 SkyCam WOOOOOW #lightning #WashingtonMonument pic.twitter.com/iYmwDwDUMO

— Ryan Sprouse (@RSprouseNews) June 5, 2020

Things people are saying on Twitter, which I'm not bothering to do links for: "Even GOD is speaking out against Trump"/"If only the lighting hit Trump while he was photo oping in front of a Church with bible in his hand"/"Dear God, aim more north. White building, surrounded by fences. 38° 53' 52.6452'' N and 77° 2' 11.6160'' W."

It's not all anti-Trump. Even as lightning makes many/most people think it's God!, the thought that God is speaking out is closely followed — like thunder after lightning — with the interpretation He is expressing an opinion similar to my own.

Thus, there's also this: "It’s God’s way of saying ‘go home’ to these anarchists, and saying 'this is mine!'"

By the way, to give God directions — replete with longitude and latitude — is to say outright that you don't think He is omniscient. Might want to fine-tune your prayers. And as you note, He is already angry. He is wrathful. Don't tell Him what to do.

In the dark, ominous morning, a storm passes just to the north.

I'm enjoying the fascinating almost of this.

UPDATE: We're getting it now...



UPDATE 2:

Beware the ominous green haboob and shun the frumious pollen.

"Ominous green cloud towers over town as storm stirs up rare pollen haboob" — Accuweather.

Have I written about "haboob" before? Meade sent me the link because he thought I might relate "haboob" to the recently blogged "hooha." Funny words, both.

I have, in fact, blogged "haboob" before — back in 2016 when a Texan took umbrage at the use of the word by the National Weather Service.

Haboob!?! I’m a Texan. Not a foreigner from Iraq or Afghanistan. They might have haboobs but around here in the Panhandle of TEXAS, we have Dust Storms. So would you mind stating it that way. I’ll find another weather service.

The OED traces the word in English back to 1897 and includes this example from 1959:

1959 R. E. Huschke Gloss. Meteorol. 268 Haboob (many variant spellings, including habbub, habub, haboub, hubbob, hubbub), a strong wind and sandstorm or duststorm in the northern and central Sudan, especially around Khartum, where the average number is about 24 a year.

Wait a minute! Hubbub? Is the familiar English word "hubbub" based on the Sudanese sandstorm? No. "Hubbub" may be an alternate spelling of "haboob," but the familiar word "hubbub" is much older, going back to the 16th century and — according to the OED — "often referred to as an Irish outcry, and probably representing some Irish expression. Compare Gaelic ub! ub! ubub! an interj. of aversion or contempt; abu! the war-cry of the ancient Irish."

Here's a long sentence — diagram this! — from Milton's "Paradise Lost" (boldface added):

So eagerly the fiend
Ore bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,
And swims or sinks or wades, or creeps, or flyes:
At length a universal hubbub wilde
Of stunning sounds and voices all confus'd

"A few hundred people lined a two-lane county highway near the church, hoping for a glimpse of Mr. Trump from the roadside grass or from the cemetery across the street."

"When his motorcade arrived, it passed 23 white crosses, one for each of the storm’s victims. Just before Mr. Trump left the church, he and the first lady, Melania Trump, approached the display. The couple walked the row of crosses, pausing at each one."

From "Trump Surveys Tornado Damage in Alabama" (NYT).

Lightning.

#CAwx- Lightning strikes in the skies above Santa Barbara, CA, March 5, 2019, as seen in these views from Stearns Wharf. pic.twitter.com/93SziH1QjS

— SBCFireInfo (@EliasonMike) March 6, 2019

The worst place to be.

⚡️During a thunderstorm - standing under a tree is literally the WORST place to be.

⚡️During a thunderstorm - even sitting in a parked car under a tree is dangerous due to falling limbs from lightning and wind.

⚡️Imagine how many people don't know this?#WeatherReady pic.twitter.com/S0FIR16oer

— NWS (@NWS) May 16, 2018