A Lightning Memory
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Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook.

When you're in the weather field, people always ask you how you got interested. I have never had a good answer. I couldn't remember a seminal storm which drove my fascination. Growing up in New Hampshire, I never saw a tornado. Hurricanes were warm, breezy rains by the time they hit up here. And blizzards? We loved them-it meant no school, and tons of glorious powder to build forts out of.

But recently, I recalled something which did astound, but also scared the willies out of me. Lightning. I remember when the power had been knocked out, my mom, to educate my brother and me, as well as to quell our fears, would pull down the Encyclopedia Americana, and read the section on lightning.

"Lightning, a form of visible electric discharge between rain clouds or between rain clouds and the earth. The discharge is seen in the form of.....

Of course, we didn't understand a word of it. But we were soothed by the calm in her voice, and the glow of the flashlight, as we sat on the floor, while outside the slashing and booming of Nature seemed farther and farther away.

The methods in which rain clouds in a thunder storm become electrically charged........

Eventually, it really did fade.

Today, I understand more about lightning than the Americana told me. I know better where to watch them and be safe. And I owe that to a woman who took a frightening time, and turned it into an education.

Thanks today to my Mom, Elaine Yeaton , for reading to me about lightning again. The Weather Notebook is produced by the Mount Washington Observatory and is supported by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive.