a summer rainstorm

Last night, as I left the house to pick up final things for dinner, I noticed Lake Trasimeno was slate grey, with a patchwork of small wind ripples running different directions. Looking up at the sky, I could see dark grey clouds. 20 minutes later, walking back in our front door, I heard the first rumble of thunder and got excited. I love summer rainstorms that arrive with flurry and bluster, real monsoons. Los Angeles tends to have rather mild rainstorms- rarely is there thunder or lightning, and I miss it.

John suggested we close the upstairs window, but I'm hoping that the rain will cool it down and don't want to lose the cross ventilation (see my attached drawing for a section of our house), . I decide to work by the upstairs window in case the wind starts blowing the rain sideways. 10 minutes later the storm gets louder. I look out the window, and halfway across the lake is a wall of white, and it's moving toward us. I yell for John to come help me close the window (it's a heavy steel one) and we get it closed just as the wall of water reaches us.

For the next half hour it alternates rain and hail, the wind blowing so hard that Lake Trasimeno looks like an ocean with waves. We unplug our computers and anything else nearby because of the thunder and lightning, and John goes around finding our flashlights and putting them in easy to find places (John knows Italian rainstorms better than I do, notice he suggested we close the window immediately...). But the storm passes uneventfully, and we slept wonderfully last night because it was a bit cooler.