So, I was sitting here, minding my own business, 1 O'clock in the morning, when, FLASH-FLASH, the room lights up suddenly, with two blasting blue flares of light--makes me jump...but...no sound...until about 15 seconds later--about 15 miles away, the storm is.

For some reason, I find silent lightning more eerie than the kind that lands right in your own neighbourhood--oh, that's scary too--I've been mildly shocked by a near-miss. But...I dunno'. It's not scary so much as it seems...unnatural. You see a flash of lightning, you expect a rumble or crash of thunder--depending on the distance, and when it doesn't come right away...it just seems, well, weird. At least it does to me, anyway.

I remember as a child, we used to get heat lightning a lot a night--that's a term that's actually a misnomer. The name comes from the fact that this usually is only seen in the warmer, summer months. "Heat lightning" really is just far-distant lightning, that can't be heard--something, I think, to do with the way the sound bounces back and forth on the earth's surface...I suck at science so I'm only guessing. But, there was someting benevolent about heat lightning--it was too far away to hurt you, and was interesting to look at. Strangely, we seldom seem to get this type of lightning now--or, maybe it was just where I lived, growing up in the upper Hudson Valley.

I'm not crazy about thunderstorms--as a child I was terrified of them, for some reason...but, I was afraid of lots of things as a kid--I was a real wimp...boy have I changed.

I think the scariest lightning I've EVER seen, is ball lightning. Again, thankfully, this was too far away to hurt us, but I do remember sitting on our front lawn--with many of the neighbours standing on theirs, watching this strange natural phenomena--only time I've ever seen it in my life. Great balls o' fire? Oh yes. Balls of orange light, flaring up inside great looming grey clouds---wow. Scary stuff. I remember that it was reported later that night, that one "ball" passed right through the wall of someone's home--how strange!

Must have been terrifiying to watch, right where the storm was. People used to claim that there was no such thing--ha! Trust me, I've seen it with my own eyes, and so has my family and about 8 of my former neighbours. I guess it is very rare though. As I recall--and mind you, it was back in the 70's, but I recall that the balls of lightning lasted much longer than normal lightning--which adds to the weirdness and the fear factor, I suppose. Ball lightning doesn't flash--it flares up and glows before dispersing. Very, very freaky thing to watch, let me tell you. More than one person admitted to having it raise the hairs on the back of their necks.

I looked at the National Weather Service Albany, NY radar site-whoa. A big red and orange blob heading south to north....this tropical storm is really giving upstate New York ("upstate" is, generally speaking, anything roughly 50 miles north of New York City) a real pounding.